Uncle of Rafael Nadal slams upcoming changes in tennis

Toni Nadal, the uncle of Spain’s legendary tennis star Rafael Nadal, has lambasted the new timing rules. Tennis, like other sports, is going through a transitional phase, and new rules are being introduced to keep the sport more engaging for fans and shorten the match lengths as well to ensure that the audience keeps on growing.

Some of the rules that are in the pipeline to be implemented in the near future include the introduction of electronic line calling starting next year. Another rule that is set to be changed in the near future is the rule of automatic shot clock, which means that a player will have limited time to serve after the completion of the point. Under the new rules, the countdown for the serve will start exactly three seconds after the completion of the point. The rule has been criticised by some of the current players, including Serbia’s Novak Djokovic as well.

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Toni, who is the uncle of the former world number one Nadal, has recently spoke to Marca where he criticised the new rules. Nadal’s former coach was of the opinion that no sport starts with a penalty which makes the three-second timer clock a ‘stupid’ move and also stated that the new rules are making the sports even tougher which can be catastrophic for the sport going forward.

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“I've been saying for years that the rules need to be changed,” Toni told Marca. “There's no sport that starts with a penalty. It's a bit idiotic. The rest is the position of a goalkeeper and I told Rafa to go to one side to see if he could hit the target. Tennis today is worse because of the speed at which it's played, as the ball is faster the movements are more abrupt and sooner or later you make a movement that leads to a serious problem.”