Second Serve Tennis
Second Serve Podcast is the only tennis podcast created exclusively for adult recreational players by everyday tennis players. We are passionate about the game and our episodes are geared towards adults playing a sport in the later years of life (hence, the name “Second Serve”). This podcast discusses everything related to rec tennis. Topics include the following: advice for beginners; funny and crazy situations that happen on the court; the rules of adult tennis; and how it feels being an adult and getting your feelings hurt when you are not played in an important match. We know how it feels!
Second Serve Tennis
Stump The Ump - Part 2 (Most Popular Question He is Asked and More Quick Rulings!)
What is the most popular question that people ask about adult recreational tennis? It may surprise you!
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!
We are replaying a few of our most popular episodes and this was one of them!
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Hi everyone. This is the second part of our conversation with Rebel Good. He does the Court of Appeals column in Tennis Magazine and has officiated tennis for over 30 years. If you haven't listened to part one, we hope you'll go back and listen. But here is part two. I hit a ball with crazy spin so it landed in my opponent's court then bounced back over into my court. Is that my point?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess the first thing I'm going to do is ask you a question in return, which is did anybody touch the ball?
Speaker 1:No, no one touched it.
Speaker 2:Did it bounce in your court?
Speaker 3:Yes, came back, right, yeah, I came back. And bounced.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to lead you through this. You hit a shot. It landed in the proper court. Yes, correct.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, it bounced. It bounced in the proper court and then it bounced a second time without your opponent touching it. Does that describe a winner?
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah. But I think the question is because it comes back to you, right, carolyn?
Speaker 2:So what.
Speaker 3:So she hit a winner, is all you're saying. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just you know.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking of Carolyn Way to go.
Speaker 1:You can see me drawing a circle right now. I'm like, yeah, that's right you know, think about that.
Speaker 2:You know great cross-court topspin backhand that you hit, that whistled by your opponent. They never got a racket on it and it bounced a second time, which ended the point. That was a winner, right? Well, this shot of yours, that crazy bounced back and landed in your court bouncing for a second time without being touched. That's a winner.
Speaker 1:I like it. I like it, that's what I said, it's a clean winner. That's right.
Speaker 2:Now there are other permutations from this, which are your opponent can lean over the net and hit that ball before it bounces a second time, so long as they don't touch the net. Right, okay or touch your court and in fact, the absolute best shot for them to hit is to lean over and hit it backwards into the net.
Speaker 3:Right, oh, you couldn't get to it at all, yeah. And that would be their point, that's interesting, yeah, so the one in a million times that that shot actually happens, which it actually has happened to me once, so it may never happen again.
Speaker 1:It happened to me once, so it may never happen again it happened to me too.
Speaker 2:Now the other thing is is your? Your opponent can run around the net.
Speaker 3:Yeah, isn't that crazy. You know, say that ball is off on the sideline.
Speaker 2:you know the opponent can run around the net to to play it so long as they don't touch the net or they don't touch your court.
Speaker 3:I see people do that Like down the like they're going down the line, but they really end up going around the pole. You know the net pole, yeah, which logically you would think that's out of bounds. But I know that's a legal shot and I see it happen all the time and it's actually very obviously it's extremely hard to defend against cause you don't expect it to happen, but it's a great shot.
Speaker 1:Great, caroline, do you want the next one? Oh yes, this actually happened, so I wanted to hear.
Speaker 2:Let me just say one thing with regard to your question about the ball spinning back over the net that some variation of that is the most popular question that comes to my column. Really I only answer a very few questions during the course of a year in the magazine, but I get hundreds of questions a year and that one subject comprises the most of them. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1:So this one actually happened to me, where my opponent hit a shot in doubles and my partner said great shot. But I was able to run and hit it back and the opponent played it and hit it in the net. And my question was did they win the point because my partner said great shot or did they lose the chance to claim the point when they actually played the ball and hit it into the net?
Speaker 2:Okay, once again, we're talking about a hindrance. Yes, so first thing is is in doubles, you can speak when the ball is coming toward you. You can talk to your partner. You know, get back or whatever it is. You're not supposed to be talking when the ball is going toward your opponent. No-transcript they played a shot. Okay, were your opponents hindered.
Speaker 1:Maybe, but they didn't say anything. They actually played.
Speaker 2:One of the bedrocks of the hindrance in the code is in order to claim a hindrance, you must stop play.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Right. And then there's another part where we say you don't get two chances. So if you yelled out, if your partner yelled out great shot and you got to it and hit it back and your opponent simply caught the shot and went that's our point you would lose. It was an intentional. The yelling great shot was an intentional act. So you would lose the point because it was an intentional hindrance.
Speaker 3:I'm giggling because I feel like half my game is a hindrance, like everything that happens to me on the court is a hindrance only because of my skill level. That's why I'm giggling about all this.
Speaker 2:But to show you a difference, let's say you screamed out because a bee stung you.
Speaker 3:Right, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay and your opponent stopped play. That point would be replayed because it was an unintentional hindrance. You're you're screaming out. When you got stung was was unintentional unintentional OK but speaking to your partner or making a call or yelling something is an intentional act.
Speaker 3:Otherwise, it sounds good, ok. So I'm sure I feel like the more we ask these, the more they're. They should be obvious, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is it a let if your opponent's racket falls out of her hand?
Speaker 2:No, and not only is it not a, it's not a let if it falls out of her hand, but we have seen instances where a player serving will swing at the ball and their racket goes flying toward the opponent or whatever. There's no hindrance allowed. The basic bottom line on this is a player without a racket in their hand is at an extreme disadvantage.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:And they're not going to get bailed out by a let and. But at the other end of things, the, the opponent, uh, has to keep playing right, well, it's like someone falling on the court, right, it's sometimes distracting to the opponents if they sometimes like yeah like if they hear the racket fall out of their hand they're gonna stop a little bit, but't. Remember there's a big difference between a distraction and a hindrance. There are all kinds of distractions that we have to deal with on the tennis court that are not hindrances, like you poaching.
Speaker 3:Right when Carolyn wears pink. She's always distracting me when we play singles against each other.
Speaker 1:Aaron asked me not to wear bright colors when we play, so I guess that could be something.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a hindrance, carolyn. You take the next one, the foot fault question, because I know this has happened to you. We just did a podcast on it.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Well, can I ask the one Is it a let if your opponent's hat falls off?
Speaker 2:It can be your hat falls off. It can be Okay, here again we're going to get into. This is totally unofficiated match, so it's just you and your opponent.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Your opponent cannot hinder herself, right? So if your opponent's hat falls off, she cannot stop play and get the point replayed, right? Okay, but If you see her hat fall off and you stop play immediately, you would replay the point. Now there are all sorts of things that come into play. If you have an official for a match where they're warned not to let it happen again and they could actually lose a point when it happens subsequently but in a match without officials at all, the answer is their hat can fall off any number of times at all. The answer is their hat can fall off any number of times and all you're going to, all that's going to happen is is you're going to get a let if you want to, if you want to stop playing Now, if you, if you want to keep playing because you're in a good position, or they're going to have to dance around their hat, you might want to go ahead and keep playing. That's the point of the opponent can't hinder themselves.
Speaker 3:Can I ask a question based on that? I used to think now I'm thinking that I don't really know the rule. I thought the rule was if a ball fell out of, like your pocket. I thought that was an automatic point for the opponent whose ball it didn't fall out of, but it actually it sounds like it's another one of those things like a hat falling off or a ball falling out of a pocket would be the same One of those rules where you're telling me I always heard yes, exactly, I'm bringing it back to the beginning.
Speaker 2:Rebel yes and no ball falling out of pocket is in falls into the same category as hat coming off okay during a point. So no, now I'll go into some weird stuff. Like you know, if that ball falls out of your pocket and rolls into the net, you'd lose the point, because if anything you're wearing or carrying ends up touching the net during a point, you'll lose the point.
Speaker 3:That's a good thing to know.
Speaker 1:So if you're the net person, and it flies out.
Speaker 3:You've got to remember. We're going to write this down and present it when we get to the court. Did that ball roll to the?
Speaker 1:net, because if so, that's my point. Yeah, that's really interesting. I had never thought of that one before. Yeah, that is interesting. Thanks again to Rebel for coming on the podcast. We have one more episode where he discusses when you call let versus claim the point and an item in the code he disagrees with. We hope you check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.