The Rules of Tennis
Every Wednesday this site overthinks an excerpt from the ITF Rules of Tennis as published in the USTA Friend at Court. A systemic march through the rules of tennis was one of the founding objectives of this site. Last week the rule regarding recovery of condition was examined. This week we dive into the second sentence of the same rule which deals with medical conditions.
No extra time shall be given to allow a player to recover condition. However, a player suffering from a treatable medical condition may be allowed one medical timeout of three minutes for the treatment of that medical condition.
USTA Friend at Court, 29(c)
As an interesting nuance to the rule, there is a table in the USTA Regulations Section III “Conducting the Tournament” that provides a detailed breakdown of medical timeouts. In the 2020 USTA Friend at Court, it appears in III.D as Table 13. I am mildly annoyed that the USTA Friend at Court does not contain a reference to it in section 29(c).
The fact that the table containing implementation details of medical timeouts appears within the “Conducting the Tournament” section makes me wonder whether it is even applicable to USTA League play. Most league matches do not have a official qualified medical person at hand, so perhaps it is a moot point.
I am sure that it will take several days to adequately cover the Medical Timeout table in Section III once our steady march through the rules of tennis gets to that point. Until then, I have highlighted some of the more important broad strokes of what is contained in that table.
A medical timeout can be requested during the warm-up and either taken immediately after the request or at the end of the warm-up. I don’t know if I have ever witnessed a medical timeout during the warm-up, but it makes sense that the provision should exist. An injury could certainly occur during that time.
There are a few times when a medical time out can be taken during a match. It can come immediately after a request, once the trainer/medical personnel reaches the court, or at the next changeover. Additionally, a medical timeout can be granted when the tournament referee arrives to explain the medical timeout provision. I am not sure why that fourth reason is explicitly stated in the rules, but it is.
The current instantiation of the rules categorizes cramping and heat-related conditions as a treatable medical condition. The limit of medical timeouts for cramping is limited to one in warm-up and one during the match. It is also explicitly noted that even if cramping occurs in a different part of the body that the limit applies to any cramping condition. In other words, cramping applies to the whole body.
A player is also limited to two treatable medical conditions per match. For example, if a player rolls an ankle, they may receive a three minute medical timeout for treatment of that condition. There is no additional time granted to treat that condition. However if the player later claims that the ankle is “cramping” then that can be treated as a separate injury. I feel like we see subtle differences in claimed injury exhibited frequently in televised professional matches.
The maximum treatment time for a medical timeout is 3 minutes. You would think that this would make the maximum medical time to be 6 minutes since two medical timeouts are allowed. However, the maximum amount of treatment time is 15 minutes total for all treatable conditions. Bleeding is one example of a situation where more time can be granted.
A player may self-treat for medical conditions during changeovers. Additionally at most tournaments at the adult competitive level there will not be trainers or medical personnel on site. Consequently it is important for players to anticipate medical needs that may arise and have treatment options available in the bag.
This makes the racquet bag first aid kit the obvious topic for my next Tennis Technology Tuesday post.
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
NVM, I see a reference to 2020 Friend at Court in another paragraph…my apologies!
When citing USTA Friend at Court, would you include the year of publication? For example, when I search a topic and find it addressed on your blog, I don’t know the date of your post. It would be tremendously helpful if you would include the year of Friend at Court you cited since it is published each year, often with a change or two. I am interested in the current (2022) rules on what conditions are eligible for medical timeouts. I appreciate your blog and think it is very useful.
(I always reference the year of the USTA Friend at Court in the footers. I also do a series of posts on the changes as soon as they are released each year. I do the same thing for the USTA League Regulations.)
In related news… based on the timing of your question, I am speculating that this was likely in conjunction with Texas 40+ Mixed Sectionals this weekend where heat related medical timeouts and the ambulance came into frequent play. In fact, I played a match this weekend where our opponents had to take a medical timeout during a pivotal super-breaker.
Thanks for the comment!
Thanks