No-Let rule trial period to continue

At the Annual Meeting in May, the Board of Directors of the APTA voted to continue the rule established at the 1996 meeting, which eliminated the let on a net cord service.

The motion agreed upon left the door open for a further review in May 1998; however, the Directors were much stronger in support of the rule change than they were when they first instituted it.

Part of the reason for their change in approach was due to the fact that tennis was also moving ahead with abolishing the let. The USTA Senior Father and Son circuit would be experimenting with the “no let” service on a trial basis in its 1997 national championships, and the men’s and women’s senior divisions of the U.S. Open instituted the change in 1996. The APTA Board was not as “far out” in making this change as some players thought.

Source: Platform Tennis News, Summer 1997