We often get blog posts from our blogging friends in Oklahoma but this one is great. Happened over the weekend in Oklahoma so we would sure like your comments.
SCENARIO: In a men's ITA dual match, player A signaled a ball was out during a rally but quickly corrected his call and kept playing. The chair official let them continue play.
Was this the correct action by the chair official?
SPECIAL NOTE: I did speak with the official who chaired the match and he said the player signaled 60% out and then continued play. We would welcome your comments on that too.
HINT: The Oklahoma coach did not think it was...
10 comments:
Hmmm. Very interesting scenario. According to the rules, the chair umpire should have stopped play and awarded the point to Player B.
In reality, I probably would have done the same thing and let play continue, since Player B did not question the out call. Therefore, the ball was either OUT or Player A didn't see Player B make the erroneous call.
If the coach goes beserk, then he (or she) should do a better job teaching his players the rules.
In an effort to get to the chair official, the Oklahoma coach tripped over the chair official's guide dog. Loss of point.
No. Once he signals out, then the point is over and play stops. He can immediately correct his call and the point goes to the other side; but an out call stops play.
Interesting question....the Code (12) Says "If a player mistakenly calls a ball "out" and then realizes it was good, the point shall be replayed if the player returned the ball within the proper court". In ITA 1-B-7 states "A player shall reverse his "out" call if he realizes he made a mistake or if he is uncertain of the call. The point goes to the opponenet. It is never played over." In ITA Rules 1-C-5 the rule states, "If the receiver returns a ball and simultaneously calls a fault and then changes his call to good, then the receiver loses the point because of interference of play, even if the return is good." In ITA play it would seem that the returner who reversed his call should lose the point. On the other hand, with three separate (and probably more because that's the nature of our ponderous rule book)references to changes in calls, one could see where there might be confusion on the parts of all involved.
Hope the play was on the far long line with the player's back to the official, so he could claim not to have seen the signal. Otherwise, does he still have his head?
I almost had the very same thing come up in a dual match this weekend. I say almost, because the one player started to say "out" and caught herself mid syllable, and it sounded more like "OhIn". She lost the point anyway, but on reflection, if she clearly said out, then said in, I should have immediately awarded the point against her. If she did something more ambigious, like she did in my case, then it would fall under the hinderance rule and the other player would have stop play, call a hinderance, and hope that I agreed that it was in fact a hinderance (like shouting something during an overhead).
The OU coach should take one of his buggers and put it on the chair official's shoe as a token of his appreciation. We need to know what Wally would do.
Maybe the player only said 49.49% out; therefore the ball is still in.
Looks like they go by different rules up there in Oklahoma. No wonder the OU and OSU coaches have problems when they come to Texas. We actually follow the rules down here.
Isn't this ITA Tennis 101?
Once the player makes an out call (visible or audible), play MUST stop and the chair umpire should have called the score out in favor of Player B based on the fact that Player A was unsure of his call and kept playing the point. Maybe next time, Player B wouldn't jump the gun on a call he wasn't sure about. It's immaterial whether or not the ball was actually out. If there is uncertainty in a call, then the call must go to the opponent.
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