The Etiquette of Stray Balls

Every once in a while, something happens on a tennis court that is simultaneously a great blog post idea as well as a message that I never in a thousand years would have thought anyone needed to hear. Yet, here we are. As I mentioned yesterday, I played a tournament last weekend on a brutally cold and windy day. As an exacerbating factor, the tennis facility is a classic example of 1970s-era construction, with courts that are extremely close together and no physical barriers between them. Under those conditions, matches are frequently interrupted by stray balls from adjacent courts.

During one of my matches, my opponents sent a missed first serve over to the court next to us, where a men’s doubles match was still in the warmup. I held off on delivering my second serve because I expected the ball to be promptly returned to me. Instead, I was treated to an ostentatious lack of energy toward doing that. While the player it rolled toward quickly corralled our ball, he continued his warmup without returning it. It dragged on until I started to wonder if he realized the ball was from another court. I eventually had to vocalize “ball help” to get it back.

That challenged my assumption that experienced tennis players inherently understand that returning a ball to an active match takes priority over any warmup or casual hitting. It’s fundamental courtesy. All players have a responsibility to respect players on adjacent courts and avoid actions, or in this case, inactions, that break the flow of play. It was an unnecessary disruption to what was already a challenging day on the court.

Four games later, as I was preparing for a first serve, an angled drop shot from the same team on the adjacent court appeared to be heading our way. Once they realized they would not reach the ball before the second bounce, no effort to corral it before it crossed over to our court was made, even though that could have easily been done. While the ball initially looked to be headed well onto our court without human intervention, a gust of wind stopped the roll, and it came to rest just outside our doubles alley. At that point, both players on the adjacent court were much closer to the ball than me or my partner, yet they made no move to retrieve it. It resulted in an awkward standoff over who would restore the ball to the proper court.

This highlights another unwritten rule of tennis. Players should try to prevent balls from their court from rolling onto an adjacent court if it can be avoided. It shows respect for the other players and preserves the flow of other matches. Making an effort to stop a ball before it crosses to another court is a thoughtful gesture. It’s just good etiquette.

Not every ball can be stopped before it rolls onto an adjacent court or immediately returned once it does. Tennis can be chaotic, and sometimes, there simply isn’t an opportunity to intervene. No one expects perfection, nor is it realistic to assume that every stray ball can be dealt with instantaneously. However, what is expected is a token indication that the players recognize potential disruptions and take steps to minimize them. A little effort goes a long way in making the game as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, this story doesn’t end here. While the episodes described in this post are hardly noteworthy, what happened next was. What began as an annoying couple of lapses in tennis etiquette eventually escalated into actual violations of written tennis rules. That is the topic of tomorrow’s post.