NEWS

The Rules Guru found two points at Medinah that sparked curiosity among the fans.  

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. 

A wardrobe mishap created some chatter. In the middle of the first set, Laura Berendt knocked her own hat off with a stroke during the middle of a point. She called a let and stopped play. The point was replayed as a let. Laura chose to take off her chapeau for the match duration. She must have known that if it had happened a second time, she would lose the point.

This is in opposition to the tennis rule, where only an opponent can call let on a flying hat, an unintentional hindrance. In both sports, the players have the option to ignore it and continue playing, but in paddle, a hat lying near the screens is not easy to ignore.

The paddle rule is a little more civilized, don’t you think?  Video Link

    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 5-2 in the first set, Randy’s first service was a very high 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, as long as he doesn’t impede his opponent, but the only way to win the point is to hit the ball into the opponent’s side of the net. Challenging, yes, but 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.  

Video Link