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See No Evil: The Line Umpire in Tennis

Today I was astonished to discover that I haven’t written directly about a rule that appears in the USTA Friend at Court since November of last year. It is high time we resumed our (apparently no so) steady march through the Rules of Tennis. We are currently in the “Role of Court Officials” section and this week will turn our attention to the line umpire.

The USTA Correcting Errors Quiz

The USTA recently posted a fun quiz on how to correct certain types of errors that can occur during a tennis match. The quiz is a great social media engagement mechanism for educating tennis players on the rules of the game. It is also a potential vector for identification and outreach for prospective officials.

World Tennis Number: Second Serve

The World Tennis Number (WTN) is a new ITF global rating system for all tennis players, regardless of age, gender or ability. The USTA recently announced the adoption of WTN and has been conducting informational webinars on the forthcoming system. A couple of weeks ago, I attended one of those sessions and gathered some additional information about WTN from both the presentation and the question and answer session that ensued.

2022 USTA League Regulations: Your NTRP Overlords

The USTA recently released the 2022 USTA League Regulations. Unlike in years past, there are some non-trivial changes in the document from the draft version circulated earlier in 2021. The most striking change is in the page formatting and layout. For reasons that defy my understanding, the final document is not a standard paper size. It is thin and narrow and not particularly friendly for printing or viewing on a mobile device.

My First Take on World Tennis Number

In certain pockets of the tennis ecosystem, there is a general awareness that a new “World Tennis Number” system is coming soon. The same people that whisper that bit of tennis insider information inevitably follow it up with breathless exhortations that it’s going to be amazing. No one can ever claim that tennis organizational insiders have a lack of enthusiasm for vague forthcoming changes that will revolutionize the administrative side of the sport. By the same token, no one can claim that there is any semblance of a track record of success in such initiatives. In any case, the World Tennis Number is apparently coming soon.

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