(Wimbledon, London): The Lawn Tennis Association today revealed their entry qualifications for next year's tournament with a Wimbledon official promising it will help make Wimbledon 2009 a bigger and better spectacle for supporters.

"These rules have been debated long and hard in the Wimbledon boardroom," said tournament spokesperson Murray McRacket.

"This will smooth over the faults we've seen for the last few years in the tournament and make it much more interesting."

The new rules are as follows:

1) Automatic entry will be given to any player in the top 40 in the world, as long as they meet the requirements set out in appendix 1.

2) Remaining places will be handed out to players dependant on world ranking and previous Wimbledon performance, subject to the player meeting the requirements set out in appendix 1.

3) Any player can, at the tournament organiser's discretion, be awarded a bye into any round the organiser's feel is worthy of their placing.

4) All matches will be decided across three sets for women's singles and five sets for men's singles, followed by a public phone vote and a round with the clapometer in the court. The votes will be run according to the rules set out in appendix 2.

5) The organiser's decision is final, the winning of a match does not necessarily grant the victor a game in the next round.

Appendix 1 - Player eligibility.

All players must fulfil one of two qualifications.

1) Be British.

or

2) Have never played tennis before.

Appendix 2 - voting rules.

All public phone votes will have the numbers printed clearly on the screen along with the disclaimer "Please do not vote for Andy Murray's opponent as your vote will not be counted but you may still be charged.

Despite the new regulations William Hill, BetFair and Ladbrokes all have Andy Murray at 5,000,000-1 to win Wimbledon in the next ten years.