Tournament director Craig Tiley’s latest innovation has been met with mixed reviews from players.
Published Jan 19, 2024
If you’ve ever attended a professional tennis tournament, you know this feeliing.
You’re eager to see a match on a certain court. You power-walk across the grounds to get there. When you arrive, you take your place in line at one of the gates and join the other fans sipping beers and staring up at the TV screen above you. You hope that the changeover comes quickly so you can go inside and take the seat you paid for.
But the changeover doesn’t come quickly. Instead, the two players go back and forth—deuce, ad, deuce, ad, deuce, ad. Ad infinitum. You whisper, “hurry up, hurry up,” to the screen as the server strolls behind the baseline inspecting the fuzz on each ball. Every time the score reaches game point, and you get ready to walk in, the player with the advantage finds a way to muff an easy shot. The score resets to deuce, and you join in the collective groan that goes up around you.
Finally, it seems, someone in a position of power has heard that groan. That would be Craig Tiley, the tournament director at the Australian Open. This year the event is breaking new ground by allowing fans to enter stadiums after each game, rather than having to wait until the changeover.