A couple of weeks ago, our sequential walkthrough of The Code reached Principle 15, which requires tennis players to make prompt audible or visible calls. At the time, I focused primarily on the requirement to communicate the call. Even a ball that lands several feet beyond the baseline still needs to be called out.
We have now reached Principle 17, which provides considerably more information about what The Code means when it uses the words “prompt” and “promptly.”
Prompt calls eliminate two chance option. A player must make all calls promptly. A call must be made either before the player’s return shot has gone out of play or before an opponent has had an opportunity to play the return shot.
USTA Friend at Court 2001, The Code, Principle 17
“Promptly” could potentially be a fairly subjective standard. Tennis happens quickly, and a small interval can exist between seeing where a ball lands, processing that information, making a call, and possibly hitting the ball. Two players could have very different opinions about whether a call made during that sequence was sufficiently prompt.
Principle 17 gives us something more concrete. A call must be made before one of two things happens: the player’s return goes out of play, or the opponent has an opportunity to play the return.
That means merely hitting the ball does not make the call too late.
We encountered an example of that in the Principle 15 post. At USTA Texas 18+ Sectionals, I watched a receiver call a second serve out while simultaneously reflecting the ball back into the net with her racquet. Her opponent later argued that the receiver had missed the return and therefore lost the point.
Principle 17 helps explain why that argument failed. The receiver did not have to make the call before her racquet touched the serve. She needed to make it before her return went out of play. She did exactly that, both audibly and visibly. The fact that her racquet was already moving and happened to contact the ball did not invalidate the call.
Change the timing slightly, however, and the result changes.
Suppose a player is uncertain about a ball near their baseline and returns it. Unfortunately, their shot sails long. They cannot then decide that the original ball was out. Once their return is out of play, Principle 17 closes the window to make the original call. Otherwise, they could have attempted the return and preserved an out call as a fallback if the return failed.
The second deadline in Principle 17 handles what happens when the return stays in play. A player cannot hit the questionable ball back, watch their opponent move toward it, and then make the out call after seeing what develops. Once their opponent has had a chance to play the return, the window has closed again.
Those two deadlines cover slightly different situations. If my return ends the point by going out, I need to have made the call before that happens. If the point continues, I need to make the call before my opponent has an opportunity to play the next shot. Either way, I do not get to acquire additional information about how the point is developing before deciding whether the previous ball was out.
That seems to be the practical reason The Code does not simply require a call before the player hits the ball. Human reaction does not always happen in a strict order. I can see a ball land out, begin making the call, and still have enough momentum in my swing that my racquet contacts it. Principle 17 accommodates that reality. What it does not accommodate is waiting to see what happens.
There is a useful distinction there. The rule allows some physical latency between the ball landing and the point actually stopping. It does not allow a player to use that interval to decide which outcome is more favorable.
Today’s Principle 17 corresponds to Principle 18 in the 2001 Friend at Court. The language is substantively the same. That longevity probably reflects how basic the underlying problem is. Players sometimes need a fraction of a second to make a call, particularly when they are simultaneously trying to play the ball. They do not need enough time to discover whether continuing the point worked out in their favor.
Today, we have only covered the first part of Principle 17. Next Wednesday, we will move to the second paragraph of this principle, which is much more interesting. The timing requirement is not merely about keeping play moving. It is designed to prevent a player from having what The Code calls “two chances to win the point.”
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2026
- Friend at Court: The USTA Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2001. (Hardcopy.)
