Toweling off is mostly a habit for tennis players

The end of summer has a few indicators, some more scientific than others. There's the coffee shops that start peddling their pumpkin-flavored brews, the Minnesota State Fair starting more than a week prior to Labor Day (known as the unofficial end of summer to Minnesotans) and here's the sports one: Players hit the tennis courts in Flushing Meadows for the U.S. Open. The tournament begins Monday.

The U.S. Open is one of the fun grand slams to watch, partly because of the convenience of matches being held in a near-by time zone. In anticipation of the major tournament, ESPN Classic showed classic U.S. Open matches last week.

So far, I've come across a women's final in 1981, where the racquets most certainly looked different than today; a rival match between Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe from 1984, still before my time and a display of men's short-shorts; and a 2004 quarterfinal between Serena Williams and Jennifer Capriati.

Time capsules
It's always fun to watch old sporting events. It's a fun little time capsule. The '04 match had some controversial line calls, which resulted in an outburst from Serena and had the commentators begging for video replays. Their wish was granted two years later.

The main thing I noticed however, was how quickly players went from one point to the next. And the absence of toweling off after each point. It was great.

Time to knock the habit
Maybe I've said it before, but I grow annoyed with the habit players have these days of using a beach towel to wipe their face, arms and racquet after points. I say habit because that's what it is. Force of habit.

If you watch your opponent double fault, do you really need to towel off? Or after the first point of the match? Or a short rally?

I'm not saying it isn't necessary sometimes, but the habit doesn't even seem to be about the need anymore. I also don't think players are abusing the privilege by taking too much time in between points. (I'm sure there are some kind of rules in place.) But I wouldn't be surprised if matches were shortened up a bit, time-wise, if players didn't gesture for a linesperson to hand them a towel after each point.

Bring back sweatbands
Whatever happened to wearing sweat bands on your wrists? One of the players in the '81 match rubbed her face on those a number of times. Maybe that's just not cool anymore, much like the shorts McEnroe and Connors once fashioned.

I'm really not trying to pick on tennis too much here as far as the speed of play goes. After all, they have time rules in place for things like changeovers and medical timeouts. I just wouldn't mind seeing it taken a step further and keep towel use at a minimum.