Serving after winning a point Posted on April 16, 2024 at 02:12:31 PM by Craig G
At full size courts such as Miami or Dania, the most skilled players have a nice serving plus in singles, and a slight disadvantage serving in doubles.
As things stand, someone who is really good at winning on serve in singles might win a point, and as a reward gets to keep serving, thus maintaining their advantage. But in doubles, the greatest serve stealers pick the serve successfully and then are penalized by having to switch to serving. Therefore, you cannot receive your way to victory. (Unless the game goes around 4 times)
So, clearly, it's reward vs penalty, depending. And this is purely accidental, since there was almost certainly no mastermind who intentionally designed it as such.
It might be slightly confusing, but what if we changed the rules so that the winner of a point gets to choose serve or receive?
I wonder if anyone has given any thought to this issue. Or ever tried it out.
As a side note, some of the early backs who are required to play singles might choose to receive, where they are typically more successful.