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January 1999 Article Wild Cards Archives:
Tennis Server
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by Joan Kotker English Department Bellevue Community College, Bellevue, WA
I've been umpiring now at various regional USTA tournaments
for about four years, and it's an experience that I
recommend to every player--I am convinced that it will
broaden and enrich any player's overall sense of the
game and of what it takes to play it well. I began umpiring
because I was not going to be able to play tennis for a
while, and I didn't want to lose touch with the game. (I'd
been offered a book contract, and anyone who has done any
professional writing knows how few and far between such
offers are. Given that I have a full-time job, it meant
that I would have to give up playing until I got the book
done--there's only so many hours in a day.) I found out how
to get started by approaching an umpire at the Washington
State tournament and asking how to begin. Simple answer:
call the head of Pacific Northwest Umpires and say I wanted
to learn to umpire. At least in my area, there is always a
need for good new umpires (the burnout rate for umpires is
high--more on this later) and I was invited to attend the
next scheduled training. Such training consisted of a one
day split between going over rules and then doing practice
lines, practice chairs, etc. This was very good, but also
very short; anyone who didn't already have a good grasp of
the game and the rules would have been lost. But then, maybe
anyone without such a grasp wouldn't have been interested in
umpiring anyway....
Next step: on my own, I scored some matches friends of mine
were playing at my club, just to get practice doing it with
live people in a live match. Then I shadowed a couple of
local umpires when they were doing matches (I say "local,"
but this is misleading: they are from my area but both are
widely experienced outside the area, doing Davis Cup, US
Open and the like) and just watched what they did and how
they handled situations.
And next, I was on my own, first at junior tournaments, then
at the whole range of our local tournaments, the highest
level of which is Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA)
(we don't have any challenger circuit matches or other
professional events--not a strong tennis town, which
paradoxically may have made it easier for me to get into
umpiring--there just aren't that many glamorous events to
work around the Seattle area).
And as to why I recommend it: what struck me first about
umpiring was how extraordinarily difficult it is. It is
physically exhausting; most of the time, one stands for
hours at a time in the hot sun. The players may sit on the
changeover, but the umpire (in this case, what is known as
a roving umpire, one who is responsible for a number of
courts and moves from one to another, standing at the net
post for a full rotation of service games before moving on)
stands nearly the whole time. Anyone who's ever worked
retail will know exactly what I mean by this; one has no
idea how exhausting it is to just stand quietly in one place
until one has done it--your legs ache, your back aches, and
you have to ignore all of this and stay mentally alert,
keeping track of what is going on not only on the court
you're on, but on the courts around you that you are also
responsible for. This particular combination of mental
sharpness and just plain physical endurance carries over
into one's own play on the court, and is excellent training
for any player. Doing chairs is just as physically
difficult, since no umpire's chair that I've ever sat in
was ergonomically designed...the mental part is easier
though, since you're only focusing on one court.
Another advantage to players that comes from a stint as an
umpire is that it forces you to become familiar with the
sorts of rules that bring about disputes on the court. You
just become so familiar with them that when they come up in
your own, unofficiated play, you don't feel threatened by
what may or may not be the correct interpretation--you know
what it is from experience and this helps to calm things
down and keep the game going. (It isn't that you mean to be
a know-it-all, but rather that you have had a lot of
experience with the rules, and just having this knowledge
helps you and your opponent on the court. The point of the
game is to play within the rules, and having people who know
them helps.) In this context, I think that umpiring also
helps a player to say that he or she doesn't know the answer
to a particular question and to just be open about that--
there are so many times on the court when an official has to
say to a player something like, "I cannot overrule that
shot--I could not see it clearly enough" because that's the
simple truth--for whatever reason, the umpire didn't see it
clearly enouch. As an umpire you learn very quickly that we
are all human and we are all just doing the best we can.
Then, when something comes up in your own play that neither
you nor your opponent is certain of, it becomes second
nature for you to say, "I don't know either. Let's play the
point over" (or spin a racquet, or whatever). There's no
loss of face involved here--it's just a reality of the game
that sometimes you don't know, and must just handle things
in the fairest way that you can under the circumstances.
Other advantages: you'll never again be thrown by having
people on or right near your court, whether they are
officials or on-lookers; you'll have been one of those same
people so often that you will take it for granted. And
you'll never again lose a match because an opponent decides
to play mind games with you over the rules; you will have
had far too much experience at cooling down people who are
taking their frustrations with their own playing out on you,
and you'll know how to cool down the situation without
taking it personally.
Finally, there is a fine espirit de corps among those who
have umpired at any level--when you come off the court, you
are physicaly and mentally exhausted and in the midst of a
great adrenaline high, and anyone who has done it knows this
sense of elation and can share it with you. It's a great
feeling.
Disadvantages? Well, the pay is the pits at the local level,
it's long, hard, hot hours, some people feel that you're
there just so they can abuse you (you'll learn how to handle
this quickly though, and knowing how is a good life skill to
have off the courts, too), and these are the primary reasons
that there is, as I said earlier, high turnover among
umpires. And a final disadvantage, at least in my case, is
that I now have a hard time keeping score in my own
unofficiated matches, since I'm so used to writing it down
all the time. What, no written record? My solution is to
throw myself on my opponent's mercy, and so far that's
worked just fine.
Now that I've finished my book I don't know how long I'll
continue umpiring; every hour spent officiating is an hour
that could be spent playing. I do know that I have learned
a great deal from working as an umpire, and that I'm a more
well-rounded player as a result of having done it. And I can
think of no better way of staying in the game if, for
whatever reason, you cannot participate as a player.
Good luck, and wishing you an infinity of good calls.
Note added since the original column was written:
I've always been one of those players who have a problem
with playing friends in tournament situations. People that I regularly
beat in social play are the very same people that I have trouble beating
in tournament play. This summer, once again I faced a close friend in the
finals of a sanctioned tournament and once again I thought, "Oh God, I
have to play her and she's my good friend." And then I thought, "Well,
wait a minute, last month I chaired a match in which a very good friend of
mine was playing the consolation final in a national tournament and I
didn't have any problem with that--when I'm an umpire, that's a different
role from when I'm a friend." I extended that concept to "when I'm
a competitor, that's a different role from when I'm a friend" and for the
first time, I was able to play my best tennis against a person that I knew
well and liked very much. I think that maybe this concept--one that
says that we all wear
different hats depending on the situation, and sometimes we're friends and
other times we're players who are competing--might be helpful to many club
players who find themselves drawing close friends in matches. Hope that
this is helpful.... -- JK
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