Like all competitive sports including football, the tennis industry always believes that those "controversies", "errors" and "misjudgments" should be part of the game; The field of play is distinguished.

Therefore, even though Hawkeye technology is mature and widely used, Hawkeye is still not used in all clay court events.

Later, in the 2022 Madrid Masters, in this clay court event that dares to innovate and dare to challenge, the Hawkeye system was introduced for the first time, and players can challenge the authority of the referee—

Same, three chances per set.

The Madrid Masters took the lead in trying to innovate, but the results... were unsatisfactory, causing a lot of criticism, and people in the industry generally believed that this was unnecessary.

It's even superfluous.

From the beginning of Hawkeye's appearance, the controversy has never stopped, but on clay, the opposition has an absolute advantage—

The main reason is that tennis referees are very difficult to do. Their power is very limited, there are no red cards or yellow cards, and their deterrent effect on players is limited.

Most of the time, they can only give warnings, and at most it is penalty points; of course, from the perspective of competition rules, referees have the authority to disqualify players, but everyone knows that the use of this authority needs to be very, very cautious. Need to accept the supervision of the race director, and also need to accept a long and complicated investigation after the game.

Moreover, because tennis is an individual sport, the authority of ATP and WTA is not high. The maximum single fine they can impose on a player is only 40,000 US dollars. Although multiple crimes can be punished cumulatively, compared to players If there is a prize money of millions of dollars, these punishments are nothing more than sprinkling water.

As for suspensions, unless the circumstances are very, very serious, they don't take those sentences lightly either.

It is conceivable that the support given to referees by ATP and WTA is also very limited.

Therefore, the referees are often pointed at the nose by the players and cannot reply; at the same time, they also need to follow very strict game rules—

For example, no discussion of the game is allowed, not in any form.

A typical case, in the 2019 Wimbledon final, Federer played against Djokovic. The two sides entered a five-set battle. Federer led "40:15" in his serve victory and got two match points. Almost everyone Everyone believed that Federer would reach the top, but Djokovic made a miracle and reversed to win the championship.

That game, for Federer fans, is eternal pain.

Later, the referee Damian-Steiner (Damian-Steiner), who was on duty in Argentina in the final, said in an interview with the media in his hometown,

"I also thought Roger would win."

As a result, the 44-year-old gold medal referee was directly expelled from the ATP and was disqualified from refereeing.

At that time, the official reason given by the ATP was that Steiner disclosed in the interview that the discussion of internal rule changes, including the time limit for wiping sweat with towels, the guidance of the coaching team during the game, and the penalties related to wiping the net, etc., violated ATP’s confidentiality. protocol.

However, as time went by, the discussion of the above-mentioned so-called rules disappeared, and people gradually realized that the reason for Steiner's dismissal was not what the official said.

The industry infers that the main reason is that the referees are not allowed to be interviewed to discuss any game without the permission of the ATP. Most importantly, they are not allowed to have a personal position. Dissatisfaction with Djokovic.

For reference, at the time of 2019, Djokovic was still the chairman of the players union of the ATP, and had not yet left the ATP to establish his own organization.

It can be seen from this that tennis referees are really tied up, they can't do this, they can't do that, and their income is far from as high as everyone imagined. It is precisely because of this that many tennis referees are part-time, not full-time professionals. referee.

In other words, tennis referees do lack authority.

If Hawkeye technology is introduced in the clay court, it will further weaken the little authority of the referee, because those ball marks are clearly visible. Can you still control the game?

Later, players such as Kyrgios, Medvedev, Zverev Jr. repeatedly verbally and even physically attacked the referee, which was a manifestation of the crisis.

It is precisely because of this that the "early adopters" of the Madrid Masters were scolded **** by people in the industry, but they don't know whether they will continue to persist.

The line of sight returned to the "ball mark".

Whether you like it or not, and whether you agree with it or not, no one can deny that clay court is indeed different from other venues, and the "ball mark" is just one of them.

The long seesaw, intense consumption, arduous confrontation, changeable tactics, tenacious will, controversial penalties...

All in all, it really makes the clay court different.

In addition, the unpredictability of the clay court also makes the clay court competitions unpopular every year. The French Open championship battle can always have unexpected dark horses:

The women's singles champion, the last time someone completed the feat of defending the title, still needs to be traced back to 2007, when Belgian Justin Henin completed the feat of three consecutive championships. However, after that, no player was able to defend the title for 15 consecutive years; moreover, every year Strange faces will appear in the quarterfinals—

It just popped up at the French Open, and then it was fleeting, like fireworks.

The men's singles champion completely overturned the situation because of Nadal's turning out, but in fact, even if the Big Four are in charge, there will still be a lot of fresh faces in the quarter-finals of the French Open every year, names that have never been heard before They always inadvertently shine in the clay court season.

The charm of competitive sports lies in the excitement of peak duels, but also in the unpredictability and uncertainty. This is also one of the important sources of the attraction of clay court events.

Every year at the French Open, people are always curious, what kind of dark horse will emerge this year?

Gao Wen agreed with this.

In Gao Wen's view, "Red Earth" is like an advanced math problem, especially like the last big problem of the final exam, which is very complicated and difficult.

However, the process of analyzing, deducing, deconstructing, and finding answers is so fascinating that people can't help but want to calm down and study it.

The taste of the training match was also reflected.

Sampras was a little surprised, "...Why do I feel that Gawain seems... a little excited?"

Falling behind by a big score, facing the King of Clay in the clay court match, he was given a good lesson, but he was so excited?

Is this ~lightnovelpub.net~ normal?

Agassi didn't speak.

There was a glint of approval in Graf's eyes, "He's different from you, you guys are irritable when you get to the red clay, and you develop resistance from the bottom of your heart; but he enjoys it."

Sampras didn't understand. "Fun? Why? Clay?"

Agassi was also full of question marks, but he glanced at Graf and swallowed all his confusion without opening his mouth.

Graf didn't respond again, but carefully observed Gao Wen's training—

Although I don't want to admit it, in the past few days, watching Gao Wen grow up step by step and show the attitude of concentrating on studying, I really feel a sense of accomplishment.

Just being with Gawain for a week was much more interesting than Graf imagined.

(end of this chapter)