Second Serve Tennis

Stump The Ump

• Second Serve with Carolyn Roach & Erin Conigliaro • Episode 250

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Have you ever been on the court and thought "what is the rule in this situation"?

We are thrilled to have Rebel Good join us!  Rebel has been officiating tennis for over 30 years and has officiated US Opens, Olympics, Davis Cup and Fed Cup events.  He writes the Court of Appeals Column for Tennis Magazine and the Stump The Ump section for Western Wake Tennis Association.  Click on Stump The Ump to read a few interesting situations! 

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Speaker 2:

Hi, this is Carolyn and I'm here with Aaron and we are thrilled to have Rebel Good with us tonight. He does the Court of Appeals column in Tennis Magazine, has officiated tennis for close to 30 years and has worked in more than 20 US Open events, two Olympics and numerous Davis Cup and Fed Cup events. He also does the Stump the Ump section for Western Wake Tennis Association. So we'll ask him some questions about himself and then do a lightning round of quick rulings to see if we can stump the ump. So, rebel, can you tell us how you started officiating tennis?

Speaker 1:

Sure, back in the mid-80s there was a tournament that happened to wander into our small town of Elkin population about 4,000, and they needed some officials. And so several of us volunteered and we got the training to be officials and then we just went on from there. And it was at a time in the USTA when you could actually move up fairly rapidly if you applied yourself to it. And so within about a year and a half, two years, I was doing professional events and then the US Open.

Speaker 3:

Oh, wow, yeah, that's amazing.

Speaker 1:

Perhaps it was just that they were desperate, but you could move along pretty quickly.

Speaker 3:

I actually watch pros, like pro tennis, and I see a lot of officials that I've seen at like Fed Cup and like ones that just travel all over. So did you do some traveling too?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I've been very fortunate. As she said in the intro, I worked the Olympics twice, Barcelona and Pimpinana. I've worked in New Zealand and Bermuda and Canada and then all over the United States. My first US Open was in 1989. And this past year I did my last US Open. I've officially retired from the pro world, but that made five separate decades that I officiated at the US Open, so I thought it was a good time to call it a day, like about three minutes before they fired me, because they aren't using line umpires anymore.

Speaker 3:

Gotcha. So I have another question about that experience Did you ever get nervous officiating Like I've? Again, I've watched a lot of pro matches and I know there's certain players that like to yell at umpires. Or and you know there's obviously players back in the day like McEnroe that was famous for you know doing things like that. But did any of those types of things happen to you, or did you feel like a certain match that may happen based on who was playing?

Speaker 1:

No, I was. I was never nervous because I never made a mistake ever.

Speaker 3:

Kind of like an adult rec tennis. That's me too. That's me too.

Speaker 1:

You know, it's like anything else. You just learn from your mistakes. You have to be able to put things behind you, and I will also say this about the players. By and large, the players are wonderful. They are understanding. They make mistakes themselves and they are understanding of officials who make mistakes, most of them.

Speaker 3:

That's good. Well, turning that into adult rec tennis now, which is what Carolyn and I play. We are never going to be good enough to have officials, unfortunately.

Speaker 2:

I wish we could have them On our court. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

We've asked it, like we've gone to states a lot of times and we've asked for officials and they say no, we don't have enough people to send an official to your court. But what do you recommend or what you know we have? We have to. You know, line judge for our opponents, which Carolyn and I always talk about. Of course we want to win the match, but here we are being the judge of our opponents, of whether their ball's in or out, or you know making calls. So can you give us any advice on that?

Speaker 1:

Well, what I would recommend is that you download a copy of the rules of tennis and the code. You know you can get the friend at court rule book from the USTA website or you just Google friend at court and it'll come up. Download the PDF. And I would highly recommend reading the 31 rules of tennis and reading and really getting into the PDF. And I would highly recommend reading the 31 rules of tennis and reading and really getting into the code. And I say this because too many people learn the rules or the ropes, so to speak, from other players and I guarantee you that they'll get it wrong. My experience with answering all these questions for Tennis Magazine or Western Wake or whoever is that people will start off by going I was always told and then they'll tell you some quote rule, unquote, that just doesn't exist. So I would say go to the rule book, it won't take you long.

Speaker 1:

Yeah probably could would take you about a half an hour to read the rules of tennis and the code and then just remember when you're out there on the court that the bottom line in an unofficiated match is courtesy and honesty, and so you always give your opponent the benefit of the doubt, right?

Speaker 3:

Agreed. Carolyn actually is very good about knowing the rules. We've done a couple of podcasts on reading the rule book. I love reading the rules.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I think everybody should have the rules with them so we can quickly just flip to the page if there's a question. But I think I'm one of the few, because I don't know of anyone else that actually carries the rules with them. But that's really great.

Speaker 1:

Most people, I know. Just they have my phone number.

Speaker 3:

Can we get that afterwards?

Speaker 2:

Now we have your phone number yes yes, we can be like hold on one second, let me text Rebel real quick. We know Rebel good.

Speaker 1:

Go right ahead. I mean, if there's, you know, if there's a beer riding on it, you're going to want to get an answer.

Speaker 3:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

That's great, tennis is. You know. It's a simple game and very few rules, but so many combinations and permutations that can end up making us so interesting.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So we have a lightning round of questions that we'll just throw out at you if you don't mind, you know, throwing back some answers at us. So I'll take the first one, Carolyn.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so an opponent called the ball out and then said it was actually in, so let's replay the point. Do you replay the point or is? Or whose point is that? And this has happened to me a lot, so I can't wait for this answer.

Speaker 1:

Well, this is black letter law, you might say in the code, in an unofficiated match, which is of course what you're talking about, and that is, if a player reverses a call from out to good, they lose the point, that's what I thought. It's not replayed. One of the things as officials is you want to avoid replaying points as much as possible. I know I've told you that courtesy is a bedrock of recreational tennis, but it can be carried to an extreme where you're just constantly replaying points when there's no necessity to replay the points.

Speaker 1:

Calling a ball out and then correcting it to good and then getting to replay the point is just not a good procedure. It allows someone to basically call every close ball out and then reverse their call and then get to play the point over again when you've already hit a good shot.

Speaker 3:

That's a really good point. Let me ask a specific situation where this happened to me and it was a doubles match. So I was the receiver and my opponent hit a serve and I called it out because I thought it was going to be out. And then I saw it in and I said no and I reversed it and I said that's your point. And my partner said no, we replay it. And I said but I've already conceded the point to them, I called it wrong. And she said no, we play. And she stuck her foot down and she said no, we play. And she stuck her foot down and everyone just went okay, we'll play it over, you know.

Speaker 3:

But I felt like that was clearly their point Stick with your guns. See, I was willing to stick to my guns, but my partner stuck to hers even more, and so at that point we just let it go, and the opponents did as well.

Speaker 2:

So, aaron, do you want to do the next one too?

Speaker 3:

Cause I think that happened to you. This has happened to me, yeah, specifically. So when we're playing a match, a bat actually swooped down as as I was getting ready to hit the ball and missed it. Can you claim a bat letter or any other, like we've also had someone say a B got in my way, or can you call a let on a batter or a B?

Speaker 1:

You can try.

Speaker 3:

I had a feeling this was good.

Speaker 1:

What I'm saying here is people use the term let as though a let is a thing and it isn't. A let is a call, let is a call that says I've been hindered, and so the bottom of that is the hindrance. So if a bat swoops down and you stop play and call let, you're telling your opponent I was hindered by that bat. Your opponent goes what bat? I didn't see a bat. What B? What nat? Then you know it's a. You're making a request to replay the point. You're not asking that a point be given to you. You're making a request to replay the point. You're not asking that a point be given to you. You're making a request to replay a point. Most people in recreational tennis will give you the benefit of the doubt the first time. Right, but you know if the bat hit you, there's no question there. But then the question you know there's a broad gray area there of how close does the bat have to come to you to actually?

Speaker 1:

hinder you or do you just have a bat flitting over the top of the court and you go ooh, bat, you know. So, it's common sense. You know there's a bottom line here, which basically is things that happen off the court, so to speak, can't hinder you. So if a car drives right beside your court and backfires loudly, do cars even backfire anymore? Or some yahoo in the car screams at it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we have fire trucks that go down the road, yeah, Okay.

Speaker 1:

So the fire truck comes screaming by you with this siren blaring and you stop, play and say let your opponent might say why Didn't bother me yeah? It's something off the court. The same as you know when we have officiated matches and we have spectators, you know a spectator yelling out during a point is not a reason for you to get. You don't get to replay the point because they yelled. Even if they're yelling, miss it while you're in the middle of your backswing or an overhead.

Speaker 3:

That's a really good point. We have to remember that, Carolyn.

Speaker 2:

If it's a spectator doing it, there's nothing. If the person on the court's doing it, that's different.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's a different thing and I'll talk about that in a minute, but once again, we're coming down to every time you're talking about saying the word let, with the exception of a service let, which is something entirely different. It always has to do with a hindrance, and so the first question is who was hindered and how?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

And there's degrees that's interesting too, like a bat that hits you is different than a bat in the air.

Speaker 1:

Right, and there are also degrees of whether a hindrance is created by an opponent where you're making a decision, whether it's intentional or unintentional, or whether it's something apart from you and your opponent Right, and of course, a bottom line there also is is you can't hinder yourself.

Speaker 2:

Thanks very much to Rebel for doing this. There is a part two to this episode. Because we had so many questions for Rebel, I've also included in the show notes a link to his Stump, the Ump section for Western Wake Tennis Association, which I think every adult recreational player should read. If you'd like to see a picture of Rebel, please check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the courts soon. You.