1. Schedule changes: Making Davis Cup and Olympic play more important and allowing the players more time off from their regular tour events in order to be well rested for these particular events.
I tend to agree with all of McEnroe’s suggestions. I find Davis Cup play to be one of the most entertaining aspects of professional tennis. Davis Cup play pits teams of players representing their respective countries against one another. These matches are never played at a neutral site, and usually the home team has a huge advantage. Seeing the audiences go wild for their home countries team provides a lot of entertainment, and I wish these events were given more attention and televised more frequently then they currently are. So, like McEnroe I tend to agree that the schedule makers of the professional tennis tour should include more time for these events, and not just make them a non-serious/un-televised affair
2. Wooden Racquet's: McEnroe has been a very big supporter of the wooden racquet, and feels that the racquets that players use today give them too much power and too much control. Even though he feels it is too late to make players switch over to the nostalgic wooden frames, he feels that it would be a positive change for the sport.
Wooden racquets should be done away with all together in my opinion. The technology given to players in the current tennis age provides so much power to their shots, which I believe makes the game faster paced and more exciting to watch.
3. Make doubles as popular as singles: With tennis regularly getting lower ratings than sports such as golf and poker, McEnroe feels that if doubles tennis matches were given more air time, and the players were given a greater chance to showcase their skills on a nationally televised stage that it could bring more fans to the sport.
Doubles matches are enjoyable to watch on occasion, but none of the top men’s players ever participate in the events. I personally don’t want to watch four guys I have never heard of play each other, not my cup of tea. If somehow we had a Roddick/Federer vs. Nadal/Murray match, than I think doubles would gain a lot more ratings. However, this will never happen because the emphasis on the singles titles is too great.
4. Smaller tennis courts for junior players: McEnroe has a strong opinion on why there are not that many young tennis players. He states that "think if we could build smaller courts and get more people playing, there would, perhaps, be increased emphasis on being able to hit all shots, like volleys, for example, which you don't do because they are intimidating." Also, he uses football as a basis for his theory. If young children just starting to play football can use a smaller field and ball, why can't young aspiring tennis players.
McEnroe’s suggestions about the smaller courts is good because if more young people from America get interested in tennis at a younger age, in 15-20 years we will see a dramatic increase in the popularity of the game, which would be a great thing.
5.No more grunting: The grunting aspect of the professional tennis game has gotten out of hand according to McEnroe. He cannot understand why an 18 or 19 year old player has to grunt after every point. He feels that the grunting is a distraction to the audience and the other player, and should be done away with as soon as possible.
Grunting is obnoxious and is a big reason why I cannot watch some matches, so the quicker it is banned the better.
Overall, I think McEnroe makes some really good points in this article, and aside from his suggestion about wooden racquets I would like to see these other changes put in to play to better the sport.
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