Tennis legend calls for major change to sport and also wants names on back of shirts

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ONE of tennis' GOATs has called for the athletics to CHANGE its iconic scoring system.

Billie Jean King, 80, is 1 of the biggest names successful the past of tennis.

Billie Jean King revealed however  she feels tennis should beryllium  updated and changed

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Billie Jean King revealed however she feels tennis should beryllium updated and changedCredit: Getty

She won 39 Grand Slams - 12 successful singles, 16 successful doubles and 11 successful mixed - and was 1 of the founding 9 members of the WTA Tour.

However, she has surely ruffled a fewer feathers among the traditionalists by suggesting however tennis tin proceed to beryllium fashionable among aboriginal generations - particularly amid the emergence successful padel.

And that included ripping up the celebrated and unsocial 15-30-40 scoring format - which is thought to person started by utilizing a timepiece look to support tabs - and scrapping utilizing "love" to mean zero.

King told BBC Sport: "I privation to marque it casual for fans.

"I deliberation it should beryllium 1-2-3-4 not 15-love, 30-love.

"If you are a kid - I didn't travel from tennis - what the heck does that mean?

"If we privation to get eight, nine, 10, 11, 12-year-old children progressive successful our sport, we person to marque it accessible to them - not to a 60-year-old fan."

Padel, though, uses the aforesaid scoring strategy arsenic tennis and has not stopped a immense question of caller players and fans.

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King did not elaborate connected the points, games and sets format - which tin propulsion up unthinkable play and mini-battles wrong the discourse of epic matches.

But her proposition of the large displacement to simplify the scoring did not spell down good with supporters who labelled the telephone "ridiculous".

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One said: "Ridiculous idea! I started watching tennis astatine possibly 7 years aged and ‘got’ the scoring strategy aft the archetypal crippled oregon 2 - it’s not complicated!"

Another wrote: "This is nonsense Billie. Future tennis players are not enactment disconnected by a scoring system... they conscionable privation to deed a shot and 'play similar Rafa' oregon immoderate different tennis subordinate they whitethorn person seen."

A 3rd added: "I've followed tennis since I was 5 oregon six and understood the scoring consecutive distant from watching 1 match, don’t request to hole thing that’s not broken."

A 4th replied: "Ironically, successful wanting to marque tennis easier for kids, she's showing her age… As a child, aft watching 1 crippled your encephalon is integrative capable to fig retired the scoring system, you don't question the logic."

And a last idiosyncratic commented: "Of each the issues facing tennis, the scoring strategy wrong games is astir 547th connected the list."

King besides has different bold thought to assistance caller fans get into the sport.

Tennis stars’ caller careers

The six-time Wimbledon singles champ added: "I would similar to spot names and numbers connected the backmost of the garment successful tennis."

Rugby and cricket are among the sports to travel successful the footsteps of shot successful caller years by adopting the names connected shirts to assistance place players.

Elsewhere, King had immoderate beardown words of informing for some Emma Raducanu and the hypocritical stars moaning astir the gruelling magnitude of the play portion besides playing lucrative, money-spinning exhibitions.

The American continued: "If Emma tin enactment steadfast agelong enough, past we'll spot however bully she is.

"But if you support getting injured, you ne'er get that momentum going. If you've been injured - truly injured - I ever privation to springiness a subordinate astatine slightest a twelvemonth and a fractional to recover.

"It takes a batch to travel backmost from wounded and you person got to beryllium precise patient.

"Katie Boulter, radical should wage attraction to her.

"I've been watching her for astir 5 years present and each twelvemonth she has got a small spot amended - I don't deliberation radical admit her enough. She's got quicker, she's got much consistent."

King went on: "It's truthful absorbing however they ever kick it's excessively much.

"They've been doing this everlastingly by the mode - but past they get a period disconnected and they spell play exhibitions.

"I go, 'Really?' You guys said you needed the rest. Don't archer maine you deliberation the play is excessively long.

"I cognize if there's capable wealth you spell and you play. It's a truly pugnacious statement for maine to perceive to the players."

King reckons Katie Boulter is the 1  to ticker  successful  British tennis alternatively   than Emma Raducanu

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King reckons Katie Boulter is the 1 to ticker successful British tennis alternatively than Emma RaducanuCredit: Getty

Names and numbers are commonplace successful  Test cricket now

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Names and numbers are commonplace successful Test cricket nowCredit: Getty

Wimbledon ditching enactment judges a treble responsibility for British tennis

By Joshua Jones

THE lack of enactment judges astatine Wimbledon volition beryllium a bittersweet sight. 

For arsenic agelong arsenic I tin remember, the men and women decked retired successful their Ralph Lauren outfits person been portion of the furnishings astatine the All England Club. 

Yes, they provided immoderate mild amusement connected the tribunal erstwhile 1 would telephone "fault" with plentifulness of extra, and unnecessary, gusto and measurement that boomed astir Centre Court, prompting a snigger from the fans.

Then determination was the ongoing crippled of dodgeball they had to play erstwhile a large service nailed a mammoth ace down the enactment and they had to instrumentality accelerated evasive action oregon instrumentality a whack to the apical of the head. 

And challenges provided immoderate assemblage participation, excitedly joining successful the clapping countdown earlier the inevitable "oooh" erstwhile the graphic showed conscionable however adjacent the shot was to landing successful oregon out. 

Purely objectively, Wimbledon's determination to regenerate enactment judges with Hawk-Eye Live makes full sense. 

The accuracy and consistency of calls successful real-time volition velocity things up, prevention clip and should people the extremity of arguments implicit the choky incorrect calls - well, until the technology malfunctions.

And Wimbledon's manus was somewhat forced to ditch contented for their lasting successful tennis.

The Australian Open and US Open already usage physics enactment calling and the ATP Tour is adopting Hawk-Eye Live crossed each of its tournaments from 2025.

Wimbledon's refusal to comply would permission them lagging down and exposed to the menace of needless contention implicit quality error.

But the interaction - arsenic is truthful often the lawsuit successful these decisions - has ramifications further down, beneath the aboveground with precise small interaction connected Wimbledon's Championships oregon the players.

It is connected the enactment judges themselves. 

Approximately 300 officials - aged from 18 to 80 - covered much than 650 matches astatine Wimbledon.

A fraction question internationally with the circuit but the immense bulk of those are part-time enactment judges based successful the UK, earning up to £180 per time to enactment astatine the prestigious tourney and their accidental to play their portion astatine Wimbledon. 

For many, they volition assistance retired astatine British tournaments passim the year, spurred connected by the anticipation of taking to the lawns of the All England Club.

But it is understood galore of those officials would beryllium reluctant to enactment astatine the lower-level tournaments without the carrot of Wimbledon dangling successful the summer. 

That successful crook volition enactment a large stumbling artifact successful the pathway for British tennis umpires, who grind up done the ranks to scope the pinnacle of the sport.

Like shot with referees, tennis needs umpires and enactment judges.

So the inability to telephone "out" astatine Wimbledon could beryllium to beryllium a large "fault" for the aboriginal of the UK's tennis officials and truthful the authorities of the athletics connected these shores.

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