Nantucket Pro Doubles Tournament Experimenting With One-Serve Rule
by Rob Dinerman
Dateline July 22nd --- An annual invitational hardball doubles tournament at the Westmoor Club in Nantucket this weekend that always draws the top pro doubles players is experimenting with a one-serve rule (as opposed to the two serves that players historically have been allowed in both hardball singles and hardball doubles) to see what effect, if any, this change might exert upon the dynamics of the action.
The five teams competing this weekend are comprised of players such as Ben Gould, Manek Mathur, Clive Leach, John Russell, Chris Walker and Matt Jenson, all of whom currently hold spots in the top 10 of the ISDA pro doubles tour rankings, and their reaction to this weekend’s test will likely determine whether this concept will be adopted for tournament play, at least at the pro level, during the forthcoming season. As pro doubles has ascended in terms of both quality and player participation during the first decade of the 2000’s, some rules have been adjusted to reflect this evolution, the most compelling example being the ISDA decision midway through the 2010-11 campaign to impose a “no-set” rule under whose aegis every game would go to 15 points, with teams no longer allowed to choose the length of a looming tiebreaker session when a game is tied at 13-all or 14-all.
All non-ISDA tournaments (i.e. those tournaments which are sanctioned by U. S. Squash or Squash Canada) still allow the best-of-three, best-of-five and best-of-nine tiebreaker options that have always been available in those late-game tie situations, but ever since January 2011 the ISDA has essentially mandated a no-set call with, the game ending at 15. The theory behind this change was that the overtime sessions, especially the best-of-nine choice, were in some cases taking as much as 10 or even 15 minutes to complete (given the disproportionate number of let calls and between-point exchanges between partners), causing matches, particularly those that went to a fifth game, to extend near or past the two-hour mark, exhausting spectators and players alike. The alteration, loudly opposed at first by the game’s purists, swiftly became universally accepted, indeed popular, as it measurably moved the end-games along and added an urgency and immediacy to the proceedings that fueled some of the most memorable moments of the season.
It remains to be seen whether a one-serve rule will have a similarly beneficial effect. It is being tried this weekend partly to see if it improves the flow of the action and, perhaps more importantly, to provide players with an enhanced opportunity to shoot on the serve-return, since the server, deprived of the chance to go for a close-to-the-lines best-possible lob or hard serve by the automatic loss of the point should that salvo be mis-directed out of bounds, will likely be forced into a serve that is more conservative and hence more vulnerable to being attacked. This situation definitely prevails in singles, which has for decades had a one-serve rule, resulting in players being very careful with the serve and the serve itself therefore representing very little if any advantage as the point begins.
But doubles is different in the sense that historically having the two-serve capability has constituted enough of an advantage ---especially at the top level, with the pros conjuring up a variety of different angles with their deliveries and/or crushing hard serves that ricochet unpredictably and sometimes unplayably off the back and side walls --- to have played at least a partial role in the long strings of points that often decide the outcomes of matches. As one example, the last time that the prestigious Kellner Cup was held, Leach and Jenson, trailing Gould and Paul Price 2-0, 14-8, saved SIX consecutive match-balls-against, largely due to the serving prowess of the wily Leach, who continually got the points off to a good start for his team, which actually garnered eight points in a row before eventually losing that close-out game 17-16. Leach actually hit 14 first serves during that span (in which there were six lets interspersed), four of which were called faults (three out-of-court and one foot-fault) and, had he not had the security of knowing that a second serve awaited, he would not have had the luxury of “going for broke” on his first serve as often, or as effectively, as he did.
What this all means is that what is being tested this weekend as a possible way to make the game more exciting (by causing the serve-returner to have a look at balls he likely will have a better chance to shoot on) MIGHT have that effect – OR it could make the game LESS exciting by depriving the server of the ability to make the first punch of the point become a knock-out blow.
Back To Main
