We have arrived at the section of The Code that shifts into the pre-match rituals of the sport. This portion of the document contains two principles under the subheading “WARM-UP.” I did not note it at the time, but the first two numbered principles we covered in this series appear under the generic subheading “PRINCIPLES.” In other words, the first two principles in The Code are Principles, and the next forty-four are something else entirely. That strikes me as oddly inconsistent.
In any case, we will be spending the next several weeks in this warm-up section. Consistent with the Overthinking ethos of this site, we are going to break down each of these principles in meticulous detail. (Excruciating was the first word that came to mind, but meticulous is better.)
Warm-up is not practice. A player should provide the opponent a warm-up of five to ten minutes.
USTA Friend at Court 2025 , The Code, Principle 3 (Partial Excerpt)
Principle 3 begins with the philosophical reminder that the warm-up is not practice, then moves directly into defining the length of a courteous warm-up. As with the earlier principles, I have been referencing the 2001 edition of the USTA’s Friend at Court as a companion text. It is the earliest definitively credible version I have and it has been useful for understanding how many of our modern norms trace back to much older traditions. It also offers a clear view into how the game has evolved over the past twenty-five years.
In the 2001 edition, Principle 3 starts in the same way by noting that warm-up is not practice. We are skipping over that concept for the moment and will return to it next Wednesday when it aligns better with my posting calendar. The real point of interest today is what comes next. In 2025, the guideline reads that players should provide a warm-up of five to ten minutes. In 2001, however, it stated that players should provide a five-minute warm-up or ten minutes if there were no ball persons.
The first difference between the versions is the shift to gender neutral language, which is a positive update that aligns The Code with modern expectations of inclusivity. The second difference is far more intriguing. The length of the warm-up once depended on the presence of ball persons. This implies that enough recreational matches were once played with that luxury to merit specific mention. I struggle to imagine many unofficiated matches where ball persons were regularly provided. One wonders what exclusive upper-end clubs the original authors belonged to.
Somewhere along the way, the underlying logic flipped. The older editions of The Code granted ten minutes when no ball persons were present. In modern recreational play, warm-up time has almost universally collapsed to five minutes, even though ball persons are never part of the equation. The USTA effectively cut the time in half without changing the underlying conditions. Recreational players are getting shortchanged, and the shift makes little practical sense.
This historical detail reinforces how much of tennis was once shaped by assumptions rooted in elite environments. The mention of ball persons in the text suggests expectations of matches in professional settings rather than the realities of the players who make up the sport’s broader foundation. At the recreational level, having a chair umpire is an occasional novelty, and ball persons would be an unheard-of luxury. The mention of ball persons as recently as 2001 illustrates the gap between the sport’s origins and the way it is actually played today.
When I returned to competitive tennis as an adult, my first official match back was a mother-daughter event. A five-minute warmup was strictly enforced by a roving official, and I was genuinely startled at how quickly that time evaporated. For juniors and adult 18 and over players, five minutes is now the standard. In senior age-group events, however, ten minutes remains the norm because older athletes have different physiological needs. Adequate warm-up time is essential for preparing joints, muscles, and connective tissue for competition. A longer warm-up improves injury prevention, physical confidence, and the quality of early play.
I am low-key annoyed that the five-minute warm-up time is strictly enforced at USTA League National Championships without any apparent consideration of age. Unlike sanctioned tournaments, these events do not provide practice courts or warm-up courts on the day of competition. Players are also warned, sometimes quite sternly, that stepping onto an unused court for a few extra minutes of warm-up time is forbidden.
I have an even more recent bitter data point. At the 55 and over Nationals, I am fairly certain that the allotted warm-up time for our first match had not yet expired when the roving official declared time. Players travel across the country to compete in these championships. It seems reasonable that the USTA should adopt a ten-minute standard for this environment. A National Championship should not be won on the basis of which players require less time to fully warm up.
This brings me to a semi-hot take. Tennis should return to the ten-minute warm-up standard across the board. The five-minute model feels more like a concession to scheduling efficiency than a reflection of what players actually need to start a match safely and competitively. A longer warm-up allows players to establish rhythm, calibrate movement, and find timing without feeling rushed. It reduces the risk of injuries and supports more consistent early-game quality for players at every level. It is hard to defend a standard that prioritizes clock management over player preparedness when a simple shift back to ten minutes would serve the sport better.
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2025
- Friend at Court: The USTA Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2001. (Hardcopy.)
In Iowa and Missouri Valley sectionals, our warmup is 10 minutes. I never knew the 5 minute warmup was more of a thing elsewhere in the country. But I suspect it’s 10 minutes in most areas, and there’s no officials around to enforce this except at playoffs. I don’t understand why it’s 5 minutes at Nationals or anywhere, unless weather is or will be an issue.
I do like that there’s more officials around at Nationals to enforce rules, regardless if the rules are good or not. For 1-2 of my matches this year, an official softly enforced this 5-minute warmup, but they didn’t for the others. While I don’t prefer the shortening of the warmup from 10 to 5 minutes, I highly doubt anything is won or less based on 5 fewer warmup minutes though. Players know this ahead of time, and should plan accordingly stretching out, etc on the sidelines before starting their matches. Players need to be ready to go, just the way it is. We don’t have an exact start time even though a time is posted either as we’re waiting for previous matches to finish on the courts we’re going to play on.