Tennis: A Future Vision
By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw
Billie Jean King, 39 Grand Slam Titles winner, who is 81 this week, has been giving her thoughts about the future of tennis.
She says that she does not want tennis to be aimed at people of her generation but at children.
She would like to see names and numbers on the back of tennis shirts and a simplified scoring system, and remarks as follows:
“I want to make it easy for fans [and] I think it should be 1-2-3-4 not 15-love, 30-love.”
And adds:
“If you are a kid - I didn’t come from tennis - what the heck does that mean? If we want to get eight, nine, 10,11,12-year-old children involved in our sport we have to make it accessible to them – not to a 60-year-old fan.”
She also believes that the tennis year is too long and should end with the WTA tour season at the September US Open before ending the year with a short season of team competitions.
She rejects claims by players that the season is too long when they go off and play exhibition tennis.
On the controversial question of whether the WTA Finals should be held in Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is illegal and women’s rights are restricted, she has kept an open mind and, in her view, players should decide.
Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert consider that awarding the finals to Saudi for three years is a “step backward” for women’s tennis. However, King, who, like Navratilova, is gay, argues that it is important, at the least, to engage with the Saudi authorities.
And she comments on this question as follows:
“It’s a really hard one. For the girls that live there, I want them to see the best too. I would love to see a female player come out of the Middle East as the number one in the world as she could influence in a huge way I think.”
How these views will go down in the rather conservative world of tennis and what changes may result from them remains to be seen.
As Billie Jean King herself says: “Let’s see what happens!”
Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘
