As COVID-19 wreaks havoc across the world, I thought about what good, if any, could possibly come out of this terrible pandemic. Coronavirus has brought much of the world to a halt, so there's plenty of time to think about tennis reform.
Before Indian Wells was cancelled, the plan was for ball kids to not handle the towels (towels would be on chairs) and to wear gloves while performing their duties on court. The question, then, that I have is: Why has it taken a global pandemic for this type of reform to be fully brought to the forefront of those in charge of tennis?
Even if we didn't have highly contagious, dangerous disease out there, what has stopped the tennis authorities from implementing such a change earlier?
At the Next Gen Finals event for the ATP, towel racks were placed on court so that ball kids would not have to touch the players' sweaty towels. Sure, it might take an extra second or two for the player to walk to the towel rack, but it is certainly worth it.
Besides sweat, almost certainly the players' hair and skin cells were smeared across those towels. And if a player was sick, the ball kids were at especially high risk.
The reception of the towel rack wasn't outstanding. According to The Telegraph's Charlie Eccleshare, Stefanos Tsitsipas stated, "it's the ball kids' job to provide them." This was when Tsitsipas was in the Next Gen Finals in 2018, so he might have evolved his view since then. But regardless, it shouldn't be the ball kids' job to hand players' a dirty towel. Pandemic or not.
Something interesting in Indian Wells' plans was the introduction of gloves. And it makes sense, right? Even if not touching the towels, the ball kids still have to touch the balls themselves. The same balls that the sweaty players hold before they serve and that smash into the asphalt/clay/grass many, many times throughout the match.
Not to mention that if a ball goes into the stands and a fan throws the ball back, that fan might also not be feeling well. So, it makes sense, at least to me, that ball kids should be heavily encouraged to wear gloves, no matter the state of public health around the world.
Perhaps I sound like I'm being hypersensitive given the state of the pandemic, but momentum has been building for ball kid reform for quite some time, with Fernando Verdasco's October 2018 treatment of a ball kid providing momentum for positive change. It should never be forgotten that ball kids are worthy of the same respect given to others in the tennis universe.
Due to coronavirus, July 13th is the soonest we will see tennis, as of now. And so many of us are eager to get back to the court as quickly as possible. But, when we do get back, let's not forget about the innovations that Indian Wells showed us just prior to its cancellation.
Ball kids are very important in the game of tennis in the sense that they keep the flow of the game working really well. Instead of tennis being a start-stop process, as players collect balls from around the court, ball kids keep the pace of play high.
So, let's start showing these invaluable members of the tennis community the respect they deserve, even if we have to delay the match a couple seconds so a player can towel himself/herself off.
Because without the ball kids, matches would be going a lot slower.
So, I'm imploring the ATP, WTA, and ITF: the COVID-19 pandemic is bad enough, let's see if we can get a little bit of good out of a terrible situation.
And ball kid reform as described in this post would be a good thing for the game.
