Seems like the tennis stars of yore are fed up with the monotony of the “new school” of professional tennis.
A letter penned by former tennis bad-boy John McEnroe was circulated around Wimbledon claiming that the sport suffered from too many “baseliners” and not enough “serve and volley-ers.” It also said that professional tennis had become “unbalanced and one-dimensional.”
McEnroe and the letters other signees, including Martina Navratilova, Stan Smith, and Boris Becker, wanted the International Tennis Federation to consider reducing the maximum size of racquet heads from 12.5 inches to 9 inches. They believe this would handicap the baseliners and force tennis to become more dynamic. Some of the petitioners even suggested returning to the era of wooden racquets.
Not everyone agrees with the last generation of tennis pros. “I dont know if the ITF is going to take it too seriously, you know, a letter full of past players no disrespect to those guys,” said semi-finalist Andy Roddick.
The ITF is listening though, according to Nick Imison, the groups communications officer. “Francesco Ricci Bitti (ITFs President) is in the process of writing a formal response to the letter circulated at Wimbledon. As you will see the subject of racquet size is very much on the agenda at the forthcoming TST Congress”, he said in a letter to SPORTS EXECUTIVE WEEKLY.
