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| Serena Williams with her coach Patrick Mouratoglou |
The governing body for women’s tennis (WTA) is considering changing the rules to allow coaches to instruct players from the stands, its chief executive Steve Simon said.
Under the existing rules, players are allowed to take on-court coaching timeouts during WTA events, but can be fined for attempting to communicate with coaches while they are sitting in the stands.
Coaches can be ejected from court and players defaulted for persistent violations of the rule.
“The on-court coaching has been positive. I want to look at it further,” Simon was quoted as saying by the Times.
“I don’t know where it will go, but I am not understanding why we allow coaching on court but not from the (players’) box. There’s some great personalities among the coaches that could be good for our sport.
“It’s something that I would actually like to see expand.”
Players on the WTA tour have been allowed to take one coaching timeout per set since 2009, but the rule does not apply at grand slams or on the men’s tour.
