In a recent ITA dual match, player A struck a ball over the fence after he lost the first set. The chair umpire refused to give a code saying, "he actually misshit the ball and did not intend for it to leave the playing area."How would you have ruled???
10 comments:
If it was the ball in play, no penalty. If it was not the ball in play, code violation.
Ball abuse
Code Violations. Any time a player hit the ball out of the court it is a Code Violation, Ball Abuse. An official who will not make the call as a code violation, ball abuse, is just trying to protect the player and team he is working for. The only time I've every encountered where a player was not coded for hitting the ball out of the court was at the end of a match and the winning player hit the ball oout of the court in jubilation.
It's officials like this that makes it tough on officials who try to enforce the rules.
I could go either way on this one. What were the wind conditions? If it was windy I probably would let it go if this was the first time the player acted up. Also, could his opponent stopped the ball from going over the fence? You also didn't mention whether or not it cleared the fence in the air or wither or not it bounced first.
Again - common sense goes a long way to understanding when and when not to assess a code. That's why we chair umpires get paid the big bucks - to use our brains once in a while.
The intent of the player is not a factor because none of us can read his mind. And I'll bet he said he did not intend to hit it out. The wind is not an issue; the sun is not an issue; the player's country of origin is not an issue. We only look at the result. The ball was hit over the fence. Code violation, ball abuse.
One of the chair umpires did not assess a code violation for ball abuse at the Big 12 tournament this weekend because the ball bounced over the fence. Was this appropriate?
Of course it's appropriate! Don't you realize from reading these blog postings that anything's appropriate in the ranks of collegiate tennis if you have the right chair umpire, right chief and right coach? Come on, you're smarter than that!
Under the assumption that play had stopped ...
Player intentionally strikes ball and ball leaves the court ... ball abuse, point penalty.
I had a similar instance in a recent UIL tournament. The server lost a game. She removed the extra ball from under her skirt and hit it behind her as she was walking to the bench. The ball bounced once and went over the 12 foot high fence where her own coach then caught the ball and threw it back into the court. She was clearly frustrated when she lost the game. She was mad when I coded her. Her coach did not object to the code at all.
While it generally results in a penalty, hitting the ball out of the court is NOT an automatic code, contrary to what was stated by ANONYMOUS and urban legend to the contrary among coaches and players. It's a judgment call. Through experience and by talking with other officials as well as coaches and players, most officials generally agree on what ball abuse looks like. Table 16 of the FAC, Guidelines for Assessing Penalties, addresses this scenario explicitly (p. 125, 2009 FAC).
P.S. It's officials who blindly enforce their own interpretation of the rules without being open to other views who make officiating difficult!
Wow, I have had this come up twice since this post. Both times the player contended that while he/she may have hit the ball in anger, it was unexpected that the ball left the court, both times with the ball going over a short side fence. Table 15 in the 2008 Friends of Court indicates that "generally" this should be coded (as distinct from always or sometimes). So I guess unless it appears to be a real freak that the ball leaves the court (ie it escapes through a gap in the fence, or strikes an object and takes a freak bounce), I will continue to code for this.
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