Since New Year’s Day rolled around, I have eagerly anticipated the release of the 2024 ITF Rules of Tennis. As a blog that started with a rules-oriented focus, monitoring updates to that document is a part of this site’s core mission.
This year I used a pdf comparison tool to quickly identify every location where there are differences between the 2023 and 2024 editions of the rules. Usually this turns up a handful of pagination and font changes, but this year the detected differences was unusually high. A quick review revealed a lot of punctuation updates. For example there are an inordinate number of new commas in the document. There were also quite a few extraneous blank spaces that have now been purged. My best guess is that someone unleashed Grammarly or a similar application to check the punctuation.
I found only one significant change in the 2024 ITF Rules of Tennis. It comes in the form of a new Case Decision within the Permanent Fixtures section.
Case 1: Can objects be attached to the net post?
Decision: Yes, provided that these objects are reasonable in size and placement and approved as Player Analysis Technology. As a guide, attachments should not be more than 50 cm wide (parallel to the net), 40 cm deep (perpendicular to the net) and 122 cm in height. Attachments should be placed so that they do not extend more than 10 cm inside the net post and not extend more than 20 cm above the net post or extend more than 20 cm from the plane of the net.
2024 ITF Rules of Tennis, 2. Permanent Fixtures, Case 1
I don’t know why the ITF has suddenly gone exclusively metric on us. All the other court dimensions are given using Imperial units. Additionally, where metric units are used for things like balls, the Imperial value is also provided. Consequently this is somewhat of a departure for the ITF Rules of Tennis.
There are two ways to interpret the fact that Player Analysis Technology is explicitly mentioned in this Case Decision. The way I read this is that if the net post attachment is a device that falls under Player Analysis Technology, then it must be approved as such. The alternate interpretation is that nothing other than Player Analysis Technology can be attached. That would eliminate a lot of scoreboards, drink trays, and trash cans that are frequently attached to net posts at tennis venues.
Even so, some scorekeeping devices might not be in compliance. 122 cm in height is about four feet. I think that some of the “insert a ball” PVC pipe scorekeeping devices might be taller than that. That would be great because I seriously don’t like that form factor. Unfortunately, the dimensions in this case decision are explicitly stated as guides rather than requirements, so there are no grounds for demanding their removal or replacement at all facilities.
Outside of punctuation, the 2024 edition of the rules fixes some capitalization issues. It also picks up the rebranding changes for the ITF Masters Tour which was previously known as the ITF Seniors Circuit. The copyright date for the 2024 Rules is 2023, which I have flagged as a mistake in years past. However, since the year has now lagged with two consecutive editions, that may be intentional. The ITF Foundation also lists SurfTech and Unica Boya as new general members for this year.
The annual publication of the ITF Rules of Tennis gates the release of the USTA’s official rulebook. That may contain additional updates for sanctioned play in the United States. Consequently I have now turned my attention to waiting impatiently for the release of the 2024 USTA Friend at Court. It should be out any day now.
- ITF Rules of Tennis, International Tennis Federation, 2024
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2023
