World Tennis Conference 2022 - The Future of Tennis - ATP Podcast - Dave Miley - Thirty30 Tennis

The former Development Director of the ITF (International Tennis Federation), who is now an International Tennis Consultant joined World Tennis Conference moderator Fernando Segal, to speak about the future of the sport.

A live panel discussion took place at the second edition of the World Tennis Conference between March 23-27, 2022.

The full discussion (51 minutes) was recently released as a podcast on ATP Tennis Radio Exclusive and it can be listened to here.

The short (4 minutes) excerpt where Dave talks about Thirty30 tennis can be listened to here:

A transcript of the excerpt is also included below.

Please note that Dave talks here about "Thirty30+" tennis, which is the faster version of "Thirty30" where the "No Ad" Rule IS USED.

When playing 'standard' "Thirty30" tennis, the "No Ad" Rule IS NOT USED, and the deuce/ad points are played out in full as per traditional tennis.

Dave Miley, International Tennis Consultant and former Development Director at the ITF:

"In some formats it's good to have longer matches but sometimes it's good to have No Ad scoring (i.e. a sudden death point is played at deuce), quite exciting, good for younger people.

You know, there is actually a format that a guy is promoting a lot - I kind of like it in some ways, especially for adults who don't have much time, is Thirty30 tennis.

Thirty30 tennis you can play, you start at 30-all, so you play 2 points and then No Ad, so you play (a maximum) of 3 points per game.

And it means that you can play a (best of) 3 sets match in maybe 25 to 30 minutes.

I'm not saying it has a role everywhere but it could be quite interesting to see a format like that played sometimes.

Thinking outside the box, even for the ITF (International Tennis Federation), I think that the ITF could have a World Championship every year or every two years with a 96 player draw, like every other international federation nation, like a Grand Slam, but not called a Grand Slam - it's just the ITF World Championship and it's played maybe on non-Olympic year and it's a tournament that generates money, maybe excitement, maybe you give wild cards to each Region, which people are saying that's how we feel about that.

And, do you know from a business point of view the worst thing that a Company can say is:

"What's wrong with the Customers?

Why are they not watching tennis?

Why are they not buying the Product anymore?

Well, you know that the Customer is never wrong. If a Customer is not buying your Product then you had better change it, promote it differently, wrap it differently, brand it differently, shorter or longer matches, and that's what you have to do.

I think people are not open to that at the moment Fernando. It's a great sport, I believe in tennis."