You are the chair official in an ITA women's singles match. Player A serves a second serve and Player B calls a let on the serve. You do not hear nor see a let and Player A did not hear nor see one either.
What would you rule?
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9 comments:
"Second serve"
Any player can call a service let if they believe they hear one.
This is a tough one. If there is no wind and no reason for the official and receiver to not hear the ball hit the net, overrule, point to the server. If however, it is windy or noisy (plane flying overhead), and the ball passed close enough to the net to possibly have ticked it, second serve. And the fun part is, you only have a second to decide.
Fact: A called let on the serve is an appealable point.
The question failed to indicate whether Player A appealed the let call.
If no appeal by Player A, then 2nd serve on the let call.
If player A did appeal the let call, then the chair would "overrule" the let call (since chair did not see nor hear the let) and award the point to Player A. And chalk up 1 overrule to Player B.
D1 Men's tennis instituted the 'no-let' on serve rule due to the numerous "phantom" let's that were called on Ace serves; which lead to many on-court situations getting out of hand.
i was there for this one - the ball was served to the side of the net closest to the ump. A let was called by player B and the ball looked to be a foot above the net.
Any player IS able to call a let, but only if in fact IT IS a let. Player A questioned the call - Noone else heard the let - so point to player "A".
FYI - this also goes down as an overrule(luckily she didn't have 2 overrules)
I agree with Anonymous 1 &2 and the kids hear better than I do.
Let stands, if player thought she heard a let would need to go with her call, per the Code.
Since there is a Chair Official the Chair Official calls lets. Why have the chair call lets - if there is no penalty for an erroneous call? It is not a second serve.
It's like overruling a line call. If you are 100% certain the player erred in calling a let, then that would constitute an overrule under ITA rules and the point is awarded to the server. However, as Anonymous pointed out, if there is any doubt whether or not the ball "could have" touched the net, then let would be the proper call.
This has to all occur within a split second in the chair umpire's mind, unless of course you are the Referee at a Tulsa match. It has been pointed out to me that in that case, you go along with whatever the home crowd says happened, or your days officiating their matches will be over sooner than you think.
Does anyone see a disturbing trend in all of the "How Would You Rule?" blogs? I'm talking about all of the different opinions tossed into the blogoshpere by folks who think they have the right answer to the scenario in question. Isn't it disturbing to see so many different opinions from so many veteran officials? What does that say for our training? If I was an ITA coach, I might start to wonder if the officials working for me know what they're doing. That is, unless you're in Tulsa and you know exactly what the hometown officials are doing. Randy, how about leaving a blog up for a couple of days, then having some ITA guru address it and resolve the question as to how the call should have been made? Or are the FAC and ITA rules in it, so confusing that there are no correct rulings anymore?
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