[tennisbiz] Re: Line calls and pressure
What can be done about bad calls is an interesting
topic.
Bad line calls has to be a mix of pressure from
parent, coaches, the child's personality and simple
errors.
It is important to remember that unintentional errors
do occur and not jump to the conclusion that every bad
lines call is cheating.
As an observer, one oneself can not always see if the
line call is truly bad, but one easily observe trends.
Trends such of 15 close balls, 13 are called out.
Something is wrong with that picture. On the
otherhand, another trend that I see is that both the
kids with a reputation and their parents are partially
ostracized at tournaments.
Regarding your experience in Maryland, it is no
surprise that 3 out of 4 matches in a junior
tournament have visibly bad line calls. It does
strike me strange that a roving judges would be on the
court for three out of four match to be able to
overrule the calls. How did you get such good court
coverage from the judges?
Neal Dorman writes that he always lets the roving
officials know when such a situation is present.
What is the consensus opinion on this board about
parents going to court officials and in effect
communicating that some other child has a reputation
or the other child has been hooking their child and
the lines judge ought to take a look. Certainly, I've
wanted to do that, but it seems to also be part of the
culture of tennis that it is up to the players to get
the official, rather than having parents involve
themselves indirectly in the officiating.
Received on Thu May 29 2003 - 20:32:42 CDT
