Court Conditions - Rejecting the Court

Tennis court conditions can quietly shape every rally, and league players often don’t know the rules until something weird happens. We talk through real USTA league scenarios where a flapping windscreen, a slippery patch, or poor visibility turns into an argument about fairness. The big theme is simple: safety comes first, but you also have to protect the integrity of the score by handling problems early, clearly, and in good faith so nobody feels blindsided after the match is over.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Big Question

Carolyn 0:07

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I'm here with Erin. And Gin is back with us. Gin started as a 3-5 and is now a 5-0. And we're going to discuss court conditions, when people should play, when people shouldn't, different things that happen on the court. So, Gin, I

Windscreen Blowback And Hindrance Calls

Carolyn 0:23

know you have a story. Can you start us off?

Gin 0:25

Absolutely. So we were recently at States, our 8-5 combo teams, and we were playing a match. And it actually was a very, I will say, tight match because my partner and I went down love five. This isn't really relevant to the story, but I think it's interesting.

Erin 0:40

I was scared. Yeah.

Gin 0:42

We went down love five. We were on the end court. We had the whole team there right beside us watching. And we started coming back. And you know, we actually did end up winning that first set 7-5 and won the match. But during the match, our opponent was short in stature, and she went back deep. My partner and I both sometimes will hit some deep lobs. I have I have a heavy top spin. So, you know, sometimes it does go quite deep into the court. And a few times she went back to the back fence, and evidently the windscreen that was tacked up to the fence was blowing. We were at the beach, so the you know, winds blowing, and it would it blew out into the court. And the way they described it, I kind of didn't see it. I didn't know this was happening, but evidently kind of went over her head. And you know, I know that's it's that's why she said she was short. Yeah, that's why that's why I mentioned the short.

Erin 1:30

Yeah, I would have hit anyone else in their back or something.

Gin 1:33

But she and evidently was kind of getting under the windscreen and it was it was bothering her shot. And she and her boyfriend were quite upset about that after the match, which you know, I get I I'm always upset when I hit the back, you know, wall or whatever it is, you know. Yeah, we all want more space when we need it. But they were questioning what's the you know, what is the what's the situation here? You know, can we call a hindrance and can we replay the point? You know, what what's the rule? And fortunately, again, we had our league coordinator, is that what she is?

Erin 1:59

Yeah, she's locally coordinator with us.

Gin 2:02

And so our I asked her what you know, what is the rule on this? And she said that's like part of the court, you know, it would a permanent fixture fixture, it is part of the courts like if you ran into the back fence, you know, it's the same thing, you know, that's part of the fence, basically. And you know, you cannot replay the point. The point is over. She said, You could go, you know, if it really was impacting you and you felt like you couldn't compete on that because it was impacting you, you know, so much, it was blowing into the court, you know, every point or something, and you didn't want to play on it. You could stop and go to the desk and say, This is impacting me, you know. I don't I don't want to play on this court with this windscreen. You could do that, but you cannot you cannot ask for replaying a point.

Carolyn 2:40

And was it affecting you when you switch sides?

Gin 2:43

No, I don't I don't even remember seeing it, so I'm not exactly sure why.

Erin 2:46

You know, I don't know if they I think it was a big gust. Like I it wasn't happening a lot. I watched that whole match and I really was nervous because they were down 05, Carolyn. And they Oh, congratulations. That's a big thing. These two do not go down 05. Like that was rare. I was like, I've gotta go to the bathroom, change up the mojo, something, right? And of course they just crawled back and crawled back. It was very cool to watch, but and it was a very high-level good tennis, like really, really good tennis.

Gin 3:11

This this this woman that we're talking about is actually of an extremely good player. Yeah, she's very good player. Very good.

Erin 3:16

Yeah. But I did see that happen, but that does, and I understand what our teammate slash our local league coordinator said, because you do play points in good faith. And the reason why I'm saying that is because I remember being really upset years ago that I played a match and I didn't realize until like the end. I was playing terribly. It really didn't have anything to do with something on the court itself. I was just playing bad and in a bad mood because of it. And I realized after

High Nets And Points In Good Faith

Erin 3:43

the match, like right when the match was over, it might have even been the last point, literally the last point, I realized that the net hadn't been tacked down. So it was probably high. Like I hadn't measured it. You know, a lot of people measure, some people do, some people don't, whatever. I used to think people were crazy when they measured the net, and now I'm like, that's a good idea. But I did not notice the entire match until I had lost and was really upset that it wasn't. And I was actually kind of snotty to my opponents that day. And I was like, and on top of it, your courts have a high net or you know, whatever. But I played the entire match and quote, points in good faith. And so it was on me to say it at the beginning or, you know, when that happened. So I mean, maybe if she had stopped at that point and said, I've got we have to replay that point. This the windscreen literally went over my head. Even Gin and Carly, her partner, would have said, absolutely. But if it continued to happen, well, maybe she's given a look like that. I don't think she maybe not. But but she's right. She could have, A, she could have asked to replay that point, but B, if it happened multiple times, they could have asked to switch courts because you clearly cannot play on a court comfortable playing on.

Gin 4:48

And that's exactly what Eld's happened to us at States, which is kind of the the exact what you're just talking about. We came to our final match. Different match, but yeah, we came into our final. Yeah. And well, actually, it happened two matches, remember? The first time it happened was also at States, and my partner and I got put

Slippery Mold And Switching Courts

Gin 5:05

on, they were staggering the start. So we were the first court to go on, and we went out to our court, and our opponents actually were warming up on the side, and she said, You know, I I'm worried about this black. There's like a black substance back here on the court. Come take a look at it. It's a little slippery, and and so we went back and took a look at it, and and I it seemed like it was black mold, is the only thing I know to describe it as. And it was a little slippery, like yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't like slick, I'm not gonna say, but it's sort of like if it got on your shoes, it felt a little like it almost stuck and made it a little slippery. And so we did all four of us did ask, you know, is there a different court? And so we got put on center court, which is like my worst nightmare.

Erin 5:40

Right, it was her worst nightmare.

Carolyn 5:41

Yeah, literally center court. So you have another one besides that one too. Right, right, yeah, yeah. Not that one.

Erin 5:46

Yeah, and we don't like center court.

Gin 5:49

But what and then our our teammates, they put them on that court because they were the next line, you know, line to go, and they also rejected it. And we actually didn't know that both of us had rejected the court. And then we came same weekend, we came the next day to our final and same situation, different courts. But what was happening at this facility was they had these windscreen up. These are all related. Yeah, always these windscreen up, and so the sun, the way it came up, wasn't hitting sort of a strip on the court because of the windscreen, and it was allowing sort of black mold to grow there.

Erin 6:21

And so we actually they we delayed for a good 30 to 45 minutes and switched courts completely, right? And then several of us manually had to like tack windscreen. We removed the windscreen. We removed the wind in this situation. We actually tacked the windscreen halfway up so that the sun could hit the court in order to, you know, dry it. Uh, but but that was after moving away from the quartz that actually had mold on them. So yeah, so it's really court conditions. Jin and I, I don't know exactly, and every again, because people listen all over the country, I'm sure everyone has their own rules. But we had one time, there's two situations. One recent for Jin and my team, this the same team that ended up going to States. We had a situation where players didn't want to play on our courts, and we we can get into that. But a long time ago, we played at a club with the club that Carolyn and I met at. We have some clay courts and some hard courts, and we had a team show up. It happened to be a winter match, and a team showed up, and we, I think at the time it was like one single and two doubles. And the singles player flat out refused, like she was almost stomping her feet like a toddler, did not want to play on a hard court. She was like, I'm a singles player, I want a clay court, you know. I don't, I'm not gonna play here. And the rule for us locally in our area, which is Raleigh, North Carolina, is you play where you are assigned. So if you go to your parks and rec and you're on all hard courts, you're gonna play your singles court on a hard court, you know, or whatever it is. As long as the court is safe.

Carolyn 7:52

Is that again?

Erin 7:52

Yes. But this woman refused. She wanted, you know, she was just kind of stomping her feet wanting to play on a clay court. But I'm like, you play where you are assigned. But in this situation, like in our these things, it's more like we felt unsafe. It wasn't we weren't, we weren't choosing. We were like, we don't, you know, we're singles players, we don't play on that surface. We were this was a situation where like someone could have slipped or someone could have gotten black mold on their shoe, or you know, the courts weren't dry. And you know, again, that was more of a safety issue, where as opposed to someone that was just like, I don't want to play there because it doesn't serve me well.

Carolyn 8:27

I have a question for you guys. What do you do if I just don't know these rules as far as who's in charge of what? If you're the away team, you show up, there's leaves all over the hard courts. What do you do?

Gin 8:42

I take out a bridge. Something that actually has come up. Yeah, our local

Leaves Lines And Home Team Duties

Gin 8:47

legal coordinator said, you know, I need to send out a message to all captains reminding people that they need to bring their blowers and their brooms and, you know, be re all captains need to be ready to clear the courts. I kind of believe that the home captains should should be responsible for making sure the court is safe and in good condition for the teams. You know, I think, I mean, I just feel like you're the home team, you're the one who's responsible for the court.

Erin 9:09

You know, I don't think Yeah, I wouldn't expect a team to show up. So Gin and I are at a club, and I wouldn't expect another team to come and start like, you know, blowing leaves off our clay courts or, you know, our hard courts. Like that seems weird. But we play a lot of city courts, and those captains of those teams may belong to a club, but they may have a team that they're playing out of the city. But I do, I think it is their responsibility to tell us if they're ready and available. And I know, like, I think those captains probably feel like, well, that's what the city's job, like it's this the people that work there. But there's a lot of parks and rec courts where there is nobody assigned to be, you know, there's no how I was gonna say house for them to live in. There's no building for them to be working in. It's just literally like courts in the middle of, you know, some, you know, a park. But but I do think the home team should go out early and should make sure that the courts are ready, whether you have a broom, towels, a blower, whatever it is. But I mean, that's just us because I feel like, you know, we wouldn't expect for someone to do it at our club. Why would we ex, you know, why would we expect that we would have to go do it at their club, even though if that club is not truly a club? But we did a lot this fall. We we live around a lot of trees in North Carolina. And there were several times where we knew that we were gonna have to go out and do it. So I brought a blower and someone brought a broom, and the other team did too, but I would have almost felt I would have been irritated with the other team that we did that with if they hadn't showed up with anything and it was just us clearing courts off.

Carolyn 10:40

Right. Yeah. I've also played on a I've played on a court too where I couldn't see the lines because there was so much pollen or something. Pollen? Oh, I don't know if it was it could have been pollen or just they were clay cords, but I don't think they had been swept or and so the lines were really hard to see. And I think I should have been like, hey, I'll go roll it, or let's do something instead of just playing, because it became really hard to call the ball in or out because of that. Have you had anything like that happen?

Erin 11:14

I haven't specifically, but I would grab usually those somewhere on a clay, you know, in a facility that has clay courts, they have that little brush line thing. So you could have, I suppose. Did you notice it when you're warming up or during the match? I did.

Carolyn 11:29

I just didn't say can we start out? I didn't say anything, I didn't say anything. And I think it was a makeup match, and then but the whole time I'm like, you know, looking for the line.

Gin 11:40

I think the key thing is speak up before, you know, like once you've I mean it's the leaves on the court, you know. We've played with a lot of leaves on the court, and it's like the windscreen blowing on the ladies, or the whatever these things are. We played at a court at States that had a strange like uh spot on the court. I don't know how else to describe it. It was almost like it's almost like a medallion on the court or something that so it bounced weirdly. And so it's like, but if you play on that court, you go out there and you get in ready position and you start this match, like you can't later be like, wow, I really didn't like that. Yeah, that that ball bounce, you know, or there were leaves everywhere. And so it's kind of like you just have to speak up before and say, hey, there are way too many leaves for this to be safe. You know, we have to do something about this or reschedule, or hey, you know, this has happened, we got to address it. It's just you got to do it before, you gotta be proactive.

Erin 12:31

I feel like so. We also had Jinza, my very good friend Canna, who's been on the podcast. She did the New Jersey episodes. If people have not listened, they should go back because they're very good episodes about the difference between playing in New Jersey and playing where we play. Yes. They're very entertaining. But she had a situation where she showed up to some city courts and one wasn't playable for whatever reason. Maybe it was slick. I mean, it's, you know, we're getting into the winter, it's cold and you know, gloomy, whatever. But that so they switched courts, but it took them like a while to do it. So they went and found another court, and then that court wasn't good either. I mean, they did not start playing. I showed up to watch her and they did not start playing until there was a team when I showed up to watch her to cheer her on. There were other teams that were finishing their match before they had even started because they kept switching courts. But I talked to our local league coordinator and I was like, I was irritated and I wasn't even on the team. I was like, they took 45 minutes or 55 minutes, and then once they found the court, then they had to do a full warm-up. It was over an hour delay. And I was like, I was complaining to my friend who's the coordinator. I was like, this is ridiculous, you know? And she was like, but the but if you feel unsafe on a court, you do not have to play on it. And so if they but then I was like, but is that gamesmanship? Are they like, oh, there's an acorn, you know?

Carolyn 13:46

What okay, I have a question. What about lights? Yeah. Because I've played where it started and then it got dark, and we were on a court that the lights weren't very good. It was just that that one court, the light wasn't great. And

Bad Lights Lightning And Rain Decisions

Carolyn 14:02

I think, you know, I I said I was fine doing whatever. So I think we ended up staying, but then afterwards she was complaining we didn't switch. I was gonna say, if you if you complain or if you want to switch, we'll switch. But if you don't, you can't then get upset afterwards.

Erin 14:18

Right. Well, and that's what I was gonna say. Was she like, I can't see the ball, I can't continue playing this match, or was she just upset about it after she lost? It sounds like she was upset.

Carolyn 14:28

It was afterwards, yeah. Cause I even said to her, I was like, Can you see? Is this okay? And she was like, Yeah, it's fine. And then after the match, she goes, We should have moved. I couldn't see I should have won. We've all had and I wasn't, and it wouldn't, I wasn't the home team, I was the away team.

Erin 14:43

I really should have won this match. So um, there was one other thing that I just thought of. Partner and I were playing a makeup match, which, you know, anytime you just say makeup match, there's just gonna be weirdness, no matter what. Yes, yes. So we were playing, and it was in the summer, it was a summer night, and so in our area we get a lot of like, you know, summer storms. And I was actually serving, and the opponent, I'm just gonna say the opponent that really didn't want to finish this match that night was like stopped real quick. And I kind of looked behind me and I was like, what's going on? And she's like, Oh, there was a bolt of lightning, and she just like walked off. And that I understand, like, I'm okay with if you are afraid, you know, whatever. But it was like so far away. And we actually said, like, can we wait it out or can we can we go to our courts because we were playing at their home courts and we had clay. We were on, we were on their clay. I was like, we'll get a clay court at our nope, absolutely not. I mean, she walked off, but everybody, and the only reason I'm telling this story is because everybody else that played at that club stayed out the whole time playing. Nobody got off. There was like one little and she was like, I'm out. And she actually said after, I think when we were like cleaning our stuff up, and we my partner and I couldn't be like, No, you have to stay and play through the lightning. You know, it's like, well, if she's scared, she gets, you know, unfortunately, she does get to walk off. I just thought it was funny. It was very much strategy at that point because she even said, Oh, I always make a comeback. And guess what? We came back two days later, and they ended up winning the next set, and we went to a third set tiebreaker because we had rolled on them in the first set. We were like six-one or six two. And then in the second set, she was like, eh, we're gonna halt this match. She came back, they won. Yeah. So I felt like that was strategy, but I I couldn't have forced her to say, Oh, I know you saw a bolt of lightning, but let's, but she should have really like, I'm sure there's not a rule, but I think it's an unwritten rule, but that you could wait it out for five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is. But again, I mean, she just claimed, like, uh, this is unsafe. I have a metal, you know, my my racket is made of metal. I'm leaving. Meanwhile, not a single other court, and there's 12 courts out there, every court was full and playing. But she claimed that she didn't feel safe.

Carolyn 16:49

Yeah, that's interesting. We had one where it started to drizzle, like I drove an hour to get somewhere, and it started to rain a little bit, and there were three courts. The other two courts started playing, and the two women that were playing us was like, I don't know if we should start or not. And then we said, Hey, everybody's started. Let's go ahead. You know, if you don't feel safe, that's fine, but it wasn't slippery yet. And then I think what happened is one wasn't supposed to play that day. Later in the match, she was a sub, so she didn't want to she wanted two other people to play.

Erin 17:25

They were doing a rain dance on the way to the courts, hoping. Yeah. Yeah.

Carolyn 17:30

Yeah. And the courts ended up being fine. But I remember thinking, I was like, well, should we not? They don't want to start, and I don't want it to start. But then we were just like, you know, we've driven an hour, the other two courts are playing. Let's at least start with and then see. Um, because they were showing me the weather appears and everything. And then we ended up playing the whole match without a problem.

Erin 17:52

Of course. They had every radar out, right? Showing you.

Carolyn 17:56

Thanks to Gin for coming on the podcast. I know if I see lightning, I am quick to get off the court, but I will wait around to see if it passes. If you have any strange or interesting court situations, please let us know. You can message us on our website, which is secondserv podcast.com.

Final Takeaways And Listener Stories

Carolyn 18:12

Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon.