Tennis icon Billie Jean King has proposed a series of radical rule changes to captivate younger audiences. The American insists that tennis must be made accessible to children to ensure it remains one of the world’s best-loved sports.

King has suggested a sweeping change to the scoring system that would see the traditional numbers of 15, 30 and 40 ditched. Instead, the 81-year-old believes the numbers one, two, three and four would make the rules seem simpler and help children understand them better.

Another major switch would see players don their name and a number on the back of their shirt, just like in team sports such as football and rugby. Players would therefore become more recognisable to fans.

“I would like to see names and numbers on the back of the shirt in tennis,” King told the BBC.

“I want to make it easy for fans. I think it should be one-two-three-four, not 15-love, 30-love.

“If you are a kid – I didn’t come from tennis – what the heck does that mean? If we want to get eight, nine, 10, 11, 12-year-old children involved in our sport we have to make it accessible to them – not to a 60-year-old fan.”

Tennis’ unique scoring system is believed to have originated from the face of a clock, although 45 was later truncated to 40 for reasons not known.

Meanwhile, King has hit out at stars who complain about the tennis calendar and having to play in more matches. She was speaking at the Billie Jean King Cup, which was named in her honour.

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Only two of the top 10 WTA players – Iga Swiatek and Jasmine Paolini – are due to play at the tournament. King feels players will often complain about the calendar, but accept lucrative sums of money to feature at exhibition tournaments.

“It’s so interesting how they always complain it’s too much,” she said. “They’ve been doing this forever by the way – but then they get a month off and they go play exhibitions.

“I go, ‘really?’ You guys said you needed the rest. Don’t tell me you think the season is too long. I know if there’s enough money you go and you play. It’s a really tough argument for me to listen to the players.”

Coco Gauff, Jessica Pegula, Emma Navarro and Barbora Krejcikova are all absent from the Billie Jean King Cup. Injuries have played a part but a widening calendar remains a key reason. The season started with the United cup on December 29 last year.