A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed updates to the Greater Fort Worth Tennis Coalition League Regulations for 2027. I compared the new document against the previous version, identified the changes, and offered some thoughts about what they might mean.
One of those observations concerned Regulation 7A and the use of mobile devices and smartwatches. I reported that Fort Worth had changed the rule to require all electronic devices to be turned off before the match starts. That seemed noteworthy to me because I had recently played at both USTA League Nationals and National Tournaments, where officials allowed players to wear smartwatches. That post analyzed the apparent inconsistency.
It was a perfectly reasonable analysis… of a change that didn’t exist. As it turns out, Regulation 7A had not changed. However, there was a new rule inserted immediately below it.
7B. Recording devices must be approved by the facility as well as all players on the court. If one player does not want to be recorded the device must be removed from the court. (Updated 9/2026)
Somewhere in the process of comparing the two documents, I wrote about a rule that was not new for 2027, while overlooking the actual update. For the record, nothing changed about smartwatches. My discussion of the supposed modification to Regulation 7A was not inaccurate in terms of how I have been seeing this rule enforced elsewhere. However, the provision is not new to Fort Worth.
The irony is not lost on me. That original post specifically credited Fort Worth for using red text to identify changes in its annual regulations, then pointed out places where the change-control process had fallen short. For example, I noted that Regulation 15H had changed without being marked and observed that the Spring Break dates had also been silently updated. Even now, I cannot stop myself from noting that the date on the front of the current GFWTC Regulations states August 2026, while this particular change is flagged as September 2026 in the body of the document. There is a chance that this new rule was inserted after I wrote that post, but i’m not sure.
I do have one potentially mitigating circumstance. I wrote and scheduled that post while I had COVID. My case was relatively mild, but the brain fog associated with that condition is a very real thing. In retrospect, reviewing two versions of a regulations document for textual differences may not have been the ideal endeavor while battling illness.
While that explains something about the conditions under which I made the mistake, it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. Fiend at Court is a one-woman operation. Outside of Grammarly, no editor checks my work before it goes live. I research, write, edit, proofread, format, schedule, and publish every post myself. That gives me complete control over what appears on the site. It also means that every hole in the quality-control process belongs to me.
Given the volume of material I have published over the years, mistakes are inevitable. I don’t say that to lower the standard. However, expecting one person to produce something every day indefinitely without ever getting anything wrong is not a particularly realistic expectation. The more useful question is what happens when I discover that I have erred.
I increasingly wonder whether our discomfort with admitting mistakes is partly driven by the way we treat the admission itself. Being wrong and admitting that you were wrong are not the same event, yet we sometimes treat the second as the greater failure. Once that happens, people have an incentive to defend a bad decision, reinterpret what they previously said, explain why circumstances made the outcome unavoidable, or avoid mentioning the problem altogether.
The existence of an error tells us considerably less than what happens after the error is discovered. I am owning up to this one.
Additionally, the new Regulation 7B deserves some attention. Fort Worth explicitly requires approval from the facility and all players on the court before a recording device can be used. If one player objects, the device has to be removed.
The player-consent portion strikes me primarily as common courtesy turned into a regulation. Recording matches has become increasingly common as phones, inexpensive cameras, and apps such as SwingVision have made video analysis readily accessible to recreational players. I record some of my own tennis matches. However, wanting video of my play doesn’t automatically entitle me to record everyone else on the court.
Whenever I record a practice session or a match, I typically offer to share the video with the other players on the court. I’ve never had anyone turn down that opportunity.
I am not aware of any facilities in the Fort Worth area that have recorded streaming services, but it is surely coming. The USTA National Campus in Orlando is an example that has installed recording systems and likely has contractual or operational restrictions governing outside recording equipment. Others may want control over cameras being mounted around their courts.
My preference would be for facilities with policies against outside cameras to prominently post them, rather than requiring people to seek approval for each use. I can’t imagine a scenario where a facility would disallow that equipment for a league match but allow it for a practice session.
After some debate, I decided to leave my original post as it was published. My analysis was correct, but incomplete. Once this post goes live, I will add an editorial comment against the original post owning up to the error and pointing to this post as the correction.
If I am expending the effort to write thousands of words pointing out problems with tennis rules, governance, administration, and occasionally other people’s mistakes, the deal has to work both ways.
In case anyone was wondering, this weekend’s theme centers on mistakes.
- 2027 USTA GFWTC League Regulations, Greater Fort Worth Tennis Coalition, dated August 2026.
- 2026 USTA GFWTC League Regulations, Greater Fort Worth Tennis Coalition, dated December 2025.
