Time violation, warning . . . Wimbledon,
That’s right, you money-hungry honchos at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. You’re taking more than the alloted 90 seconds on changeovers.
There’s been the usual griping this past Wimbledon about players breaking the rules by not getting the point started within 20 seconds of the end of the preceding point, and much of the whining has been from television commentators whose networks are putting on the commercials that exceed the minute and a half rule on changeovers.
You will not, however, hear any commentators — at least those who want to keep their jobs — criticize their bosses for contributing to the time delays on changeovers. Their venom is tightly directed only at the players, most prominently the ball-bouncing of Novak Djokovic and the incessant towel-drying of Rafa Nadal.
So let’s go back for a moment to the Wimbledon final.
Djokovic is leading 3-2 in the opening set with Nadal to serve after the changeover. The rule says Nadal has to put the ball into play within 90 seconds after the last point of the 2-2 game was decided.
So, I hit the stopwatch as the two men walked toward their chairs. At the 1:45 mark, 15 seconds late, Nadal served the first point of the sixth game. Time violation warning? Not likely.
Naturally, I didn’t want to rush to judgment here, so I put the stopwatch on the changeover at 4-3 as well for a second opinion. This time, 1:48 elapsed. You don’t really have to ask why, do you. Several well-heeled corporations, whose products are attractive to the sort of people who watch tennis, needed time to get their commercials in.
Now don’t get the idea that I’m exorcised about this extra time, because I don’t care deeply if the players are 15 seconds late, or 18 seconds, in getting play started again after a changeover. And I also don’t care deeply if Nadal takes 26 seconds instead of 20 (it’s a 25-second rule at ATP events) during a game. I’ve got plenty to do and so do the fans who have a chance to talk some tennis with their buds without fear of a chair umpire glaring at them and demanding, “Quiet please.”
If you read the ITF rules that govern the majors or the ATP rules, they’re pretty thorough and clear. Chair umpires are told they “must” assess time violations or code violations if players don’t get the next point started, with the ump’s stopwatch beginning the instant or as close to the instant as possible when the ball went out of play on the preceding point.
That means the moment, for example, that a ball bounces twice on a drop volley. Or the moment a linesperson calls “out” on a play not overruled or challenged, and there isn’t any fudge factor involved here. It’s clearly spelled out.
But almost no one puts the next point into play within 20 seconds and the rule is winked at unless a player starts hitting 30 seconds or more consistently. My stopwatch says Nadal averaged about 27 seconds and Djokovic 25 seconds in the Wimbledon final. So one is seven seconds late and the other five. This is insignificant.
I suspect a lot of the griping is generated by Nadal’s toweling and Nole’s 18-bounce prep for serving a ball. How often have you seen Rafa, after losing a point, walk back to the baseline while waving his hand in front of his face, a signal to the ball kid to bring the towel. Nadal then touches the towel to his nose, hands the towel back and gets ready to serve the next point.
If there’s a drop on the end of his nose, of course he could wipe it with his wristband, but that’s just not his deal. Fine by me. But the more he uses his towel for some insignificant wipe, the more it grates on some people who think it’s all gamesmanship.
Then there’s Djokovic with his ball bouncing. Does he really need to bounce a ball 14, 15, 18 times before serving? Naturally, people focus in on all those bounces in the same way they focus on Nadal’s toweling. For me, he’s just steadying himself down. Big deal.
How significant is all this. Would you really be happier if they put the ball in play five or seven seconds earlier. To me, it’s meaningless, and certainly a lot less irritating that the wasted time in other sports.
Baseball: Guy steps into the batter’s box. Steps out. Adjusts his cup. Takes a couple practice swings. Steps back in. Pitcher goes into his stretch. Pitcher lobs a ball to first base, where a runner has no difficulty finding safety from a pickoff.
Basketball: Close game. The final two minutes on the clock takes about 15 minutes to play with deliberate fouls and time outs.
That’s what I call irritating, not some guy taking a few more seconds to start the next point and not some Grand Slam trying to wedge out a few more bucks worth of commercials on changeovers so the players can make more money.
I generally don’t like trendy little phrases like “get over it.” But if that ever applied to anything or anyone, especially griping TV analysts, this is the spot.
Toweling off too much? Bouncing the ball too many times. Get over it.