Without question, the two most painful times I have been struck by a tennis ball on the court were delivered courtesy of my own doubles partner. One of those was on my partner’s serve where I was hit so hard that the seams of the ball were clearly visible on the bruise. Fortunately that ball struck my butt, the most well padded part of my body. This brings us to the final way a service fault can be committed that I call fratricide.
The service is a fault if:
d. The ball served touches the server or server’s partner, or anything the server or server’s partner is wearing or carrying.
USTA Friend at Court, ITF Rules of Tennis, Section 19.d
The word “touches” makes this service fault sound so innocuous. Just a gentle kiss of the ball off the server’s partner. To be clear, if the serve that strikes the server’s partner is generated with any velocity at all, it smarts.
After my partner tattooed me in the butt in the event described above, I was most thankful that the ball had not struck me in the back of the head. It would have been a slightly less wild miss had it done so. I spend the rest of the match holding my racquet head interposed between my partner and my head when he was serving. It is a less than ideal ready position for volleying, but beats the hell out of a concussion.
Jelena Ostepenko delivered two head shots to her mixed partner at Wimbledon in 2019. Ostapenko is a veritable treasure trove of hard serves striking things other than the intended court.
This concludes discussion of the rules in the “Service Fault” section of the rules. Tomorrow we move on to the “Second Serve.” What else would come after the service fault?
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
