The USTA Friend at Court 2022

The Rules of Tennis

The 2022 edition of the Friend at Court has been published by the USTA. There were no changes to the Rules of Tennis as published by the ITF. The USTA made minor changes to scheduling guidelines and the minimum rest between matches.

Scheduling Guideline Changes

The scheduling guidelines are reflected in Table 9 of the Friend at Court which specifies the maximum number of matches that should be scheduled in a day for Adult, Family, and Wheelchair Divisions. It is important to emphasize the use of the word guidelines. These are not hard and fast rules.

The definition of the first two rows in the table have been tweaked to lower the age of applicability from 60 to 55. It is likely that the change was motivated to bring it into closer alignment with the current oldest NTRP age division which is 55+. That row has also been expanded to reflect that it applies to all NTRP divisions where previously the scope was only 4.5 and up.

Another change is in the second row of the table that is precipitated by the age change in the first row. The ages on that row were changed to pick up the 60+ division that was edited out of the preceding row.

While the USTA claims that there are change bars in the Friend at Court to highlight significant changes, arguably the biggest change in Table 9 is not immediately apparent because the whole row was deleted. It is really hard to have a change bar where the content is no longer there.

The deleted last row of the table specified limits for NTRP 4.0 and lower divisions. It was effectively absorbed into the first row that was only 4.5 and up in 2021. For that subset of players, the number of matches allowed per the guidelines has actually increased.

I was kind of surprised to see the USTA move into the direction of more rather than less tennis. (Yay!)

Minimum Rest Between Matches

The changes regarding the minimum time between matches are also primarily age adjustments in the divisions. Age group divisions through age 45 used to be allowed 60 minutes between standard matches. That now runs through Age 55.

In NTRP play, 55+ divisions now explicitly receive 60 minutes between matches. Weirdly, a 90 minute break is now explicit for NTRP 65+ divisions. USTA conducts NTRP leagues for 65+. Hopefully this isn’t a sign that they are considering splitting tournament play once again into 4 divisions.

Finishing Shots

The changes are pretty minimal for 2022. Most players will probably never notice any difference.

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1. Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2022