NEWS

The Rules Guru apologizes for the first take on the point from the women’s final, which was a great show of sportsmanship—and the APTA thanks all of our members who were paying attention and got in touch. The men’s point also led to a good amount of discussion. 

Hats Off to Berendt - Mittal

Laura Berendt (back on the Tour!) and Chelsea Mittal paired up for a strong showing in the Medinah Cup women’s final against Ellie Halbauer and Alison Morgan. 

In the middle of the first set, Laura Berendt knocked her own hat off during the middle of a point. She called a let and stopped playing, as did her partner. Their opponents hit one more ball, essentially winning the point. You can see that there was some confusion.

The umpire spoke to the teams—the correct rule (see Rule 13c Accidental Occurrences) is that only the opposing team could call a let. This call must be made immediately, or the point will stand as concluded. (The same holds true for tennis.)

However, since Laura and Chelsea stopped playing, and even though the umpire explained the rule, Ellie and Alison offered to play a let. Sportsmanship at its very finest.

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    Randy Lofgren is Famous Again

You should recognize the name Randy Lofgren—he took part in what may be the longest point in Live Streaming history, against his brother, no less, a 12-minute hold-your-breath fest at the 2021 Detroit Open. This season, he is back in the news, hitting one shot and producing two rules questions. 

In the men’s Medinah Cup final, Graham McNerney and Adam Morgan were weaving their magic spell, so much so that Randy Lofgren and Andrew Ong felt the need to attempt their own tricks.

At 2-5 in the first set, Randy’s first service was a moon ball spin serve into Adam’s box. This created a few rule optics.

First, seeing Randy’s unnatural service stance, Adam moved all the way to the net on Graham’s side to set up his return. It is legal to stand in either service box to receive but ill-advised. However, the serve bounced up so high and then back across the net and landed on Randy’s side before Adam could make a play on it. 

Second, Adam is allowed to reach over the net and play the ball before it lands, as long as he doesn’t touch either the net or the opponents' side of the court. Challenging, yes, and on Randy’s crazy serve, virtually impossible. A definite mini momentum shift for Randy/Andrew, a serve that most of us could not even contemplate, let alone perform, and another interesting point to talk about.  

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