Naomi Osaka and Karolina Muchova were both hoping to reach their first Wimbledon semi-final.
Osaka had beaten Aryna Sabalenka to reach her first quarter-final at the grass court major.
This confirmed a rematch against Muchova, who had beaten Osaka in the Bad Homburg Open final via retirement just days before Wimbledon had got underway.
Nine-time Wimbledon champion Martina Navratilova was on commentary for the BBC’s live coverage of this highly anticipated quarter-final, as she called out a tennis rule that she thinks should be removed.
Martina Navratilova thinks lets should be removed from tennis
Navratilova has recently called for tennis to make changes and she proposed another one during the first set of the quarter-final between Osaka and Muchova.
During Osaka’s service game in the middle portion of this set, as standard a let was called after the ball appeared to clip the top of the net, despite having little impact on the motion of the ball itself.
Navratilova followed this by expressing her frustrations at this rule, which she called ‘useless’ and explained why she thinks it should no longer exist.
“Do away with that let cord, you know I talk about it all the time,” stated Navratilova. “Nobody’s moving forward on that, get rid of it, it’s useless!”
Navratilova was then asked if she thinks it should be a second serve instead, as she responded by saying, “No play the let, play the ball, it’s a live ball.
“Every once in a while you get that dribbler that would be an ace, but that happens once every three matches, so just play. Most of the lets are just a little nick. Keep playing, speed up the game.”
If you were in charge of tennis, what is the first rule you would change?
Which events at Wimbledon do not play lets?
Despite Navratilova’s calls for it to change, let cords will still be a feature in all senior matches at Wimbledon this year, but that is not the case for all events at the grass court major.
Since 2018, junior Grand Slam tournaments have played without lets on the serve and will continue to do so at Wimbledon this year.
Junior Grand Slams are not the only tennis events to adopt this rule, with the Next Gen ATP Finals also implementing it.
It had been reported last year that the senior Grand Slams were also considering removing let cords, but nothing has come to fruition as of yet.
Former world number four Jack Draper was also in favour of this change, claiming it could ‘bring a bit of excitement’.
“You know what, I’d quite like that one,” Draper told The Tennis Mentor at the time. “We did that once when I was younger for a while, I think, on the ITF Tour. They do it in college tennis [as well].
“At first, you’re like, I hate this idea, but then you realise that you actually start returning way better because you’re way sharper to think that there might be a let call, so you’re going to have to get there if it does.
“I think it would actually improve the overall tennis and might bring a bit of excitement. I don’t mind that one.”
