Carlos Alcaraz lashes out at umpires over tennis rule change as rival chimes in | Tennis | Sport

Carlos Alcaraz has slammed certain tennis umpires who “don’t understand tennis at all” over their application of the controversial ‘shot clock’ rule. Alcaraz began his Indian Wells campaign with a 6-2 6-3 victory over Grigor Dimitrov on Sunday, before beating Arthur Rinderknech in the round of 32.

The Spaniard was visibly frustrated during his press conference after beating Dimitrov, having been asked about the shot clock between points – a rule that has sometimes caused friction between players and officials. The rule limits how long players can take before serving in an effort to speed up play. The 25-second serve clock was introduced at the 2018 Australian Open and has been tweaked in previous trials so that the countdown to a serve begins almost immediately after the previous point.

Alcaraz has been one of several players on the ATP Tour and WTA Tour to take issue with its application in recent seasons, arguing that conditions, long rallies and crowd noise can make a strict timing difficult to play under. He said at the Queen’s Club Championships in 2024 that the rule change made it impossible for him to go through his regular routine, calling it “crazy”.

Alcaraz doubled down on his assessment at Indian Wells following his recent victory, claiming the way the rule is enforced can create unnecessary issues on the court. The 22-year-old added that he no longer debates the rule because the outcome rarely changes when asked whether he had spoken with the ATP to possibly influence some change, saying his words would not amount to anything.

Alcaraz said: “To be honest, no one has come to ask my opinion on this. So I’d say yes, it’ll stay like that. I don’t want to waste my time because I’ve already been through other situations where you complain or give your opinion and nothing changes. The same ones who caused problems in many matches.”

He then addressed how chair umpires each apply the rule differently in matches, saying: “They already know my opinion, what I think about it. Let’s see if they change or not but I really want to focus on other things. You can see there are different chair umpires. It’s probably one of two of them, the same ones who caused problems in many matches.

“But there are others who are more flexible on this. I’d say if they understand tennis, they know how to handle it. Those who are really strict, let’s say, it’s because they don’t understand tennis at all.”

Alcaraz received a time violation warning in Doha earlier this year while on serve and hit out at the rules in a rare courtside outburst. His rival, Taylor Fritz, who was knocked out of the BNP Paribas Round of 32 on Monday, also shared his honest opinion on the tennis shot clock.

The American said he had issues when umpires were responsible for starting the clock but, now that the clock is automatic, he would like to see more flexibility going forward in certain situations where players would benefit from not being rushed to start the next point.

Fritz said: “I think we could be a bit smarter about it sometimes, even though the clock starts automatically after the point. In the past, I had issues when the umpires started it, because it seemed to me that some umpires did it faster than others. Now that it’s automatic, when the point ends it simply starts. It doesn’t really depend on the umpire.

“As I said, I think there might be some room to play with it in certain situations, like when someone finishes the point at the far end of the court, at the net, and has to go get the towel, since sometimes there simply isn’t enough time.”