Weird Points In Tennis

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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Transcript

Part Two Setup And Credentials

Carolyn 0:05

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 spins, so it landed in my opponent's court, then bounced back over into my court. Is that my point?

Rebel 0:28

Well, I guess the first thing I'm gonna do is ask you a question in return, which is Did anybody touch the ball? Doesn't

Spin Brings The Ball Back

Rebel 0:36

it sound like they did?

Carolyn 0:37

No one touched it.

Rebel 0:38

Did it bounce in your court?

Carolyn 0:40

Yes. Came back, right? Yeah, it came back and came back and bounced.

Rebel 0:44

I'm just gonna lead you through this. You hit a shot, it landed in the proper court.

Carolyn 0:50

Yes.

Rebel 0:50

Correct?

Carolyn 0:51

Yes.

Rebel 0:52

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?

Erin 1:02

Yes.

unknown 1:02

Yeah.

Erin 1:03

But I think the question is because it comes back to you, right, Carol, Carolyn? So what? So she so she hit a winner, is what you're saying. Yeah.

Carolyn 1:15

Yeah, it's like I'm thinking, Carolyn. Wait a minute. You can see me drawing a circle right now. As I'm like, yeah, that's right.

Rebel 1:22

You know, think think about that, 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.

Erin 1:45

I like it.

Carolyn 1:46

I like it. Clean winner. It's a clean winner. That's right.

Rebel 1:50

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.

Carolyn 2:02

Right. Okay.

Rebel 2:03

Or touch your court. And in fact, the the absolute best shot for them to hit is to lean over and hit it backwards into the net.

unknown 2:12

Right.

Rebel 2:12

Oh, you couldn't hit to it all.

Erin 2:14

Yeah.

Carolyn 2:15

And that would be their point. That's the thing.

Erin 2:17

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. It happened to me too.

Rebel 2:25

Now the other thing is your opponent can run around the net. Yeah, isn't that crazy? You know, say that ball is off on the sideline. You know, the opponent can run around the net to play it, so long as they don't touch the net or they don't touch your court.

Erin 2:40

I see people do that like down the like they're going down the line, but they really end up going around the pole of the 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 uh obviously it's extremely hard to defend against because you don't expect it to happen, but it's a great shot. Carol, do you want the next one?

Carolyn 3:05

Oh, yes. This this actually happened. So I wanted to hear.

Rebel 3:09

Let me let me just one thing with regard to your question about ball spinning back over the net. That some variation of that is the most popular question that comes to my column. Really? I I only answer a very few questions during in the course of a year in the in the magazine, but I get hundreds of questions a year, and the that

Doubles Talk And Hindrance Claims

Rebel 3:34

one subject comprises the most of them.

Erin 3:37

Yeah.

Carolyn 3:38

Okay, 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?

Rebel 4:03

Okay. Once again, we're talking about a hindrance.

Erin 4:08

Yes.

Rebel 4:08

So first thing 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. Now, in your in this situation, we haven't violated anything with this because the ball is coming toward you. You've yelled at your partner's yelled, great shot, but then you're able to get a racket on it. Good for you. You've hit it back. What did your opponents do? They played a shot. Okay. Were your opponents hindered?

Carolyn 4:44

Maybe, but they didn't say anything. They actually played.

Rebel 4:47

One of the bedrocks of the hindrance in the code is in order to claim a hindrance, you must stop play.

Carolyn 4:56

Okay. Right.

Rebel 4:57

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 the yelling great shot was an intentional act. Right. So you would lose the point because it was an intentional hindrance.

Erin 5:23

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.

Rebel 5:33

But to show you a difference, let's say you screamed out because a bee stung you.

Carolyn 5:38

Right. Okay.

Rebel 5:39

Okay. And your opponent stopped play. That point would be replayed because it was an unintentional hindrance. Your screaming out when you got stung was unintentional.

Erin 5:50

Unintentional. Okay.

Rebel 5:51

But but speaking to your partner or making a call or yelling something is an intentional act, otherwise.

Erin 5:57

That sounds good. Okay, 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?

Rebel 6:10

No. And not only is it not a it's not a let if it falls out of her hand, but we have seen

Rackets Dropping And What Is Not A Let

Rebel 6:17

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.

Erin 6:38

Oh, that's funny.

Rebel 6:39

And they're not going to get bailed out by a let. And but at the other end of things, the the opponent has to keep playing.

Erin 6:48

Right. Well, it's like someone falling on the corner.

Carolyn 6:51

Because it is sometimes distracting to the opponents if they feel like yeah, like if they hear the racket fall out of their hand, they kind of stuck them a little bit.

Rebel 7:01

But they shouldn't remember there's a big difference between a distraction and a hindrance.

Erin 7:07

Right.

Rebel 7:08

There are all kinds of distractions that we have to deal with on the tennis court that are not hindrances, like you poaching.

Erin 7:15

Right. Like when Carolyn wears pink, she's always distracting me when we play singles against each other.

Carolyn 7:22

Yeah, Aaron asked me not to wear bright colors when we play. So I guess that could be something.

Erin 7:28

I'm gonna, yeah, that's a hindrance. Carolyn, you take the next one, the footfall question, because this I know this has happened to you. We just did a podcast on it.

Carolyn 7:35

Oh yeah. Oh, well, can I ask the one, is it a let if your opponent's hat falls off?

Rebel 7:40

It can be. Okay, here, here again, we're going to get into this is totally

Hats Falling And Pocket Ball Chaos

Rebel 7:46

unofficiated match, so it's just you and your opponent.

Carolyn 7:48

Yes.

Rebel 7:49

Your opponent cannot hinder herself.

Carolyn 7:52

Right.

Rebel 7:53

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'll 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, and all you're gonna all that's gonna happen is you're going to get a bet 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 gonna 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.

Erin 8:44

Can I ask a question based on that? I I used to think, now I'm thinking that I don't really know the rule. I thought the rule was if a ball 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.

Rebel 9:07

One of those rules where you're telling me I always heard.

Erin 9:11

Yes, exactly. I'm bringing it back to the beginning, Rebel.

Rebel 9:15

Yes, no, ball falling out of pocket is in falls into the same category as hat coming off during a point. So no now, 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.

Erin 9:40

That's a good thing to know. Yeah, so the net happens and then it flies out. We gotta remember we're gonna write this down and present it when we get the report.

Carolyn 9:49

Because if so, that's my point. Yeah, that's really interesting. I had never thought of that one before.

Erin 9:54

Yeah, that is interesting.

Carolyn 9:56

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 secondservpodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court scene.