The Rules of Tennis
A first round match at Wimbledon last week between Daniil Medvedev and Jan-Lennard Struff provided a textbook example of the permanent fixture rule in tennis. It also illustrated why Reddit might not be the best source to turn to for official tennis rules interpretation.
Early on in the second set, Medvedev hit a ball that contacted the umpires chair. The ball then ricocheted into the court, landing in. Medvedev joked to the umpire that the point should be his. A short clip was posted as a meme on the tennis subreddit.
There was subsequent discussion suggesting that Medvedev should have requested a Hawk-Eye review since the ball was good. Additionally, there was debate on whether or not the umpire had the authority to overrule Hawk-Eye had Medvedev challenged the call. Others in the thread correctly pointed out that the only relevant rule is number 13 from the ITF Rules of Tennis.
13. BALL TOUCHES A PERMANENT FIXTURE. If the ball in play touches a permanent fixture after it has hit the correct court, the player who hit the ball wins the point. If the ball in play touches a permanent fixture before it hits the ground, the player who hit the ball loses the point.
ITF Rules of Tennis, 2021
Medvedev wouldn’t have wasted a Hawk-Eye challenge on where the ball landed because it was irrelevant to whether he had won or lost the point. As soon as the ball struck the umpires chair, the point was over and belonged to Struff.
Though it doesn’t pertain to this example, it is interesting to consider umpire authority when Hawk-Eye is used. First, there are two modes of Hawk-Eye usage. Wimbledon is using human line calling officials, so Hawk-Eye is used only in the event of a player challenge. The umpire would most likely have rejected the request for a player challenge because the point was over before the ball landed in the court.
If Hawk-Eye Live was in use, then Hawk-Eye is calling the all the lines, period. Most tournaments that have used Hawk-Eye Live do not allow the chair umpire to overrule the call. The umpire can only intercede in the cases where Hawk-Eye fails to make an obvious call. For this particular example, Hawk-Eye would not have made an audible call since the ball landed in. However, the umpire is not overruling Hawk-Eye, but rather correctly asserting the precedence of the permanent fixture rule.
In any case, the video is a fun and interesting example that illustrates the rule.
- The ITF Rules of Tennis, 2021.
