Ever since the 2024 ITF Rules of Tennis was released, I have been watching for the corresponding update to the USTA Friend at Court. That is the official source for the rules and regulations for sanctioned play within the United States. 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 is a convenient time to also remind people that the name of this site is a riff on the USTA’s official rulebook.
As expected, the new Case Decision within the Permanent Fixtures section from the 2024 ITF Rules of Tennis also appears in the new version of the Friend at Court. It would be a major error if it had not. More notably, there were no new USTA Comments this year either, which is always a possible source for new interpretations. In other words, nothing else has changed.
The new ITF Case Decision is for objects attached to the net post. The full breakdown of that addition was provided a couple of weeks ago in “The 2024 ITF Rules of Tennis.” That included a personal lamentation that the new guidelines wouldn’t expressly prohibit the PVC vertical pipe scoreboards that are frequently used in my local area. This is the perfect opportunity to enumerate the reasons why I don’t like it.
For anyone who is mercifully unfamiliar with this tennis scorekeeping device, it consists of a PVC Tube with numbers ranging from 0-7 printed next to circular carve-outs on either side. Old tennis balls are used to mark the current score by moving them next to the corresponding games won by each competitor. There is also typically a spot marked “Set” at the top of the tube.
There are eight solid reasons why I do not like the PVC Tube scorekeeping device.
- It is unusable without extra balls to fill the pockets. Those are frequently absent, rendering it useless unless one of the players has extra balls in their bag to sacrifice to the cause.
- Most of the PVC tubes don’t have a spot to stow unused balls that may be eventually needed. When the match starts, there should be two balls at 0-0. Two additional balls are needed for the sets that have yet to be completed. However, there is no place for that.
- The “Home” and “Visitor” labels are inappropriate for tournament play. The nomenclature is also confusing for neutral-site team matches, league playoffs, and championship events. Having a scoring device that spectators can’t use to see who is winning is useless.
- The printed numbers denoting games won in the set don’t consistently run in ascending or descending order. Some facilities have adjacent courts with the numbers running in the opposite direction. That means that if people are on the sidelines watching from afar, the perception of the state of the match could be reversed from reality
- The tubes assume a viewing perspective from the side of the court. It is difficult to decipher the score from that location when installed at facilities where the only viewing area is behind the baseline.
- The tubes don’t hold the balls very securely. Consequently, they sometimes fall out, particularly on windy days. Random lets from a permanent fixture on the court are annoying.
- Touching the balls after a recent rain is simply gross. They are wet and slimy and probably harbor all sorts of bacteria. It feels like accidentally touching a used snotty Kleenex. No, thank you.
- The vertical scoring tube extends into the legitimate flight path of many shots. If you are pulled wide on a point, these devices are a literal obstruction for returning that ball down the line. Per the rules of tennis, any ball that clips the tube is a lost point for the player that hit it. This is actually the strongest argument against those devices.
Maybe next year, there will be a new USTA Comment that prohibits the usage of scorekeeping devices that extend more than 12 inches above the net post. That would be sufficient to rid the PVC pipe scorekeeping device from places that host USTA-sanctioned play. I can always dream.
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2024
- ITF Rules of Tennis, International Tennis Federation, 2024
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2023
I want to say that the PVC tubes are also not really accessible to wheelchair players either. Depending on how you sit in your chair, the top can be hard to reach.
Thank you for this perspective!
Good idea to review the different types of score keeper and to determine a favorite…
On a Serious point, I was Referee at a seniors tournament last week and had an issue with the Tournament software which I referred to the ‘Help Teams’ but they were unable to assist.
For a First Match Losers Consolation in a sanctioned event, the USTA do not now allow players to be moved or added. The draw is locked.
I had a player who had a ‘bye’ in the first round and his opponent in the second round withdrew with an injury, The player lost in the third round and was eligible for the Consolation event but the online software did not add the player automatically and so I contacted the ‘Help Team’ to do this. The player was keen to play, and so I managed to arrange a match for him with another competitor in the Consolation event near the line in the draw the player should have been.
Three days later the USTA responded and referred me to my State (Florida) Section. In the 2024 FoC, Regulation II.B-5 pp70 ‘A player who loses the player’s first-played match in the third round of the main draw may request that the Referee include the player in the consolation. The Referee shall decide based on available openings and scheduling considerations.’
The reply from USTA Florida was ‘USTA Adult Tournament Regulations only allow for the first two rounds of play to feed-in for FMLCs. This is noted on page 26 of the Adult Tournament Regulations. USTA Adult Tournament Regulations would supersede the FAC as specified on page 44, Part 3 – USTA Regulations of the FAC’. However, this reference would only appear to USTA Tournaments that are part of WTA,ATP or ITF circuits and the tournament I was involved with was not.
I wonder how many conflicts there are between USTA FoC and USTA/ITF/ATP/WTA regulations?
Thank you for this example! This looks like a fun Regulations Trace exercise that I am adding to my future posts list. As an additional wrinkle, there are many instances of the tournament software not supporting/doing what the Regulations say. There is also a pretty good chance that what USTA Florida told you is incorrect. I just pulled up the current USTA Adult and Family Tournament Regulations, and there is nothing on page 26 about FMLC at all.
It does seem as though the response from USTA Florida is erroneous.
Another area where teh Tournament Software diverges from what is mentioned in the FoC is the recording of results. FoC requires match tie-breaks to be recorded as 1-0(x) where x is the losers score in the match tie-break. However, the tournament software requires entry of match tie-break scores in the format as 6-2,2-6,10-8.
The effect of this is shown when a Round Robin is played. FoC states for calculation of Round Robin standings a match tie-break be considered as one set and one game. In fact, the tournament software calculation actually takes account of the FoC requirement which begs the question, why does the sore entry system not record scores in the manner specified by FoC.
Where a tournament uses different match formats (3 full sets with tie-breaks, two tie-break sets and a match tie-break etc.) the different methods of adding results is confusing and should be consistent.
Thanks for the new rule mention. I understand what you’re saying about PVC tubing being used as a scorecard and ideally nothing should be used as a scorecard attached to the net post, but I guess I don’t see why it matters that much whether it is or isn’t.
1. In my experience, stray balls absent during a real match is probably less than 1-2% of the time. If so, just don’t keep score. If a spectator or TD wants to see the score that badly, they’ll go find some stray balls.
2. You can easily keep unused balls in your bag, next to your bag, or by your bench out of the way.
3. It’s no different than the colored flip cards. Each player/doubles team is just assigned home or visitor.
4. That’s strange if so. That’s more of a consistency issue than the actual PVC tubing being used.
5. I haven’t seen a scorecard on the net post not like this. The vantage point would always be an issue depending where people are standing, too.
6. This is rare, but I guess just don’t see the scorecard then.
7. Tennis balls naturally have everyone’s sweat on them already during a match. If someone is really worried about this, they probably shouldn’t play tennis. We can say touching anything outside after a rain is gross, too.
8. This is probably the only thing that it really boils down to for not using PVC tubing as scorecards. And they probably shouldn’t be used for this reason alone, but how often does someone hit this type of scorecard when their ball would actually go into play if they hadn’t hit it? I’d predict definitely in less than 5% of matches just happening once, and probably much lower than that. It’s still very minor, but I suppose improvements can usually be made to anything. But even the small scorecards can get in the way too. Shouldn’t all scorecards on the net post then be eliminated completely if we’re concerned with this happening?