Adorable Misunderstandings Of The Rules

Cindysphinx

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
My sister is returning to tennis at the 3.0 level after many years away from the game. She was at team practice, and the following happened.

Her partner raced wide to retrieve a shot. She swung her racket and hit the ball, but her racket touched the side curtain. Play continued.

Then she loudly declared, "Wait, wait! I touched the net, so we lose the point."

:)
 
Cindysphinx

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
The other one I heard about was also from sis. In a 2.5 singles match, captain sis was watching one of the dubs players play her first singles match. Her player was taking this whole benefit of the doubt thing pretty seriously. Her payer was playing balls that were well into the alleys.

After the match, my sister asked her about this. She did not know the alleys were out. For the entire match, she had played the doubles court.

I know this lady well now. She is a 4.0 singles player and she knows the alleys are out.
 
Fuji

Fuji

Legend
That's pretty funny! At least she was attempting to be honest! :)

Thanks for the share Cindy!

-Fuji
 
Cindysphinx

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
Wait. Thought of another one.

Last year, I was doing some serious moonballing on clay. I hit a shot that had topspin and landed deep. Opponent backed up up up, but the ball bounced over her head and hit the back curtain.

So she claimed the point.

We had a conference at the net. She said the ball isn't allowed to hit a permanent fixture, and it was her point because the ball's hitting the back curtain deprived her of an opportunity to return it.

Dumbfounded, I looked at her partner, who was nodding. I had the rules, but it would take me an eternity to figure out which rule applied and walk them through it.

Finally, I said, "My ball landed in your court. What happens to it after that is *your* problem."

For some reason, that explanation made sense to them.
 
S

sureshs

Bionic Poster
Cindysphinx said:
Wait. Thought of another one.

Last year, I was doing some serious moonballing on clay. I hit a shot that had topspin and landed deep. Opponent backed up up up, but the ball bounced over her head and hit the back curtain.

So she claimed the point.

We had a conference at the net. She said the ball isn't allowed to hit a permanent fixture, and it was her point because the ball's hitting the back curtain deprived her of an opportunity to return it.

Dumbfounded, I looked at her partner, who was nodding. I had the rules, but it would take me an eternity to figure out which rule applied and walk them through it.

Finally, I said, "My ball landed in your court. What happens to it after that is *your* problem."

For some reason, that explanation made sense to them.
Click to expand...

You need to reexamine the people in your life
 
user92626

user92626

G.O.A.T.
Unlike Cindy, I had a cheating misunderstanding from my opponent(s).

I was up and my incompetent partner served (his first serve) the ball right into my back. I was recovering from the pain and my partner was apologizing, and the other guys were laughing, then they said the point was theirs because the ball hit a body. I was in no mood to argue and let them have it.
 
T

tnnisfan

New User
I have one to add to the fun... We were playing a friendly club doubles match and didn't warm up our serves beforehand. We decided to play "first in" with our serves. Well, the sweet newbie got her first serve "in". We played it out and won the point. She got mad and demanded a "re-play" because it wasn't fair that her first serve went "in".
 
J

JW10S

Hall of Fame
My partner & I arrived early for our court reservation and while we were waiting for the couple on the court to finish we overheard the server call the score '15-5'. The returner won the point and then the server called the score '15 all'. Turns out they were new to the game and had heard other players use the slang term '5' instead of '15' and thought a game was scored '5,15,30,40,game'.
 
mucat

mucat

Hall of Fame
tnnisfan said:
I have one to add to the fun... We were playing a friendly club doubles match and didn't warm up our serves beforehand. We decided to play "first in" with our serves. Well, the sweet newbie got her first serve "in". We played it out and won the point. She got mad and demanded a "re-play" because it wasn't fair that her first serve went "in".
Click to expand...

I love "first in", I can just serve to the wrong side of the court all day to practice my serve. On the other hand, I can touch my opponent's first serve before it land on the court and negate his turn to warming up his serve. :D
 
jonnyjack

jonnyjack

Semi-Pro
mucat said:
I love "first in", I can just serve to the wrong side of the court all day to practice my serve. On the other hand, I can touch my opponent's first serve before it land on the court and negate his turn to warming up his serve. :D
Click to expand...

I rather do warm up serves instead of playing first in. Some of my playing partners insist on FBI though so I'm going to try the tactics you just described!
 
Cindysphinx

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
If it is a social match and people don't want to warm up serves, I think it is good practice to just let the first ball count for everyone. You just hit an easy serve and then deal with the consequences. It teaches you to win points behind a serve that is far from your strongest, which is a good skill to have.
 
S

sureshs

Bionic Poster
Cindysphinx said:
If it is a social match and people don't want to warm up serves, I think it is good practice to just let the first ball count for everyone. You just hit an easy serve and then deal with the consequences. It teaches you to win points behind a serve that is far from your strongest, which is a good skill to have.
Click to expand...

That goes back to my injury prevention tips for you in another thread. You should never serve cold. Even if you tell yourself it is an easy serve, you will put in effort. You should either do FBI or hit some practice serves.
 
spiderman123

spiderman123

Professional
JW10S said:
My partner & I arrived early for our court reservation and while we were waiting for the couple on the court to finish we overheard the server call the score '15-5'. The returner won the point and then the server called the score '15 all'. Turns out they were new to the game and had heard other players use the slang term '5' instead of '15' and thought a game was scored '5,15,30,40,game'.
Click to expand...

That is awesome!!
 
li0scc0

li0scc0

Hall of Fame
sureshs said:
That goes back to my injury prevention tips for you in another thread. You should never serve cold. Even if you tell yourself it is an easy serve, you will put in effort. You should either do FBI or hit some practice serves.
Click to expand...

You know...I actually agree with you here. If I am in a social match and nobody wants to warm up serves then I will just let my partner serve the entire match.
 
Cindysphinx

Cindysphinx

G.O.A.T.
sureshs said:
That goes back to my injury prevention tips for you in another thread. You should never serve cold. Even if you tell yourself it is an easy serve, you will put in effort. You should either do FBI or hit some practice serves.
Click to expand...

Nope, I disagree.

I am perfectly capable of hitting a warm-up serve when I want to hit a warm-up serve.
 
li0scc0

li0scc0

Hall of Fame
:) I had one from high school tennis.
Although I had watched tennis from the time of Borg/McEnroe until my freshman year of high school in 1987, I had never personally played a match. My sophomore year I tried out for tennis and made varsity.
Somehow, along the way, I never learned the rule for a let on a serve. Maybe in my challenge matches I never had something happen? I cannot remember. But...I assumed that if the ball hit the net and bounced over, it didn't matter if it went IN the court, you got your serve again as a 'do-over'. I also thought that if you had a let on 2nd serve, you got to start over.
Imagine my surprise in my first match playing #5 singles when my opponent hit his 2nd serve that hit the tape, bounced over the net on my side but out of the service box. I grabbed the ball and threw it back to him. He went to serve into the other court and I yelled out 'no, that was a let, its first serve on this side!'.
Thankfully the kind soul explained the rule to me.
I won the match but felt like a moron. :)
 
S

sureshs

Bionic Poster
Cindysphinx said:
Nope, I disagree.

I am perfectly capable of hitting a warm-up serve when I want to hit a warm-up serve.
Click to expand...

One is not enough. That is why you complain about injuries.

I would suggest then at least ghost-serving a few times before actually hitting the ball.
 
li0scc0

li0scc0

Hall of Fame
sureshs said:
One is not enough. That is why you complain about injuries.

I would suggest then at least ghost-serving a few times before actually hitting the ball.
Click to expand...

Suresh - I am agreeing with you here again!
Ghost serve a dozen times. Then hit 10 'serves' into the side netting if indoors or against a wall if outdoors. On these you won't be swinging hard but fluid and smooth. From this you can go into real warm-up serves.
With my bad shoulder and elbow it takes this to be able to actually hit warm up serves without pain. Great preventative care as well.
 
S

sureshs

Bionic Poster
li0scc0 said:
Suresh - I am agreeing with you here again!
Ghost serve a dozen times. Then hit 10 'serves' into the side netting if indoors or against a wall if outdoors. On these you won't be swinging hard but fluid and smooth. From this you can go into real warm-up serves.
With my bad shoulder and elbow it takes this to be able to actually hit warm up serves without pain. Great preventative care as well.
Click to expand...

I hit half serves into the netting if that is all I can do
 
li0scc0

li0scc0

Hall of Fame
sureshs said:
I hit half serves into the netting if that is all I can do
Click to expand...

Yep, same idea. I actually warm up hitting about a dozen backhands into the netting, with the 1hbh it warms up my shoulder and elbow. Then the 'serve' motion, then the 'serves' into the netting. All this takes very little time. Certainly less time than Nadal takes between serves :)
 
C

cak

Professional
The 2.5 captain left her practice court today to ask us seasoned folks if it was true you could only have two let serves. I'm still curious what they thought should happen if you nicked the tape a third time in a row.

They were also telling each other you couldn't call out and hit the ball at the same time. On a ball that was obviously out. And her partner was the one calling it out. We just walked away from that one.
 
T

tennis_ocd

Hall of Fame
I used to dread the fbi stuff - but a real serve warm-up for a social match would be too long anyway. Learned to defer first serve to partner (while stroking him over how great his serve is - a win for both us ;) ) take many shadow swings during first several games and make certain I don't hit the first two or three serves in.

Even then, it probably takes me an entire set or perhaps 30 serves into the wall before I start to feel loose. A lotta stuff going on in the wrist, elbow, shoulder, back joints. Even waiting three games during doubles becomes problematic.
 
J

jswinf

Professional
cak said:
The 2.5 captain left her practice court today to ask us seasoned folks if it was true you could only have two let serves. I'm still curious what they thought should happen if you nicked the tape a third time in a row.

.
Click to expand...

Used to be in table tennis one 'let' serve would be replayed, but 2 in a row meant loss of point. I'm not sure if this still applies, they changed a lot of rules sometimes in the last 40 years while I wasn't paying attention.
 
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