Shortly after I started this project, the USTA published a rules column on their national web page with a rules question about the foot fault. The “What’s the Call” section is updated monthly with a new topic. At best what was published in that particular column is misleading. Alternatively, it is flat out wrong.
Question: When playing a singles match, I noticed my opponent getting close to the center service mark. It wasn’t until the second set that I realized he was crossing it during his service motion. Is this allowed? Can the server start behind the baseline and cross the center service mark during his service motion?
Answer: This type of foot fault can sneak up on you. Your opponent followed the first cardinal rule of serving by being behind the baseline but forgot about the imaginary extension of the center mark. With a little tweaking on his service game, this can easily be corrected. A player cannot cross the imaginary extension of the center service mark. If your opponent crosses it during his service motion, it is considered a foot fault. To see other examples of foot faults, please visit Rule 18 of the “Friend at Court”.
USTA, What’s The Call: Crossing the Service Line [1]
The USTA web site also includes a three panel cartoon with high quality images drawn by an actual artist. This stands in sharp contrast to the high quality stick figures that I have been drawing to accompany my posts. Let’s just say that having an actual artist involved with this project is a remote possibility for the very distant future.
The player is illustrated with his foot in the air over and above the centre line. If the foot doesn’t touch the ground, that’s not a foot fault. There is another subtlety in the rule regards touching versus crossing the centre line. If the foot is on the ground, then it cannot touch the center line in addition to crossing it.
I would like to return feedback on the column, but there is no mechanism or link to do so on the page published by the USTA. The only link refers back to the rules and regulations home page with a copy of the USTA Friend at Court, which… is a document that I am becoming quite familiar with. In the absence of a mechanism for the public to submit questions, I am kind of wondering where the question originated anyway. Fabricated is the word that comes to mind.
I should also note that the USTA version of the rules question column is not to be confused with the “Court of Appeals” column regularly featured in Tennis magazine and tennis.com. That publication has a mechanism for question submission and contacting the author.
It’s a small thing. Still, I want to believe that the USTA is consistently correct on information it publishes on the rules. Unfortunately this is at least one exception to that hope.
- “What’s the Call: Crossing the Service Line,” USTA, January 7, 2020. Page viewed April 9, 2020.
