I live within walking distance of excellent public park tennis courts. That site attracts a wide variety of people, ranging from some of the area’s top juniors to extremely casual recreational players. A similar mix of people can be found at the tennis center in my childhood hometown, which has recently enjoyed a resurgence of interest that has brought out a lot of new players.
In both settings, someone will likely be playing on the neighboring court. Due to the disparate experience with tennis, that person may or may not be attuned to the behavioral norms around returning wayward balls to adjacent courts. This is another great example of tennis etiquette that isn’t universally understood.
Inexperienced players are hardly alone. Every biography of Althea Gibson mentions that when she was first brought into the Cosmopolitan Club in Harlem, she had to be counseled about her childhood practice of angrily swatting away any ball that trespassed on her court without regard for where it came from. Althea had no basis for understanding that particular cultural expectation.
“The Code” in the USTA’s Friend at Court provides a rather lengthy description of how stray balls are to be handled in tennis.
Retrieving stray balls. Each player is responsible for removing stray balls and other objects from the player’s end of the court. Whenever a ball is not in play, a player must honor an opponent’s request to remove a ball from the court or from an area outside the court that is reasonably close to the lines. A player shall not go behind an adjacent court to retrieve a ball or ask a player on an adjacent court to return a ball while a point is in play. When a player returns a ball from an adjacent court, the player must wait until the point is over on the court where the ball is being returned and then return it directly to one of the players, preferably the server.
Principle 42 from “The Code”, USTA Friend at Court
There is a lot to unpack in that principle. It includes the directive that players should not go behind a neighboring court to retrieve a ball when a point is in play. That goes hand in hand with the expectation that when the point ends, the people on the adjacent court will promptly return the ball. Sometimes it doesn’t happen. That can be a great source of misunderstanding.
I recently played next to a men’s doubles match between inexperienced players. One of our balls rolled into the middle of their court during a point, creating an obvious let that was not called. We assumed our ball would be returned before the next point, but instead, it remained where it stopped rolling while an additional point was played.
After that point ended, one of our guys loudly interjected a request for “ball help.” That request was not understood, and yet another point was played. Eventually, one of our players walked onto the court to retrieve the ball. In fact, we basically had to do that all evening. This is an extreme example, but one that illustrates that newer tennis players don’t always have a firm understanding of the behavioral norms of the sport.
I have recently come to the realization that there is a disparity of general ball awareness between more and less experienced players. A thriving women’s beginners program at my childhood hometown tennis center has created a wealth of new players at that facility. While those players know that balls from adjacent courts should be returned, they are so focused on the mechanics of their own play that they frequently are oblivious to wayward balls entering their court area.
More experienced players typically have a heightened sense of potential incoming balls from neighboring courts. I came to that observation a couple of weeks ago while playing with an experienced group scattered across two HOA courts. As my foursome was set for a serve, the point on the adjacent court frequently created conditions where it was likely that their ball might come our way.
Every time that occurred, I noticed that all four players on our court were tracking the potential incoming ball. Additionally, there was almost complete synchronization of the moment when each player dismissed the potential interference, and the focus returned to our own court. This subtle intuition in players who have spent a lot of time in the sport is sometimes taken for granted.
“Ball help” is yet another part of tennis where patience is a virtue.
