The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour announced this week a new rule that players in 2009 will be charged for excessive injury timeouts.
Should players be forced to cover the bill when they call for a trainer? Tell us your opinion in today’s edition of Open Forum Friday.
The news of the pending change was widely reported by the Australian media, but in summary, this is what players can expect for 2009.
– Complimentary injury-timeouts limited to possibly six or seven for the entire season, with the exception of the Grand Slams.
- Service fees will range from $100 a visit at smaller tournaments to $500 per visit at larger tournaments such as Indian Wells and Miami
“We understand that medical time-outs can be legitimate but we want to make sure that players are conscious of how many they’re using up throughout the year, so we’re looking to find a system of capping them during the season,” said Peter Johnston, the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Senior Vice-President of Operations.
“It would trigger what we’d call a service fee. It’s a sports science and health issue, so it’s almost like a pay-per-view. You can keep using them, but you pay for them, and the amount would depend on the level of the event. It discourages the practice of ‘I’m feeling a bit weary, I might take a medical time-out.”‘
My apologies, but I am not naive enough to believe that every time a player calls for a trainer it is for a legitimate injury. Injury timeouts are used for many reasons, including taping a limb, requesting Tylenol, catching one’s breath, and attempting to swing the momentum away from one’s opponent.
Something clearly needs to be done to stop illegitimate calls for a trainer. However, I’m not convinced that this rule will help more than it hurts. Six or seven injury timeouts will not go far when some players are competing in over twenty tournaments per year. Not to mention that five hundred dollars for three minutes of attention does sound extreme.
But what do you think? Do you agree with this new rule? Should players be responsible for paying this fee? Will this help solve the problem of nonexistent injuries or just make life more difficult for lower-ranked players unable to pay the charges?
Thank you for joining today’s discussion and have a great weekend!
Anything for a buck. Stands to reason the WTA Tour needs money like the rest of the
“struggling economy” world at the moment.
I thought all those were covered by sponsorship deals for the tournaments. If not they should take money out of the sponsorship deals to cover medical timeouts.
It’s not like any of the players need major surgery or anything of the sort.
Now, I know of a few of my favorite drama queens who would rack up a nice bill…(Miss Jankovic and Miss S.Williams). I don’t blame them, if it’s available to be used you might as well use it.
But capping it ….I mean they should lighten up. Jelena and her likes who play several tournaments a year would easily max out by mid season. And what if the 8th time is a serious achilles heel injury or something.
This is just begging for the players to use it as an excuse to miss out on tournaments or matches that may not count for match.
Something has to be done to stop player abusing medical timeouts but capping it a seven a year is exteme. This will have very little effect on the top players who can afford to pay but what about the players struggling to make ends meet and they start getting into bigger tournaments.
Jelena Jankovic will have a huge bill by the end of the year.