Kyle Edmund wants Grand Slams to scrap the five-minute on-court warm-up before matches, a change he said would alter the way contests begin at the sport’s biggest events. He made the case while Wimbledon was nearing its halfway point and he was part of the ’s punditry team there.
Edmund’s Wimbledon Proposal
“The one thing I would like to change in tennis is to take out the five-minute warm-ups on court,” Edmund said. “I do know they trialled that at the NextGen Finals in the last two years. But I’d love to see that on the professional circuit, I think it would make such a difference.”
He added: “It would be good for players to come out onto court, do the coin toss, decide who serves and from which end, and then we play. I think that would be quite interesting.” The proposal would remove a routine written into the Grand Slam Rule Book, where players are given time to warm up on court after the toss decides who serves first and which end they start from.
Grand Slam Rule Book
The timing is not a small detail. The warm-up is usually five minutes long, and the majors have also been described as enforcing a tight pre-match schedule that requires players to be ready for the pre-match meeting one minute after they walk on court, with the match then starting 60 seconds later.
A player can be fined up to $20,000 for ignoring that timetable. The Grand Slam Board announced a number of changes in 2017 intended to enhance the speed and integrity of the game, so Edmund’s idea fits a rules discussion that has already moved in that direction once before.
Edmund’s Own Record
Edmund is not speaking as a distant observer. He has been working in the media since hanging up his racket 12 months ago, and he never went beyond the third round at the All England Club. His own best run at a major came in 2018, when he reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open.
Marin Cilic beat him in those semi-finals before losing to Roger Federer in the final in Melbourne. That history gives weight to the view he is now pressing as a pundit: he would like to see the change, but he said, “I don’t think it’s going to happen but just from watching other sports, I think there’s something to be said for the product of the spectacle…”
For now, the rule stays in place. Edmund has put the question on the table at Wimbledon, and the next step belongs to the Grand Slam Board if it chooses to move from trial and discussion to a change at Grand Slams.
