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The Rules of Tennis

I am continuing to encounter horror after horror in the “Correcting Errors” section of the ITF Rules of Tennis as published in the USTA Friend at Court. My only consolation is that after today there are only four additional subsections of this rule to cover. This section will all be over by Labor Day.

During a standard game or a tie-break game in doubles, if there is an error in the order of receiving, this shall remain as altered until the end of the game in which the error is discovered. For the next game in which they are the receivers in that set, the partners shall then resume the original order of receiving.

ITF Rules of Tennis, USTA Friend at Court, Section 27e

In order to understand this rule, we need to revisit the definition of order of receiving. I originally wrote about that topic in “Doubles Only: Order of Receiving in Tennis.” In that essay I observed that order of receiving is really the determination of which player will play the deuce court and which will play the ad court.

Rule 27e says that if there is an order of receiving error in a standard game, then the receiving sides remain as altered for the remainder of the game. I honestly did not know that was the rule. I am pretty sure that I have both been involved with and have witnessed matches where the team that made the error in the order of receiving in a match forfeited some of the points that were played under that error.

In those instances I am pretty sure that the order of receiving was “corrected” mid-game by restoring the receivers to their proper sides. I suspect that this rule is almost universally unknown or misunderstood. Which, of course, means we have identified another opportunity to win a bar bet. Hold onto that thought because we are definitely going to need to adjourn to that location once we consider correcting errors in the tie-break game.

Similar to the standard game, if order of receiving errors occur in the tie-break game, the order of receiving is to remain as altered until the tie-break game is concluded. This blows my mind. I think it is because mentally I think of each two serve sequence as a “mini game” within the tie break. It makes sense for each receiver to receive one serve in each two point rotation. It makes no sense to me to not restore the correct order on the next rotation of serves.

Once again, I have managed to learn something new about the rules of tennis in spite of myself. The more you know.

  1. United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY

One thought on “Correcting Errors in Order of Receiving

  1. Kelly A. says:

    Yikes! This is new to me too. I suppose it prevents 2-for-1 scenarios if one partner has a superior return … but also allows teams to potentially change sides for an entire game or, heaven forbid, an entire tiebreak. Is this the only error that isn’t corrected immediately?

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