<p>Today at my high school tennis match, my teammate made a questionable call late in the final set of the match. For all you tennis players, it was one of those calls where you know the ball is out, but you know that from a distance -the other side of the court- your opponent will think it's in. </p>
<p>After this call, the opposing player came to the net, proceeded to swear at my teammate, before ending by saying "you're a f-ing baby". My teammates is #1 singles and a sophomore.
My teammate left the court in tears, he ended up winning, but was terribly upset by the incident. The worst part is, the opposing coach came to our side of the bleachers and said "what a brutal call, that ball was inside the line." Apparently he didn't hear all of the curses made by his player. To top it all off, their team chant at the end was "We don't cheat." Our coach told us to just keep level headed and not to get provoked by any jeers.</p>
<p>Our coach is emailing our athletic director who will talk to the opposing school's AD. Hopefully some suspension will come out of this.</p>
<p>So my point is, what do you guys think? Just share any thoughts, I am mulling the situation in my head and would like to hear more opinions. Thanks so much!</p>
<p>When you have a chance, read John McPhee’s book Levels of the Game. In it he describes the early career of Arthur Ashe. It is a great lesson in how to triumph over disgusting behavior through impeccable sportsmanship.</p>
<p>If your teammate is certain that he made the right call, and if he does not have the tendency to make calls in his own favor, you and the coach should back him up. Even if his call was wrong and self-serving, the opposing players and coach behaved in an unsportsmanlike manner. It is my observation that players usually take their line from the coach. Sounds like this coach sets a poor example.</p>
<p>Thanks for your response, I totally agree with you. He’s not one to make a call in his own favor like that. Sounds like a interesting read, i will surely pick that up after college apps are done :D</p>
<p>Don’t you have officials to make these calls? As you can see I know nothing about high school tennis :)</p>
<p>I have a problem from time to time with another kind of call - I know that the ball is out, but because of my angle to the ball and the line, I don’t see it out. In this case, I always call it in. I did this last week and the other player thought it was out and was going to the bench (I would have won the game) but I sent the balls back over to him and got in position for the next point.</p>
<p>If your teammate saw the ball out, then it was out.</p>
<p>I never question calls on the other side of the net. I may think that the call was wrong but I don’t ever question one.</p>
<p>The other side expressed bad sportsmanship. Your teammate shouldn’t feel any guilt over the issue and shouldn’t have called it in just to make the other person feel better. There are all kinds of factors where you think a ball is going in actually goes out. Wind, spin, the lines not being straight, influence of other lines, etc.</p>
<p>Look at all of the disputed calls in pro matches that are analyzed by the computer video system and you’ll see that professional (both the players and line judges and umpires) get calls wrong too.</p>
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<p>It’s usually call your own lines. I don’t ever recall officials while playing in college.</p>
<p>@Bovertine For high school tennis, we don’t have officials.</p>
<p>@BCEagles91 I understand what you’re saying and agree with you. How can one dispute a call when they are 40 feet away from the bounce compared to a person who is much closer? I usually just ask if they are sure, and if the person is actually not a 100 % sure, then ill get the point. Glad to see we have some tennis players in the forum!</p>
<p>Interesting. Do they even have umpires? ( I think that’s what they call the person who sits in the chair in the middle)</p>
<p>An umpire typically sits on a high stand above the court so that they can see the court well. Someone would have to haul these structures onto the tennis courts and then remove them and put them in storage after the matches are concluded. This assumes that there’s room to put these structures up on the court. Sometimes the fence doors to courts would make it difficult to bring such a structure onto to the court.</p>
<p>Edit: I had a look around at stands and there are some portable stands that fold up that could be brought onto a court through your typical court doors but I’d never want to sit in one of these. They don’t look very stable.</p>
<p>Or maybe that person is called referee or something else. But now that I think about it you woulsd need a fleet of officials for a high school match, so I see why that’s impractical.</p>
<p>wow that is very ‘different’. Can’t imagine not having officials at a game (for these problems). Even for recreational tennis I can barely make my own calls and ask my team/opponent for help. Learn something new everyday.</p>
<p>BTW i find it very hard to beleive that it is also the case in the state playoffs</p>
<p>I think your teammate shouldn’t have cheated which is what precipitated all of this.</p>
<p>I’ve seen this happen, i.e. a player calling ‘out’ a ball that was clearly in, i.e. cheating, in HS tennis games (where there are usually several games playing at once and they don’t have enough ‘officials’ to watch them all - it’s up to the players to be at least honest). It’s disgusting.</p>
<p>I don’t think the opposing player should have cursed your teammate out either but having your opposition cheat like this can bring out emotions.</p>
<p>If anyone should be suspended it’s your teammate.</p>
<p>I play with a few high-school tennis coaches and I’ll ask them about it when I see them next. I think that your typical qualifiers match for a pro events don’t have umpires.</p>
<p>Tennis is “self refereed” to a surprisingly high level. Even in D1 college tennis and some low level pro events the players generally make their own calls. In some events there is someone in the chair called a “solo chair umpire” who is primarily a scorekeeper and will only make line calls if one player challenges the other’s calls…even in cases where he/she clearly sees the ball.<br>
In junior, collegiate and challenger level pro events bad line calls are rampant. In fact one rule was changed in men’s D1 tennis some years ago because players were using it unfairly: Players would get aced or be unable to return a serve and call a “let” (a ball that touches the net on a serve is a takeover and called a let) so the server would be forced to repeat his serve. It was such a problem that lets in college tennis were eliminated (only on the men’s side…the women didn’t seem to use this gambit so much) and all serves are now played, even if they tic the net.</p>
<p>GladGradDad, did you read
correctly before you responded? The teammate called an out ball “out” and the opponent swore at him at the end of the match. Who should be suspended?</p>
<p>My kid was a starter on the HS varsity tennis team. Most matches of one school against the other fill up all the available tennis courts (6 or 8 or so) and the only ‘officials’ are the two coaches - one from each HS. They can’t referee each game and need to depend on the honesty of the players. Unfortunately, not all players are honest, even some of the supposed #1 players.</p>
<p>
Well, No! I didn’t read it correctly. Thanks for making me read it again.</p>
<p>OP - consider my response a generic one then for the cases where someone does cheat on this point and I’ve seen it happen. Sorry I misread your post.</p>
<p>Like I said, the opposing player shouldn’t have cursed your teammate out regardless of the call.</p>
<p>Note - learning how to handle the cheaters, poor sports, and emotional responses in games like tennis and other HS sports is part of the character building aspect of HS sports.</p>
<p>This is all very interesting. In football we always had officials. Of course they couldnr see everyrhing. In work slo pitch softball leagues we even had an ump.
So I take it in tennis you call the line on your side and nobody cares about foot faults.</p>
<p>Sort of off tyopic but one thing that always cracks me up is in football when they haul out the chains and call a ball fractions of an inch short. As if they could always even place it that accurately to begin with.</p>
<p>My S played varsity tennis for 3 years. They really should have officials there but I guess it’s a money thing. These players are told over & over again about fairness, cheating that won’t be tolerated and sportsmanship. They were one of the finest teams in the state.</p>
<p>The other team’s coach did a disservice to his team by not teaching them from the beginning how to be gracious, whether winning or losing. He should be spoken to or reprimanded by the athletic director. Those teammates need an adult coach to teach them some proper court manners.</p>
<p>In our state, we did have officials for higher level games in the state playoffs.</p>
<p>OP: You may want to just talk to the other team’s school athletic director so he is aware of the incident. You are not looking to get “anyone in trouble” or fired, but you are concerned that their sportmanship was severly lacking and it may just need to be addressed.</p>