ATP: Commentary on the Verdasco towel scandal: “Unusual habit covering the whole area”.

The towel campaign by Fernando Verdasco has been met with fierce criticism. Jörg Allmeroth finds in his commentary that it is time to rethink anyway.

It is truly not a beautiful scene that is causing anger and indignation in the social media – the scene in which Fernando Verdasco is bawling a frightened ball boy at the Shenzhen Open because he does not supply him with the indispensable towel fast enough.

Verdasco is rightly getting his fat off, he is anyway not exactly known as the most sociable contemporary on the court. But Verdasco is by no means an isolated case, there is no point in making him a whipping boy here.

At this point it has often been complained about the widespread bad habit that ball children are forced into an unhygienic, repulsive secondary activity when they constantly supply the professionals with sweaty towels and then have to take them away again after use. The Verdasco case only highlights a situation that the tennis organisations should have been able to resolve literally a long time ago. The ball children should take care of the balls, and every tennis professional should have his own towel under control, and in addition within the prescribed time until the next serve. It would almost certainly significantly reduce the annoying use of towels.

By the way: the tricks that the pros afford with the balls thrown at them before serving are also unattractive. Some people have up to five balls given to them, then take a seemingly highly analytical look at them before they throw two or three of the balls behind them – the ball children are then allowed to pick them up again. This, apart from the time wasting, is simply a very unpleasant sight. As you can hear, the players are supposed to take care of their own towels during the next Next-Gen final round – without the intervention of the ball children. It would be good if the stars of tomorrow would have to do the same elsewhere.