As a coach and someone deeply invested in the evolution and promotion of tennis, I welcome innovation—when it serves the sport and enhances player development. However, before we push for drastic structural changes, we need to ask: What makes tennis unique, and what do we lose when we alter its fundamental nature?
Initiatives like Ultimate Tennis Showdown or Intennse presents themselves as a modern take on tennis or “tennis like never before”, introducing a clock, eliminating the second serve, with Intennse eliminating ad scoring to create a more “fan-centric” experience. The goal is to make matches more predictable, easier to follow, and faster-paced. While I understand the appeal, I can’t help but question whether these changes truly enhance the sport or simply strip away what makes it special. Tennis has never been about fitting into rigid time slots. Unlike many sports, it is not bound by a clock—and that’s not a flaw. It’s a feature.
Tennis is a battle of momentum, endurance, and decision-making under pressure. The absence of a time limit means that no lead is ever safe, no match is ever predetermined, and every moment has the potential to shift the outcome. That unpredictability is what makes the sport compelling, both for those who play it and those who watch it. As a coach, I have a strong focus on the importance of navigating high-pressure moments, where players must adapt, problem-solve, and show resilience. Removing second serves, ad scoring or forcing matches into a strict timeframe changes how those moments unfold. It reduces the depth of competition, turning what should be an open-ended test of skill and mental strength into a game of maximizing short-term intensity.
From a sports science perspective, these pressure-filled moments are crucial to an athlete’s development. Studies in performance psychology demonstrate that players build adaptive skills by learning to manage stress and momentum shifts over time. When we introduce artificial constraints, we fundamentally alter the way athletes experience and respond to competition. Instead of developing the cognitive and physical endurance that tennis demands, we create a game that prioritizes speed over strategy, predictability over resilience.
The argument for these changes is often centered around making the sport easier for casual fans to follow. The same fans that rather watch highlights on their phones than full matches, with most of them never having watched a tennis match in person. But should the desire for quick entertainment dictate the structure of a sport? Other sports, like baseball and golf, have faced similar pressures regarding pace-of-play, yet they have largely maintained their integrity. The real challenge is not tennis itself but how we engage with audiences. Instead of reshaping the game to fit modern consumption habits, we should focus on making it more accessible through storytelling, education, and deeper engagement with its traditions.
Tennis doesn’t need to be reinvented to remain relevant—we’ve seen that with Davis Cup recent identity crisis. Its endurance-based format, its emphasis on psychological battles, and its unique scoring system are not barriers—they are the very elements that make it special. As the sport looks to the future, we should embrace progress that enhances its depth rather than reducing it. Tennis has always thrived on its individuality, on the tension of long deuce games, on the mental and physical demands that make every match unpredictable. Rather than forcing it into a mold to satisfy entertainment trends, we should celebrate the very qualities that make it extraordinary.
