The Code, Principle 11: Should You Concede the Point?

Every Wednesday, this site examines a rule or governing principle that shapes how tennis is actually played. We are currently in the midst of a sequential walkthrough of The Code, exploring one principle at a time as it appears within the USTA’s Friend at Court. During the past two weeks, we have examined Principle 11 from the perspective of a player requesting help on a line call. This week, I want to examine a question that Principle 11 never explicitly answers.

Requesting opponent’s help. When an opponent’s opinion is requested and the opponent gives a positive opinion, it must be accepted. If neither player has an opinion, the ball is considered good. Aid from an opponent is available only on a call that ends a point.

USTA Friend at Court 2026 , The Code, Principle 11

Suppose your opponent plays one of your shots as good that you know with certainty landed out, but they don’t ask for your opinion… should you offer it? Interestingly, Principle 11 is completely silent on that scenario.

Throughout The Code, responsibility for making line calls is explicitly assigned to the player on the side of the net where the ball lands. Principle 11 creates a narrow exception to that arrangement by allowing an opponent’s opinion to be requested on a point-ending call. However, that exception arises only when someone asks. The principle does not go on to say that players have an affirmative obligation to volunteer information that was never requested.

If I miss a shot by more than a foot or so, I will often say, “I missed it,” before the ball even lands. That reaction is almost instinctive. Usually, I am already mentally replaying the poor mechanics or questionable shot selection that produced that outcome. In those situations, I am not really officiating the point. I simply know it is over.

Close balls are different. If I think my opponent has called one of my shots good when I believe it actually landed just out, I generally do not volunteer that information. It is not because I believe honesty suddenly becomes optional. Rather, my interpretation is that The Code assigns responsibility for that call to my opponent unless they ask for my opinion. Without that invitation, I have generally assumed that the point belongs to me.

To be candid, this situation rarely arises in my own matches. In my experience, most recreational players are seldom so generous with close calls that I find myself wondering whether they accidentally gave me a point. In recreational tennis, the challenge usually runs in the opposite direction.

Still, the question lingers. Would the spirit of The Code be better served if players voluntarily surrendered points they knew they did not win? Or would doing so begin to blur the carefully defined responsibilities that make self-officiated tennis function in the first place?

I genuinely do not know. One of the things I have come to appreciate during this walkthrough is that The Code often draws remarkably bright lines. This is one place where the line seems much less distinct. The written rule tells us exactly what to do when an opponent asks for our opinion. It is largely silent on whether we should volunteer that opinion when nobody asks.

I feel like this is one of those rare places where the letter of The Code and its broader spirit leave room for thoughtful discussion. I would be genuinely interested to hear how others approach this situation. If you clearly saw your own shot land out, but your opponent called it good and never asked for your opinion, what would you do?

1. Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2026
2. Friend at Court: The USTA Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2001. (Hardcopy.)