Thirty30 Tennis: A Shorter Version of Tennis
All you need to know about Thirty30 Tennis
Tennis is the most fantastic sport but have you ever heard about Thirty30 Tennis?
To give you a quick overview, Thirty30 tennis is a format of the sport in which the game is shorter which means you need to invest less time.
For those who follow cricket, Thirty30 is a take on Twenty20 (or T20) cricket, which is a shorter format of the game and it finishes in a fraction of the time.
Whereas a conventional tennis match is the best of three or five sets, and Thirty30 tennis is also the best of three or five sets, every game starts at “thirty-all” (i.e. 30-30, announced “thirty-thirty”) – the clue is in the name! It is a much faster-paced game and matches are significantly shorter.
Alternative Scoring Formats to Conventional Tennis
There are quite a few options when it comes to alternatives to a traditional tennis match.
One is Fast4, which is where each set is played up to four games only, with a tie-break at 3-3, and there are no Advantage points played such as “sudden-death” deuce.
Then there’s Tie Break Tens, where matches are one Match Tie-break to ten points.
Ultimate Tennis Showdown is another format which has been in the news lately because of its association with world-famous coach Patrick Mouratoglou. Matches consist of four timed 10 minute quarters using tie-break like scoring.
Thirty30 Tennis is now gaining in popularity.
The Necessity of Alternative and Shorter Formats of Tennis
At the core is the fact that tennis, like other sports in the world, requires some evolution.
There is a definite need to get a younger, fresher audience to the game and the one way of attracting these new fans is to offer them a shorter format.
History & Origins of Thirty30 Tennis
Arbroath, Scotland-based Mark Milne is an enthusiast of all racket sports, but tennis got a bit of a special attention after he watched the Wimbledon Men’s singles final of 1972 between Stan Smith and Elie Nastase on a small black and white television, during a family holiday to Scarborough.
Speaking to Milne, the Creator of Thirty30 tennis, we understand the story of how this format of the game came to be- and it is an interesting one!
Milne explained that growing up in Scotland during the 1970s and 80s, tennis was very much a Summer sport played from April to September before racket players moved indoors for the Winter to take to badminton or squash.
The inventor added that “In early winter 2016 I decided to call it a day with my long-term squash playing partner– we had played each other twice a week for almost 15 years for fun and exercise. I was looking for something else to do during the following winter months. I came across Touchtennis, the new updated faster version of Short Tennis, which is now played with 21″ strung rackets, a faster more dense sponge ball and is typically played indoors on a badminton court over a low net in a 1-hour court booking slot.
“I got together with a hitting partner and we started playing twice a week at the local Sports Centres in Arbroath.”
“It was great fun and great exercise. We started off using the ‘old’ Short Tennis scoring method where matches are best-of-3 sets, players serve two points at a time alternately using point per rally scoring and sets are played to 11 points, lead by 2 points.”
What Milne and his hitting partner decided was to use traditional tennis rules while playing Touchtennis, but that extended their game time beyond the one hour court booking slot.
With no winner decided within an hour, Milne decided to remedy that by using a method his coach had used as a kid to help him play the “big points” better– start the games at 30-30.
Starting at 30-30
He said: “We started playing best-of-3 sets matches using the 30-all game starts.”
“With a bit of experimenting with the ‘change of ends’ rule (it is ‘doubled up’ in Thirty30 tennis – some games are over in only 2 points and the conventional ‘change of ends’ rule resulted in changing ends too quickly) and the use of the 9 point Short Set tie-break at 6 games all in a set, we had a format where a best-of-3 sets ‘tennis’ match was invariably completed in the time-frame of 1 hour.”
“A set was taking on average no longer than 20 minutes to complete – the game score ticked over much more quickly and every second point played was a game point! Much more exciting!”
“Then, in what I call a “light-bulb” moment towards the end of 2016 I woke up in the middle of the night and decided that this shorter faster-paced format would be called “Thirty30″ tennis.”
The game got its name because each game starts at thirty-all, or thirty-thirty. As Milne explains, “When “30-all” is written as “30-30” it is read as “thirty-thirty” and the clue would be in the name – it says what it does on the tin! – “Thirty30” tennis – every game starts at “thirty-thirty” (“30-all”).”
You still get to Deuce and play out the Advantage points, but the games are a lot quicker than in the normal game of tennis. The scoring method, other than starting at thirty-thirty, is exactly the same as traditional tennis and the DNA of tennis is maintained.
Especially impressive is the amount of people around the world who play Thirty30 Tennis. There are testimonials from a lot of players in the USA and Canada, but also from India, Japan, Portugal, Scotland, Spain and South Africa!
The Future of Thirty30 Tennis
There is no doubting tennis needs to evolve, and younger audiences need to be captured as the sport faces stiff competition from not just other sports but also many other modern distractions.
Thirty30 inventor Milne is looking for as many tennis fans as possible to try playing this format. He said, “I am currently building a case to re-apply to the International Tennis Federation (ITF) with a goal of getting the Thirty30 scoring method accepted for official trialling at a few smaller events as per the ‘Foreword’ in their Rules of Tennis Handbook.”
“The ultimate goal for Thirty30 is, following the official trialling, to get the scoring method officially sanctioned by the ITF as an alternative shorter faster-paced scoring format (in a similar way to the rules of Tennis Australia’s Fast4 have been included in Appendix V).”
The ITF deemed in 2017 that there were already too many shorter formats of tennis and it wouldn’t be able to consider Thirty30 as another one at this time.
A Quick Guide to the Rules of Thirty30 Tennis:
All Games start from 30-30, announced “thirty-thirty”
If a Set reaches 6-6, a nine-point Tie Break (first to 5 points) is played, with ‘sudden-death’ at 4-4
No Tie Break in the final Set
Change of Ends after the first two games and then every four after that
Alternate Servers for the start of each Set
You can find more details about Thirty30 tennis on the official website here
