Martina On Regulation In Tennis and Golf

Thanks to reader George for this Reuters story by Steve Ginsburg quoting Martina Navratilova on the deregulation of tennis. She also compliments the regulation in golf. Little does she know some of us think about as highly of it as she does of the tennis regulation.

Martina Navratilova criticised the tennis establishment on Saturday for not having enough regulations to deal with the size and strings of rackets.

"It takes less skill to hit great shots or to hit powerful shots because you just bang away," Navratilova told a news conference at the U.S. Open. "Tennis used to be more like squash, now it's more like racquetball.

"Hit the ball as hard as you can, it will still go in."

 Sounds familiar. There's more...

Navratilova said "the powers that be aren't regulating" tennis enough.

"I'm disappointed that the racket manufacturers are dictating what kind of tennis we're watching," she said.

"They're saying, 'Oh, this is the rackets we need to be playing with.'"

She praised the strict rules dictated by the Professional Golf Association (PGA).

"If golf regulated their game the same way tennis regulated our game, they'd be hitting 400 yard drives, hooking it left and right, any which way they want to, or keeping the ball straight even though you have a hook swing but the ball still goes straight."

Well actually...eh, I guess Martina hasn't watched much golf lately.

On a related matter, the Agassi matches have been pure heaven because they've delivered glimpses of what tennis was and could be again. I tried to watch a Roddick match, but it was just too painfully dull watching 140 mph ace after ace.

Oh, and the virtual line judge thing for challenging calls? Pretty darn cool. Not all technology is harmful!