Question: Is it time to eliminate the do-over serve toss?

Back in the day, embracing the tiebreaker to decide the outcome of sets was a heavy psychological lift for players accustomed to the traditional scoring system. In later times, Electronic Line-Calling Systems presented formidable challenges on a technical level. The introduction of the 25-second shot clock sent a wave of panic through many top pros. Partisans fought bitterly over the idea of fifth-set tiebreakers at Grand Slam tournaments.

Rule changes in tennis do not happen often, swiftly, or easily. But there is one reasonable, easily implemented rule change that tennis is crying out for in an era that has given rise to the “servebot” and increased serving prowess on both the ATP and WTA Tours.

That change would eliminate the ball toss that a player ends up catching instead of hitting, ostensibly because he or she wasn’t pleased with it. The wanton toss—we’ll call it the “do-over toss,” or DOT—is a wart on the game. It violates our sense of fairness, especially because the two-serve protocol already stacks the odds heavily in the server’s favor.

Brad Gilbert, the former player, coach, and broadcast analyst has been lobbying for elimination of the DOT for a few years now—to no avail.

“It is beyond ridiculous,” Gilbert said as early as the spring of 2024. He ticked off the reasons for his contempt for the lack of a relevant rule. He emphasized the unfair advantage three or four DOTs gives to servers. It puts a returner off balance. It can be used to stall for time. The only even defensible excuse for allowing a toss re-do is adverse conditions at outdoor events. Such trials could be done conspicuously by stepping away from the baseline, before an actual point is set in motion.

Gilbert isn’t the only tennis insider fed up with DOTs. David Macpherson, who coached the Bryan Brothers doubles team through their glory years, recently told me, “I would make every (caught) ball toss a fault. Catching ball tosses these days, it drives me nuts.”

Macpherson also put his finger on why there’s been no movement on this issue. Unlike most other major sports, including the NFL and NBA) tennis does not have an independent “Rules Committee” that reaches across jurisdictional lines separating the game’s stakeholders. As a result, the ITF, ATP and WTA unilaterally issue their own rules, applicable only to events they control, and hope the other entities embrace the change. It’s inefficient, time-consuming, and often confusing for fans unless—and until—all parties accept the change (the history of ELS and the “supertiebreaker” that now replaces the third set in doubles at tour events are good examples).

The high number of aces and serve winners is detrimental to tennis. We want more rallies and less of these quick points—boom, serve, winner, ace, missed return. An occasional ace is fine, but not too many. Patrick Mouratoglou

“It's bizarre to me,” Macpherson said. “Innovation, I think, is good. We see it all the time in my football that I love in Australia. They're always tweaking the rules to try and make it more attractive and fair. So, I don't know why we're so stodgy in tennis where we don't look at things. We don't have an independent panel that looks at the rules each year and says, "How can we make the game more attractive, singles and doubles?"

Occasionally there are flare-ups centered on the central role the serve plays in tennis. Remember, Wimbledon tore up its hallowed courts and re-seeded them with a special perennial ryegrass when serving duels featuring the likes of Pete Sampras, Goran Ivanisevic, and others threatened to turn tennis into a two-shot game.

Tournaments have tried to compensate for the pre-emptive power of the servebot (a player who relies overly on his serve to win points) by slowing the court, or using balls that fluff up and thus travel more slowly through the air - a strategy that has been linked with increased arm injuries.

Some critics have attacked the very heart of the serving protocol. Veteran coach and exhibition tennis promoter Patrick Mouratoglou told the Greek City Times recently that he favored limiting players to one serve only per point, saying: “The high number of aces and serve winners is detrimental to tennis. We want more rallies and less of these quick points—boom, serve, winner, ace, missed return. An occasional ace is fine, but not too many.”

The idea is radical, but it isn’t indefensible. Allowing second serves is a unique feature of tennis, and it has indisputably added layers of strategic and tactical nuance to the game. Yet it probably arose from our collective sense of sportsmanship (“Oh, you missed? No worries, try again, cheers!)—or perhaps it was just that - wisely enough—nobody wanted to spend more time fetching balls than batting them back and forth.

But the second serve is a lot like giving a golfer a mulligan on every shot, allowing an MLB pitcher two chances to throw a strike, or adding an extra free throw after one is flubbed. In six comparable sports ranging from tennis’s kissing cousins like badminton, table tennis and squash, only one serve is allowed. Pickleball once allowed two serves, now it allows one.

Beyond that, the serve has always been untouchable, the king of tennis strokes. It has an out-sized impact on the score, considering how few serves are hit compared to forehands and backhands in a typical match. Those who serve big are regarded with awe, and many revel in their status and try to capitalize on the reputational dividend.

Big servers are like baseball’s mythic home run hitters, and as tennis evolves there are more and more of these “servebots” on the landscape every day. The deadliest servers are towering athletes built on the Ivo Karlovic or John Isner models, like 6-11 Reilly Opeka, 6-8 Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, or up-and-coming Gabriel Diallo (also 6-8).

The current ATP Top 10 is, on average, an inch taller than it was a decade ago. An AI trawl found that there are 17 men 6-3 or taller in the ATP Top 50. This trend is evident in the WTA as well: At least 11 women in the Top 50, including top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka and former Wimbledon Elena Rybakina, are 6-feet tall or over.

The elimination of the first serve is probably too drastic a measure at this stage of the game’s evolution. Doing so could also yield unpredictable results. Players with less potent or consistent serves might be punished even more severely than big-serve specialists. But it would certainly be worth trialing at some level of the competitive game.

Meanwhile, the do-over tosses could be banned, leveling the playing field just that little bit more in the essential battle between server and returner.