The sports of tennis is looking at ways to speed up the game, but Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt took it to an extreme on Monday.
The pair of former No. 1 players in the world took to the seas to engage in a tennis match on speed boats. Multiple media outlets reported that Federer, currently the No. 2 player in the world, and Hewitt, the 86th-ranked player who was No. 1 in 2001, volleyed tennis balls back and forth on speed boats.
The "exhibition" was done to promote "FAST4 Tennis," a version of the game meant to give players a quicker and, perhaps, a more exciting way to engage in and enjoy the game.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Tennis Australia's website cited that the game is "designed with the time-crunched player in mind, the FAST4 format means that anyone, anywhere has time for tennis."
At age 33, Roger Federer plans to increase, rather than decrease, his workload in 2015.
The format of the game is as follows:
"FAST4 Tennis encourages lightning-fast play, with sets won when one player reaches four games, rather than the usual six or seven," according to another Morning Herald report.
"Matches don't generally last any longer than 75 minutes, even at five sets, with each set lasting about a quarter of an hour at most. Players are not allowed to sit down between change of ends and play must resume within 60 seconds of the previous game finishing. Players are allowed a 90 second break at the end of each set."
Federer and Hewitt also participated in an actual FAST4 match, with Federer winning a 4-3 (5-3), 2-4, 3-4 (3-5), 4-0, 4-2 win in just over 90 minutes, according to the Morning Herald.
The Swiss star said he himself wasn't sure whether he liked the rules of the hybrid game.
"The beauty of our game sometimes is not knowing if you're going to be on court for 45 minutes or three hours," Federer said.
"I know sometimes that's hard for TV because in soccer and other sports you know exactly how long you are going to be playing," Federer told the Morning Herald. "You beat the clock and you're fine, but in tennis you have to run over the finish line by hitting a winner."
But if it creates more interest in the sports, Federer said, he's all for it.
"This was about getting more kids to play the game," Federer said.
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