The Rules of Tennis
Technically the next section up in our steady march through the ITF Rules of Tennis as published in the USTA Friend at Court is “Role of Court Officials.” That section consists of a single rule which points to the Appendix which contains all the bureaucratic details of court officials. I am going to exercise creative license and defer discussion of that topic until I reach that point in the Appendices.
Somewhat appropriately, that means that the next section up is “Continuous Play.” All rules in this section fall under the general principle that play should be continuous, from the time the match starts until the match finishes. Officially the start of the match occurs the moment that the first service of the match is put into play.
Between points, a maximum of twenty-five (25) seconds is allowed.
ITF Rules of Tennis, USTA Friend at Court, 29(a).
Today I am going to focus exclusively on the first sentence of subsection 29(a), which is that players are currently limited to 25 seconds between points. The reason that I use the word currently is because the time allowed has bounced around all over the place as tennis struggles to find a pace that is appropriate for both players and spectators.
As an example, I recently was able to locate confirmation that the time allowed between points was 30 seconds in my youth. The Rules of Tennis printed in the 1980 USTA Yearbook confirms my recollection.
In the intervening years, the amount of time was lowered to 20 seconds. This was officially raised back up to 25 seconds just this year. As I wrote about in “Friend at Court 2020, It’s About Time,” I thought that the time had actually been lowered to 25 seconds much earlier, but the time allowed was 20 seconds in the 2019 Friend at Court.
Last week during the Western and Southern Open and also this week in the early rounds of the US Open I have been paying rapt attention to the instructions that the umpires are giving the players about starting the “shot clock.” Since players are handling their own towels due to COVID-19 safety protocols, there is considerable angst over when the clock will be started.
Specifically umpires have used the phrase “some leeway” due to the situation. On a couple of occasions it was verbalized that if the player went for the towel that the clock would be started at first contact with the towel. Looking closely at the televised matches, that seems to be the general practice of the chair umpires.
My prediction is that the duration of matches will start to trend longer as long as COVID-19 safety protocols that restrict towel handling is in place. I don’t think that the viewing public will notice or care. It is great to have live tennis on again.
It will be interesting to see if the practice of having ball kids handle the towels for the players ever resumes. I think that the COVID-19 crisis has forced people to deeply think through that practice for the first time which has resulted in the realization… that sweaty towels are gross.
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
- Official USTA Tennis Yearbook, 1980, H.O. Zimman Inc, Lynn, MA.
