New tennis rules tested by young talents in Milan
Shorter sets, shot clocks, and Hawk-Eye making all the line calls are shaking things up at the Next Gen ATP. With everything made a little faster with the innovations, some regulations are thrown in it seems just to add to the drama.
Russia's Andrey Rublev returns a shot to South Korea's Hyeon Chung during their men's singles tennis match of the first edition of the Next Generation ATP Finals in Milan on November 8, 2017.
The Association of Tennis Professionals' (ATP) tournament for the world's top players aged under 21 started in Milan on Tuesday with new innovations being smashed out on the courts.
With no line judges for the court, all lines are called using Hawk-Eye Live. Tennis line judges might grimace when they hear it, but players reacted positively to the computerised calls on the opening day of the Next Gen ATP Finals.
"It was very fast, it doesn't make mistakes," world number 65 Daniil Medvedev said.
Hawk-Eye review technology has been a long-standing feature of professional tennis, allowing players to challenge tight calls made by the human eye.
The on-court clocks enforce the 25-second rule between points, and shorter warm-ups ensure matches begin precisely five minutes from the second player walk-on.
The most drastic change is the shorter set, where the first to four games takes the set, with a tiebreak at 3-3.
TRT World's Lance Santos reports.
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