SF Tennis Freak

Maybe it’s just the guys with, but I’ve noticed a growing (and disturbing) trend of “When in doubt, call it out!”

Most players make fair line calls, and typically only err when facing the loss of a critical game, set, or match point. I refer to these as “wishful thinking” line calls, because they genuinely see the call based on what they want to believe. But now it seems that the overwhelming need to win is overtaking the need for fair play, even in the social tennis ranks.

I play social doubles with a great group of guys here in San Francisco. Though there have been a couple of occasions where someone’s made some pretty bad calls, most of the time everyone else is pretty good with them.

On Monday, I was at the tail end of a tight set, serving at 8-7 in the tiebreaker, when I received one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen on a clear service winner. It was a great serve into the body of the receiver that had skidded off the service line. However, to the utter amazement of my partner and me, his partner called it out.

I immediately stopped play and had what I will only describe as a “frank conversation on bad line calls made in order to prevent a loss”. After some back and forth, we ended the conversation by agreeing to “take two”. I did that only because one of the guys in the group had his young son courtside, and I didn’t want to model secondary “jerk” behavior in front of him. But to be honest, the set was over for me.

When someone crosses that line in a match, I’m “done”. I promptly lost the next two points en route to losing the set. Though I could barely bring myself to shake hands afterward, I did so anyway. I wasn’t going to compound the sour ending by being a bad sport.

I’ve been hooked before on calls, but this time was different. My umping work has given me such a strong desire for fair play (in order to promote the best tennis/fun) that I struggle in situations like this where the win comes at the cost of good sportsmanship. Tennis is supposed to be fun, especially social tennis is supposed to be fun. Calls like the one I got the other day make me want to immediately walk off the court. If it can’t be fun, I don’t want to be there.

There are a lot of cool guys (and a couple of women) who play in this group, so it’s easy to avoid playing with someone you’d rather not. We’ll see how it goes the next time I see him there, but odds are that we won’t be playing again anytime soon.

Some might question why I let a bad call get under my skin to this extent, and the answer is simple. Tennis is fun for me, so any time spent on court with someone who kills that buzz by hooking line calls is wasted time. Others might not be bothered at all by this type of behavior, and God bless them… but I’m not one of them!

I’m posting this to make people think about their own calls. Or at the very least, maybe I can embolden someone to call out players who try to make clearly bad calls on important points. If we don’t, the offenders will think that it’s okay to ruin other’s enjoyment of the game for the sake of winning. And then we all lose.

I’ll end with two great line call mottos to live by:

1. A ball that’s 99% OUT is 100% IN.

2. If you can’t clearly see the ball out, the ball is good.

Take your pick, and take it to heart! 😉