The assumption that lies behind every iteration of Tennis Lite, or Tennis Fast, or Tennis Short, is that there’s something inherently wrong with Tennis Regular, and that it can be improved. Or, at the very least, that we the tennis literati need to offer something approachable to newcomers and people with tiny little attention spans.
Cricket did it to great effect; shortening days-long test matches into digestible two- to three-hour short-form affairs wasn’t such a bad idea. And everyone, it seems, has opinions on how to do the same with tennis, many of them right here in Palm Springs with a basket of balls, a decent feeding arm, and a Venmo account.
Tennis is not cricket, and we at Racquet remain unconvinced that our noble sport needs any help at all, thank you very much. But we are in Tennis Paradise™, and there are courts everywhere and the dry desert air does beckon. So after watching Caroline Wozniacki dismantle Donna Vekic on a glorious day in Stadium 1, we were inspired and ready for a hit.