Less Bouncing at Wimbledon Please!

Quote Crossstitchfan Thu 10-Jul-25 13:04:55
Chardy
It's habit, isn't it. And habits like that are hard to break.
Not just habit. In my opinion, they are pretentious prats who are too far up their own backsides to care about us!

I love watching tennis but can’t think of players on court are there to entertain and please me, I think of it as they are sharing such a major part of their lives with me

Chardy

It's habit, isn't it. And habits like that are hard to break.

Not just habit. In my opinion, they are pretentious prats who are too far up their own backsides to care about us!

I agree. Why can’t ‘they’ understand that we don’t all like Wimbledon, or Cricket, or Football, even Darts?
To take beloved soaps and other progs off just because of sport is disgraceful and shows how little the viewers are respected and valued.
If they can’t do a sport channel, how about a Soaps channel? Anything so that we mere mortals who like soaps don’t keep being inconvenienced and messed about with. Of course, this will never happen but one can always hope!

With you there Sue and Molly

SueEH

I’m just utterly fed up with Wimbledon. Why on earth can’t they set up a “Wimbledon Channel”? They can do it for Glastonbury and football competitions 🙄

👏👏👏

I’m just utterly fed up with Wimbledon. Why on earth can’t they set up a “Wimbledon Channel”? They can do it for Glastonbury and football competitions 🙄

There is a time limit, watch the scoreboard you can see it counting down, call it gamesmanship, all players are going to use any allowable breaks or delays. Within the rules allowances are going to be used and abused.

Luckygirl3

Quizzer

Watch this video… it’s hilarious!

www.facebook.com/reel/1043526597414769?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e&fs=e

Love it!!

I've seen this before but absolutely love it (so true!) and it's great to see it again. Thanks for posting it Quizzer

For the OP (Sparkle) - I'm told that the bouncing thing is just a routine they get used to doing before a serve, to help gather their thoughts, 'focus', and remember their plan for the coming point.

Serving in pro tennis is a top priority, so they need that routine and rhythm to try and make it work to best advantage (no pun!). And that's why they sometimes chuck it up, but don't serve, if they immediately know the ball won't be quite where the racket is intended to hit it.

If you saw the coverage of the Eastbourne tournament (week or two before W'don), that was pretty windy, and lots of serves had to be stopped in that way!

Oh, and the ultimate in bouncing annoyance was surely Nadal, his routine was something like 15 bounces, scratch ear, pick nose, 8 more bounces, tug shirt, extract shorts from his derriere, 7 more bounces, flick hair back, scratch the ear again, couple more bounces, and serve. If anyone in the crowd coughed or something, he'd glare at them, then have to go back and start again, as he'd lost his place.

As has been said, they have a time limit now, between each point, if that had been used when he was playing, he'd have been chucked out of every match?!

For Reka, I'm advised by a real tennis fan (I don't mind watching for a few minutes) that Djokovic is NOT the 'best player', and far from being massively popular, has had endless criticism for needing 'medical timeouts' to break up the flow of an opponent who's doing well.

Also as SmileLess says, his attempt to get around the Covid rules in Australia was just daft, hardly a good look for someone quoted as a 'role model'?

I'm further advised that a poll amongst tennis fans for who they really like to watch would see him placed some way down the list.

Quizzer
Very funny!

Quizzer

Watch this video… it’s hilarious!

www.facebook.com/reel/1043526597414769?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e&fs=e

Love it!!

I think the grunting has got less over the years apart from Sabalenka who shrieks a lot. I loved Rafa and miss him, we always used to sing head, shoulders, knees and bum when he was preparing to serve

Smileless2012

Yes he is a superb player but he's arrogant and that arrogance is what makes him for me, unwatchable. He's also not adverse to using tactics to disrupt his opponents concentration, and his 'do you know who I am' attitude to Covid vaccine rules in Australia was appalling.

He's more popular with his peers than he used to be but I don't believe he's one of the most popular.

This says it all for me. Just can’t watch him.

Millie22

Djokovic shouted out something yesterday. I guess it was in Serbian as nobody knew what he said which is probably a good thing if he was swearing.

I've always thought that any of the players who speak one of the more obscure languages , like Serbian, as Millie22 says, or Russian or Greek ( cf Tsitsipas) have much more freedom to swear to their hearts content because almost no-one understands them.
Probably some swear words sound the same-ish in many languages so those words are best avoided......
🤣🤣

Never mind the ball bouncing - it's the grunting that get me, so called grunts that sound like screams. Wasn't there a call to stop it once upon a time?

Watch this video… it’s hilarious!

www.facebook.com/reel/1043526597414769?fs=e&s=TIeQ9V&fs=e&fs=e

First world problem for goodness sake. If you have nothing moore to be concerned abut, God bless you

Yes he is a superb player but he's arrogant and that arrogance is what makes him for me, unwatchable. He's also not adverse to using tactics to disrupt his opponents concentration, and his 'do you know who I am' attitude to Covid vaccine rules in Australia was appalling.

He's more popular with his peers than he used to be but I don't believe he's one of the most popular.

I find the dislike of Djokovic baffling. He's a superb player. Best in the world. He has had to put up with horrendous abuse from the crowds over the years.

He loves Wimbledon. He used to have a torn photo of Centre Court on his bedroom wall as a child during the war.

He's very kind. He's funny. He's one of the most popular players amongst his peers.

He started a foundation almost 20 years ago where he helps support disadvantaged children, the homeless, old people. He never talks about it but you can search it to see what he does. He really is a good guy.

Also his little girl is never on a phone. She takes books to read and colouring. They both seem very happy to watch their father play tennis and he clearly adores them.

It is the aborted ball toss that annoys me. Sometimes it happens several times before a serve and the server appears to be playing for time. Is it deliberate? It must be distracting for the other player.

Yes that's right Labradora and there are no rules about how many times the ball can be bounced.

That's why I never watch him keepingquiet. We kept flicking to the channel for last year's final and only watched the last game to see him beaten.

Djokovic shouted out something yesterday. I guess it was in Serbian as nobody knew what he said which is probably a good thing if he was swearing.

Today there’s complaints about players muttering encouragements to themselves and offending other players.
Tense time.

Aren't they time-limited to 25 seconds to service and are penalised if in breach of this limit ?
How many times they bounce the ball before they serve doesn't bother me at all.
Samsaral's post about focusing is probably the reason they do this.
All the players have little habits before they serve. In the case of the guys adjusting their clothes or anything else I 'm sure they don't think of the cameras showing them in close-up. It's just as well because that might make them self-concious and they should be thinking about winning.
They are all "working" when they're playing after all.