This archive report was first published on 2 September 2019.
Published on September 2, 2019, the world of tennis has been grappling with an unexpected issue: extended bathroom breaks.
According to Steve Simon, the chief executive of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), the rule allowing bathroom breaks is meant to provide a necessary convenience for players, not to be a strategic advantage or momentum changer.
However, the breaks have been causing undue delay, which is not good for either television or for the fans who have to sit through them, Simon said.
The WTA allows one bathroom break during a match, while the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), which governs men's matches, follows a similar protocol, though men are allowed two breaks during a best-of-five match.
Even at the lower rungs of the sport, the breaks are prevalent and sometimes border on the absurd. At a pro circuit tournament in Lexington, Ky., this summer, Yuxuan Zhang, a player ranked just outside the top 200, lost the first set of her quarterfinal match and then took a nearly 10-minute bathroom break, saying the bathroom was far away from her court.
She lost the second set, 6-0, after another 33 minutes. Verena Meliss and Emily Webley-Smith of Britain also took extended bathroom breaks after losing their first sets, while the winners of the first set remained on the court.
