Colorful courts, cheerleaders, let cords in play on serves—it’s all in a day’s work for World Team Tennis. But what happened on Thursday night during the league’s Eastern Conference Finals between the Washington Kastles and the Philadelphia Freedoms was strange even for World Team Tennis.
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During the women’s doubles portion of Thursday’s match, Taylor Townsend was forced to play doubles all by her lonesome against Martina Hingis and Anastasia Rodionova after her partner, Liezel Huber, was struck in the head by a shot from Townsend.
Huber, gamer that she is, actually stayed and played for nearly two games before being overcome by an injury related to the blow (commentators weren't clear, but it seemed to be concussion-like symptoms, or, at the very least, pain related to the blow).
Eventually, it was decided that Huber could not go on, and after meeting with the umpire and being enlightened about the RIDICULOUSLY UNFAIR rules that are in place for such a situation, Townsend took the court…
Though Townsend fought admirably, she never had a chance. While serving Townsend actually had a game point, but she tossed in a very ill-timed double fault to squander the opportunity. While returning, Townsend was hampered by the fact that she was only allowed to return serve from one side of the court, so on every other serve, all either Hingis or Rodionova had to do was plop the ball in the box to get the point.
Clearly the WTT needs to put new rules in place for such a situation, as this could have been a very entertaining contest had Townsend been allowed to return serve from both sides of the court and had she had not been forced to forfeit Huber’s service games.
Surely the fans who paid hard-earned money for tickets, and those who watched on television deserved something better. It's about the fans, isn't it? The rules are there to ensure that a player doesn’t benefit from losing a player to injury—that’s the way the cookie crumbles—but seriously, isn’t having one person play doubles against two people punishment enough?
Anyhow, we digress.
Townsend lost five straight games on her own, but won the crowd’s support and even got a nice round of applause when she was finished.
But the biggest round of applause came when the Kastles clinched the title moments later, thanks to the big cushion they gained from Huber and Townsend’s misfortune.
Just another night in World Team Tennis.
The Kastles will face Springfield in the WTT final on Sunday.