Monday, June 11, 2012

How Long Do We Put Up With Illegal Behavior?


There are many times that a tennis official will wonder about their level of tolerance when it comes to bad behavior by players, coaches, and parents. Check out this email we received last week:

"Have you heard about anything that happened at the NCAA's between USC & ILLINOIS mens dubs match with Steve Johnson of USC going crazy over a chair's overrule of his call? Heard he went over the deep end, by not only arguing & kicking a ball out of court, but also a point or two later hit an overhead smash right at the umpie's chair. He was never coded at all for this. If this kind of stuff went on how are we going to enforce anything with players doing this kind of stuff at NCAA's."

What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you think that the fact that Steve Johnson is the darling of ITA tennis had any bearing on this lack of a code?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

If the chair didn't code him, why didn't the referee. Am I missing something here?

RM said...

I guess we could cut the chair official some slack and assume that they didn't see him kick the ball out of the court. Of course, if he hit the chair official with an overhead he could always claim that it was just a mis-hit.

And now we wonder why they act like they do...

Anonymous said...

Not having seen it makes it more difficult to comment, but players (who usually are losing, but not always) after a call that goes against them will do things that are marginally codeable and try to draw the chair into the match to either: a) hope to make the official appear incompetent; b)place more blame on the official for the player's plight; or c)change the momentum of the match. I have had this happen only a few times over many, many matches and I do not allow myself to be taken in to this game. The bottom line is that the players are smart and know what is marginal behavior or behavior subject to different interpretations (such as the "mis-hit" overhead) and will try to draw the chair in to what will be treated by the player as another mistake. The fact that Djokovic can smash a bench without anything happening doesn't help any of us.

Anonymous said...

Officials are too scared to code college level players for anything due to not being invited back to events by the coaches. The referee should have issued the code.

Anonymous said...

Can you imagine what a referee or chair official would have happen to them if they coded Steve Johnson and he went to Oklahoma with John Roddick as his coach?

Anonymous said...

So 6:26 anonymous, if I understand correctly, you as an official can hide behind the "marginally codeable" rationale and do nothing until the player does something "really" codeable, but not marginally codeable, and then you can decide, after first having weighed the implication of your potential action on your continued employment by the player's coach, on whether you should code the player? Good Lord! No wonder we're all over the board on rules and "codeable" offense interpretation. BTW, what does it take to get a code from you, or do you choose not to involve yourself with code violations?

Anonymous said...

Wrong- 11:06 anonymous I think you missed the point- I could care less what the coach thinks and whether I work for him/her again- marginally codeable is frankly the wrong terminology to use- borderline behavior is more descriptive of the situation. I issue plenty of codes- however, I will not become a tool for the player to the detriment of his/her opponent.