Calm Down, Serena: Challenges and Instant Replay in Tennis

How To Watch Sports is proud to welcome guest author Haley Miller for our first tennis article. It’s a terrific one, at that—enjoy the read.

Even if you didn’t hear Serena Williams’ meltdown at this year’s US Open, you probably heard about it. Down 5-6 and 15-30 after losing the first set of her semi-final match against Belgium’s Kim Clijsters, Serena was called with a second-serve foot fault, forcing the game to match point. Williams proceeded to throw one of the most massive tantrums in recent tennis history, going so far as threatening to shove the ball she held in her fist down the official’s throat.

But Serena’s wasn’t the only outburst at the Open—top-ranked seed and normally composed player Roger Federer, frustrated with opponent Juan Martin del Potro’s line call challenges during their Men’s Final match, loudly vented his frustration to the chair umpire, at one point even cursing at him.

Dramatic? Yes. Surprising? No.

When it comes down to it, the entire game of tennis depends on the lines on the court. If you hit a ball outside the lines, your opponent gets a point. When serving, your feet must stay behind the back line and your ball must land before or on the service line. Even the line created by the top of the net is extended to form a plane that the ball must cross before a player is allowed to strike it. And, while the lines themselves are an objective measure, they can’t speak for themselves.

Recreational and amateur matches rely on an “honor” system in which each player is responsible for calling a ball good or out on his own side of the net, and should truthfully report his own foot faults and other errors. In professional play, the officials consist of line umpires, who are assigned one or several lines to referee, and the chair umpire, who has the authority to step in and overrule calls as necessary. By adding officiating, the professional tennis sphere adds an element of human error—and all the doubt and drama that come along with it.

Sports like basketball and football have recently started taking some of the guesswork out of tough calls with the innovation of instant replay. Members of the International Tennis Federation, no doubt taking their lead, first began seriously discussing the possibility of a technology-enhanced system for line call challenges in 2004, after some particularly controversial officiating in the Williams-Capriati quarterfinal match at that year’s US Open. The “Hawk-Eye” system developed over the following years and was unveiled at the 2006 US Open. It consists of a set of at least four high-speed video cameras, each filming the court from a different angle. The various feeds are joined to create a 3D image of the ball and to calculate its most probable trajectory and landing place. The path and landing of the ball are shown on a screen for officials, players, and fans to review at once.

With the implementation of the Hawk-Eye came a new possibility for players to challenge calls made by line umpires and even chair umpires, whose calls had previously been final.

The rules for challenging vary between tournaments, but the most popular system allots two incorrect challenges to each player per set. So, if a ball was called out that a player believes was in, or vice versa, he may request that the video footage be examined. If the initial call turns out to be correct, the player has used one of his two challenges for the set and play continues. If the initial call turns out to have been wrong, the score is adjusted and the challenging player still has two challenges left for the set. In any set that is forced into a tiebreak, each player receives one additional challenge.

While instrumental in keeping objectivity in the sport, the challenge system is not without problems. There is, for example, no procedure allowing for the challenge of other point-affecting errors, such as foot faults or breaking the plane of the net—video footage of Serena’s alleged foot fault shows an impossibly close call, in which most agree she should have been given the benefit of the doubt. The challenge system also leads some players into temptation—advice from coaches, peers, and family is strictly prohibited during a match, but it is not uncommon for players to look to their coaches in the stands, possibly for confirmation about when to challenge. In an effort minimize “coaching,” players don’t have much time to decide to challenge a line call—only a matter of seconds. But players say (some in stronger language than others) that the system is arbitrary, and there’s no telling exactly when or from whom the chair umpire will accept a challenge.

The method is still new and under scrutiny and debate. While many players have welcomed the system with open arms, some distrust its accuracy, and others, Roger Federer decidedly included, dislike its interruption. Federer was quoted as saying, after having particularly bad luck with the Hawk-Eye in his match against del Potro, that the system “shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

Sorry, Fed, it’s a bit late for that. But here’s hoping that discussion about these tennis tantrums will see the start of a better challenge system and the end of grand slam-sized meltdowns.