When the United States Open begins Monday, the best tennis players in the world will
unleash overpowering serves, crackling forehands and paralyzing returns. Then they will
retreat behind the baseline and use a no-less-visible weapon of choice: a 100 percent
cotton official tournament towel.
In the men’s game in particular, tennis and towels are much more in tandem now than
the faded tactic of serve-and-volley. For various reasons, sometimes including actually
drying off, players have increasingly been, as they say, going to the towel.
As Roger Federer recently described it, “For some players, like a security blanket.”
Beyond noticeable, it has made some people irritable. At Wimbledon, while commenting
for television, John McEnroe wondered why players needed to towel off between so
many points under conditions that were typically cool. At the same tournament, John
Newcombe, the No. 1 player in 1967 and who is now 70, summed up the incredulity of
his generation by observing: “Can we stop the towel, please? Hit one ball, towel.”
Continue reading the main storyVideo
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Going to the Towel
Going to the Towel
More and more, tennis players are calling for towels between points.
Video CreditBy Carrie Halperin and Ashley Maas on Publish DateAugust 24, 2014.
At a time when several sports — Major League Baseball foremost among them — are
grappling with ways to reduce the duration of games to accommodate shorter attention
spans and more television choices, quantifying how rampant towel use affects the length
of tennis matches is difficult because the matches differ wildly in terms of
competitiveness. But people watching know when one is dragging on, seemingly forever.
On the men’s tour, players are allotted 25 seconds between points. The women’s tour
allows 20 seconds, as do the four Grand Slam events. But players, especially the stars,
often bend and break the rules. In the 2012 Australian Open men’s final, Rafael Nadal, a
notorious dawdler, and Novak Djokovic routinely took 30 to 35 seconds between points,
albeit on a hot, humid day. Their match lasted 5 hours 53 minutes, a record for a Grand
Slam final.
Few would challenge the argument of the pro-turned-commentator Justin Gimelstob,
who said: “The sport has changed; it’s more physical and the rallies are longer. In the
summer, try serving to Novak Djokovic when you are dripping wet off your hat, shirt,
shoes and shorts.”
But to Newcombe’s point: At the Rogers Cup this month in Toronto, Djokovic was
trailing Gaël Monfils, 0-30, 3-4, in the third set when he hit exactly one ball — a service
winner — and called for a towel. In a night match of 20-something big servers with huge
forehands, Milos Raonic and Jack Sock consistently took as much time toweling off as
they did playing points.
“Sometimes the conditions in a place like D.C. or New York, it’s almost mandatory,”
Sock said. “Otherwise you’re not going to be able to hold on to your racket. But I do
think it becomes habit, routine for guys in situations. You go to the towel to think about
things.”
On a promotional level, does the sight of players who incessantly summon the ever-alert
ballpersons like their on-court servants reinforce the notion of tennis as a country club
sport? To the typical viewer, the practice at the very least looks like tennis’s version of
baseball players’ stepping out of the batter’s box to work through maddening routines of
fussiness.
John Isner during a five-set loss in last year’s French Open. “You go to the towel to think about
things,” a player says.CreditPetr David Josek/Associated Press
“Look, the game always changes as the players change,” said Stefan Edberg, a six-time
Grand Slam winner who retired in 1996 and is Federer’s coach. “When I was playing, I
was sweating quite a lot, so sometimes I needed it. But I was a pretty quick player who
was trying to play serve-and-volley points, and I didn’t need it after every point or as a
strategy thing.”
Around the men’s tour, Greg Rusedski, who retired in 2007, is generally acknowledged
as the godfather of point-by-point — or pointless — toweling. Rusedski considered it an
unbreakable habit, while conceding, “It must have been annoying to watch and play
against.”
Federer said he was a regular towel user as a temperamental teenager, tour newcomer
and perhaps trendsetter.
“I don’t want to say I was one of the first to start it, but I needed it to calm down, you
know, to not throw the racket or not yell,” he said. “I was like, ‘O.K., go back to the towel
and relax.’ That was for me a thing I consciously tried to do at the end of the ’90s. Has it
gone over the top? Sometimes, absolutely.”
Towel routines differ from player to player. For some, it is a cursory brush to the face.
Others have more comprehensive wiping routines. Then there is Nadal, who wields a
towel with the same fervor he does almost everything else: left arm, left side of his face,
behind the left ear; repeat those steps on the right side.
Some players prefer to walk toward the ballperson with the towel; others use hand
signals to have the towel delivered. David Ferrer wiggles his fingers. Sock said, “I’m a
pointer.” Andy Murray said he believed he made two short wiping motions near his
cheek. “I’m so used to doing it,” he said, “I don’t even realize that I’m doing it, to be
honest.”
Like Gimelstob, Murray added that the towel use was mostly justified in tennis because
rarely do other athletes have to labor for hours in warm, humid conditions with no
teammate to allow them a rest.
“I’m not sure it’s really needed to slow your opponent down because you’re entitled to
take the allotted time,” Murray said, acknowledging that in a recent match against the
fast-playing 19-year-old Nick Kyrgios, the towel helped him with tempo. “If you’re
taking longer, it’s the umpire’s job to call a warning.”
As for those who towel off out of habit, Murray said that was getting into the realm of
the sports psychologist. He happened to have a good one.
Alexis Castorri, a psychologist based in South Florida who has worked with Murray and
other athletes, described towel reliance as a sound strategic tactic.
“It’s become less about the towel, unless they’re honestly sweating,” she said. “I don’t
teach towel. The routine I do teach is that you have to take some of the 20 or 25 seconds
to do something. If that’s what you want to do, go to the towel, go ahead. It’s all about
what you’re doing with your mind.”
In terms of looking “for a feeling,” Castorri cited Maria Sharapova’s habit of gathering
herself behind the baseline, back to her opponent, as a good other example. Golfers, she
added, rely on ticks and body gyrations in preparation for the next shot. Basketball
players developed the odd habit of slapping teammates five at the free-throw line even
after a missed shot.
Castorri said that some athletes, when advised to find that security blanket, have told
her, “I don’t want to look goofy.” She has responded, “Actually, you’ll look professional.”