In officiated matches, tennis players have the right to call the referee to court if they disagree with the umpire’s interpretation of tennis law. Unless the referee is sitting on-court, the chair umpire has the final decision authority on questions of fact that might arise during the match. The referee may only rule on interpretation of tennis law when summoned to a court.
We are currently working through Appendix VI “Role of Court Officials” in the ITF Rules of Tennis that provides the foundation for the USTA Friend at Court. That section contains a series of case interpretations that further delineate the separation of authority between various officials. The first ITF case decision in this section addresses whether the referee can be called to the court at all in a particular situation.
Case: The chair umpire awards the server a first service after an overrule, but the receiver argues that it should be a second service, since the server had already served a fault. Should the referee be called to court to give a decision?
Decision: Yes. The chair umpire makes the first decision about questions of tennis law (issues relating to the application of specific facts). However, if a player appeals the chair umpire’s decision, then the referee shall be called to make the final decision.
Case 1, Appendix VI, Role of Court Officials, ITF Rules of Tennis, USTA Friend at Court
This case decision outlines one of the more exasperating aspects of the ITF Rules of Tennis. The tennis “laws” in the ITF Rules of tennis require interpretation. In this particular case, the question is not about the facts, so calling the referee to the court is allowed. The interpretation of law is a little fuzzier for this scenario.
A way this situation could occur is if the second serve was initially called a fault that was immediately overruled by the chair umpire. This case would not apply if the overrule occurred after the point was already in play as those rules are crystal clear. Interpretation is required when the ITF Rules of Tennis are ambiguous as they are on whether a first serve is allowed following a second serve fault overrule.
Per “The Code”, if a server has started the motion for a second serve and a let is called because a ball rolls onto the court, a first serve is awarded. However, when there is an excessive delay between the first and second serve, the server only gets one serve if they were the cause of the delay but two serves if the delay was caused by the receiver or by outside interference.
In this particular hypothetical scenario, the server was not responsible for the delay since the second serve was in. The chair umpires rationale for awarding a first serve would likely be because the overrule itself created an excessive delay. It would be a comparable delay to a player swatting an errant ball back to an adjacent court.
While the referee can be summoned to rule on the interpretation of tennis law, in this situation it would be an exercise in futility as waiting for the referee arrive at the court would also be an excessive delay.
This is yet another example in tennis where something is allowed but it still shouldn’t be done.
