By Will Carlin
At first, she just put her hands on her hips and looked at her feet. Her face was stern, her lips were pursed, and she looked like she was trying to come to grips with what had just happened. With a raise of her head, though, her face suddenly looked composed, and she turned to the back of the court and looked ready to move on. Then all hell broke loose.
Her composure broke suddenly, and while brandishing her racquet, Serena Williams started screaming expletives at the lineswoman who had called a second serve foot fault. Fewer than six minutes later, Williams was out of the US Open, despite being an overwhelming favorite to win the whole title.
A quick review: after playing poorly for nearly two hours against an opponent with nothing to lose, Serena Williams was battered and reeling in her semifinal match against Kim Clijsters. Yet she was still competing hard, and she was starting to gain a foothold. Down a set, and serving at 5-6, 15-30, Williams was called for a foot fault on a second serve.
After Serena’s tirade and a quick meeting of the tournament referee, the match referee, and the lineswoman, Williams received her second conduct warning of the match, which cost her a point. That point, of course, was match point; Serena lost the match 6-4, 7-5 without hitting another ball.
If you followed blogs after the match, you would have seen two very distinct schools of thought about the incident. Both camps generally agreed that Serena’s vitriol was an example of someone who had lost all self-control, but while one group of pundits felt that since foot-faulting is a rule, it needed to be called regardless of the score, the other group felt that there was no excuse for making the call at that point in the match (if it even were a foot fault, they added—the replays were generally inconclusive).
The reality is that both sides are correct. Sort of.
The foot fault call in tennis is a discretionary call. Not in the rule book, mind you—the commentary from the USTA in their official rule book is clear: “…there is no justification for [the foot fault rule] not being obeyed by players and enforced by officials. No official has the right to instruct any umpire to disregard violations of it.”
If you watch almost any pro tournament, however, you will see many foot faults that are not called. Most of them are not flagrant and don’t result in an advantage once the point has begun (particularly in this age of virtually no serve-and-volley points), but they are nevertheless faults.
If a computer were rigged to call foot faults no matter how small and regardless of the score, players would adapt, and if calls were made on match-point second serves, players would have no one to blame but themselves.
Computers, however, are not making the calls, people are. And because linespeople let many of them go, the foot fault call is, in reality, a discretionary call, regardless of what the rulebook says.
The foot fault call in squash does not raise the same ire of players as it does in tennis, probably because it is almost never called. As in tennis, foot faults do happen in squash, but they are almost completely ignored. This, of course, means that squash’s potential for a foot fault call to cause a major controversy is theoretically high.
A foot fault storm, however, is less likely in squash, because experienced and savvy referees usually tell offending players to “watch the foot faults.” They issue, in effect, an informal warning that almost always ends the offense. Almost mind-numbingly, the USTA commentary in the tennis rules actually prohibit this: “It is improper for any official to warn a player that he is in danger of having a foot fault called on him.”
Even worse, because most actual foot faults are not called in tennis, those who make the call usually are trying either to “prove that they can make the tough call” or to insert themselves into the match while hiding behind the words of the rulebook. Announcer Dick Enberg, in the aftermath of the Serena debacle, described this perfectly as “over officiating.”
While foot faults are not the root cause, over officiating in squash does rear its ugly head. You see it when a player through body language asks for a let (and sometimes, by implication, a stroke). Both players and the spectators all understand what is being requested, but no call is forthcoming. After a few seconds, all eyes go to the referee (often the intention) who has decided that now is a good time to enforce Rule 12.5.1 which says that a player seeking a let or stroke should say the words, “Let please.”
You also see it when a referee rules no let in an obvious let situation because they want to make the point that “the player has not made every effort to get to and play the ball” (rule 12.7.2). Though this rule has reasons for existing (to prevent players from giving a half-effort in an attempt either to mask the fact that they likely wouldn’t get the ball or to rest), this now in vogue no-let-call often is over officiating, plain and simple.
What’s the solution? First, acknowledge the existence of discretionary calls; second, differentiate between egregious violations of a rule and those that require situational judgment; and finally, train officials to know the difference and to remember that they must avoid inserting themselves into a match.
When Serena Williams lost control, she went far beyond the bounds of good behavior and sportsmanship, but by making the foot fault call, the lineswoman was guilty of over officiating at a critical juncture, and she was at least as responsible for all the hoopla.
