Kyle Edmund expands on his proposal for a radical rule change in tennis

Ewan West 12 Jul 2026 8:45 AM

Kyle Edmund has spoken to Tennis365

Kyle Edmund has spoken to Tennis365 at Wimbledon about his proposal for a radical rule change that he feels would improve tennis as a product.

Edmund, a former British No 1 who reached a career-high ranking of world No 14, retired from tennis in August last year after dealing with a host of serious injuries.

The 31-year-old has been commentating on the 2026 Wimbledon Championships for the BBC, and he called for the five-minute on-court warmup before matches to be scrapped during Arthur Fery’s match against Otto Virtanen.

“I know it’s probably not going to happen, but I think there’s something to be said for the product and the spectacle,” Edmund said. “When you come on court: ‘you spin, who serves, I’d like to serve, I’d like this end, you play.’

“I think that would be quite interesting. I do know they trialled that at the [ATP] Next Gen Finals in the last few years, but I’d love to see that.”

In an exclusive interview with Tennis365 at the All England Club, Edmund expanded on why he thinks removing the warmup would be a positive thing for the sport.

“I just think the five-minute warmup, there’s not loads that goes into it, it might just be like a nerve-settling thing,” said the 2018 Australian Open semi-finalist, who won two ATP Tour titles.

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“Lots of the guys do big, physical warmups anyway, so it’s not like they can go on court feeling cold. I see everyone in the gym getting loose 20, 30 minutes before the match.

“I just think it would be quite a cool thing, once you see the players walk out and they get their rackets and and they go for the coin toss — we’re going.

“Other sports do that. Like football, rugby — everyone doesn’t have a warmup. Golf has that ability, they have the range and the putting green, they walk onto the first tee and know they’re ready.

“And I’d love to see that in tennis, where there’s an opportunity, let’s say, like on Centre Court here, to use a practice court [to warm up].

“Players are happy to hit for five minutes, because we see that on court, so why not have practice courts where they hit for five minutes and then they walk straight on? And then it’s like, ‘Right, we’re good to go.’ I think that’d improve the product.

“I remember someone telling me about stats, that the amount of people watching [tennis] on TV that turn over [during the warmup], and there’s a percentage that come back, and there’s a percentage that don’t come back because they’re lost watching something else.

“I just think it would be really good, I’d love to see that happen. If you think of the amount of matches we’ve had, and the five-minute warmup, that’s like hours and hours of meaningless [time]. So, I think that would be pretty cool.”

Seven-time Grand Slam champion Carlos Alcaraz is someone who would likely be opposed to this proposed change.

The Spanish star was critical of the one-minute warmup rule in place at the 2021 edition of the ATP Next Gen Finals, which he won.

“The one minute of warm-up, you have no time to warm up,” said Alcaraz.

“I would say for the player, you can’t warm up everything, every shot, the volley, the serve, the backhand, the forehand, at all.

“I would say that you have to warm up four minutes to play forehands, backhands, volley, serve, smash, everything to start the match in the best way possible.

“There are some rules that I would keep and there are some other rules that I don’t really like.”