As eagerly anticipated, the 2023 edition of the USTA Friend at Court has finally been released. Actually, “eagerly anticipated” might be a little bit of a stretch. The reality is that only a handful of people keep a close watch on updates, clarifications, and modifications to the Rules and Regulations that govern competitive tennis. In my experience, the vast majority of USTA League and Tournament players never bother to read the USTA Friend at Court.
As a quick primer, the USTA Friend at Court contains three broad categories of information. The first part of the book is a reprint of the ITF Rules of Tennis. The USTA does not have the authority to modify those baseline rules. However, the organization annotates that section with comments that clarify how the fundamental rules are interpreted for USTA-sanctioned events.
The second part of the USTA Friend at Court contains “The Code.” That section contains the player’s guide to fair play and the “unwritten rules of tennis.” This section picks up things that are not stated in the rules that are only established by custom and tradition. For example, if there is any doubt on a line call, the opponent gets the benefit of the doubt. That isn’t in the ITF Rules of Tennis, but rather “The Code.”
The USTA Friend at Court is also where the tournament regulations have historically been documented. However, there has recently been an effort to split some of the original content into separate smaller documents for ease of maintenance. The editorial review cycle of the USTA Friend at Court is onerous. It is much more agile to have smaller documents that are not locked into an annual update cycle.
As the USTA Friend at Court is updated each year, the editors provide a summary of substantive changes from the previous version. That section is basically the “Cliff’s Notes” version of the important changes. Additionally, anyone armed with a pdf comparison tool (or who is insanely detail oriented) will detect a certain number of smaller editorial updates that are possibly also revealing. I will be systematically working through all the rule changes in the coming weeks.
The first large block of significant new text in the 2023 USTA Friend at Court is not listed in the summary of substantive updates. It celebrates an impending change in how the editorial work is performed. In doing so, a brief new timeline of the editorial history of the document is provided.
The first version of the USTA Friend at Court was published prior to 1970. (I am looking for a reliable source of the actual year.) The document was the brainchild of Jack Stahr, who recognized that the USTA tennis ecosystem could benefit from a unified rulebook as the interpretation of the Rules and Regulations varied from Section to Section. Stahr’s original product included the ITF Rules of Tennis as well as the USTA Tournament Regulations. It advanced the state of the practice of uniform interpretation and officiating consistency.
If it seems strange that League Regulations were not included, it is because the first version of the USTA Friend at Court was written before the NTRP system was developed. That, in turn, fueled and enabled League Play. Those were happier and simple times when tournaments were the only organized tennis competition. That is also the historical reason why the USTA League Rules and Regulations evolved outside the purview of the USTA Friend at Court. However, exegesis of the current version reveals the influence of USTA League play on the tournament competitive ecosystem.
After Stahr’s death in 1981, Nick Powel, the original author of “The Code” took on the editorial duties. When Powel passed away in 1990, the editing responsibility transitioned to a small group of volunteers that included USTA staffer Jay Snyder who was the Director of Officials. The document has been maintained by a staff of volunteers ever since.
The brief history of the USTA Friend at Court appearing in this year’s edition was to provide reflective context before announcing that the document will no longer be maintained by volunteers. Starting next year, the publication will be under the purview of the professional editorial staff of the USTA. It is truly an end of an era.
In a way, it makes me sad because I had wondered if my frequent overthinking analysis of the USTA Friend at Court might one day garner me an invitation to volunteer on the editorial review team. Throughout my frequent overthinking of the rules, I have come to the realization that many of the other National tennis federations do not have an equivalent document. The USTA Friend at Court is the result of visionary leadership manifested through the dogged determination of innovators and volunteers.
It is an inspirational lesson from the past.
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2023
- Stahr Aims to Upgrade Quality of Net Officials, Charles Friedman, The New York Times, March 25, 1973.
- Not All Love in Tennis, Officials Find, Sam Goldaper, The New York Times, August 23, 1970.
Can I purchase a hard copy of FOC?
Printing from my personal printer is too expensive.
The USTA sells them from the National Campus Store. https://www.ustaproshop.com/product/43656/usta-rules-of-tennis-2023-handbook
Right now, they only list the 2023 version. I would expect the 2024 edition to be out any day now.
Where can I find a hard copy of the USTA Friend at Court 2021, 2022 or 2023?
(There is a link to the 2023 Friend at Court at the end of the original post.)
2023: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/coach-organize/content-fragments/resource-library/assets/pdfs/2023-Friend-at-Court.pdf
2022: https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/2022-pdfs/2022%20Friend%20at%20Court.pdf
The USTA has done a pretty good job scrubbing the 2021 version from their site. The link from when I wrote about the updates for 2021 now lands on the 2022 version. I have retained a downloaded copy of that document for my own reference, but it does not appear to be online anymore.