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NCAA's Wrong Approach To Fix College Tennis

Kirijax

Kirijax

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Dec 20, 2012
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The NCAA and the ITA have made some changes to the college tennis rules this year and it has all of the tennis community in an uproar. Scoring has changed, the number of games have been changed, warm ups have been canceled and even third sets have been replaced by super tiebreaks. Imagine the NCAA making baseball a six-inning game, football a three-quarter game or basketball a 30-minute game and you'll understand what tennis is going through right now. In my opinion, the NCAA and the ITA have ignored the gaping wound in the abdomen to focus on the splinter in the finger. Nobody has the answers yet but changing the sport altogether to accommodate a few fans or television is the wrong way to go.

The Wrong Approach

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I think a change in uniforms maybe to a beach volleyball type uniform would help get more interest .
 
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They lost me years ago, making doubles irrelevant. It's all about how to placate the 99% foreign nationals who now play NCAA tennis.

Back in my day, 6 singles matches of 2 of 3 sets, and 3 doubles of 2 of 3 sets! That was when tennis rocked.
 
And that's when Smokey dominated! The best doubles team in college history (78-3 over 3 years, thank you very much) AND, I skipped the 1998 ITCA National preseason championships to travel to Tallahassee to watch the Canes beat FSU in football! (Yes, I got into a LOT of trouble with the AD)
 
That's what they do now, except the three doubles matches come first, best two out of three and then the six singles matches, best two out of three. That ridiculous experiment of 3rd set super tiebreak will never see the light of day again.
 
I've watched Canes tennis and other college teams as well (second cousin played for Toledo). A couple of thoughts:

1. Change the order regarding doubles and singles. "Winning the crucial doubles point" has become a college tennis cliche. Fact is, back in the 70s, you may have seen doubles matches at Forest Hills, All England, etc.; these days, you barely see highlights of the championship matches at any of the majors! Put your best foot forward and begin with singles.

2. Conferences and even individual schools (looking at you Texas!) have sports networks already running or about to launch. ADs must present a unified front and force these networks to air complete matches and dedicated highlight packages. You have to build up interest and to do so you must get the product out there.
 
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