A whiff is when a player attempts to strike the ball in tennis, but fails to connect. This is not to be confused with a shank, which results when the ball connects with the racquet frame rather than the strings, scudding off in physics defying angles. There is nothing more ridiculous in tennis than the whiff.
A whiff on an attempted service is one of the ways to generate a service fault per the ITF Rules of Tennis and the USTA Friend at Court.
The service is a fault if:
b. The server misses the ball when trying to hit it;
USTA Friend at Court, ITF Rules of Tennis, Section 19.b
There is an excellent illustration of a service whiff from a 2014 US Open match. Jo-Wifried Tsonga serving to Andy Murray.
Apart from the sheer entertainment value of the clip, it is interesting to note that the announcers had no idea what had actually been called, calling it “weird,” and stating that there should be a rule for that. There is a rule. It is the one covered by this post.
After the match, Tsonga was insistent that he did not whiff but rather ducked to avoid a bug that had glanced off the brim of his hat. This gets into the debate over intent, specifically did Tsonga swing the racquet intending to strike the ball? The umpire ruled that he did, hence the declaration of second serve.
There is a Case Ruling relevant to this part of the rule.
Case 1: After tossing a ball to serve, the server decides not to hit it and catches it instead. Is this a fault?
Decision: No. A player, who tosses the ball and then decides not to hit it, is allowed to catch the ball with the hand or the racket, or to let the ball bounce.
USTA Friend at Court, ITF Rules of Tennis, Section 19, Case 1
I am surprised to see the language that the player is allowed to catch the ball with the racquet. A hot debate would very likely be sparked in league tennis if a the ball shanked off the server’s racquet in a failed catch attempt. I would think that it best to not attempt that particular type of tennis flair.
Still upcoming, two additional ways to generate service faults.
- United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY
- “US Open scene: Duck! Tsonga whiffs on a serve“, WUSA, September 1, 2014.
