For The Sake Of Integrity

No one player is bigger than the game. Not Rod Laver or Pete Sampras, not Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, and certainly not Philipp Petzschner or Liezel Huber.

One of the attractive qualities of tennis, and part of what makes the sport so popular, is that it is played by people of all ages and all abilities, from cracked courts in city parks to the plush lawns of posh clubs.  Most of us who play don’t have the benefit of an impartial arbiter, perched in a chair above the court, much less a judge on every line. We call our own lines. We mediate our own disputes.  We live by a strict honor system.  That system should only be more rigid when the game is being played at the highest levels.

Last September, in the men’s doubles final at the US Open, Philipp Petzschner had a ball ricochet off his leg and go over the net for a winner. The ball was struck from nearly point blank range by Marcin Matkowski. In other words, it’s unfathomable that Petzschner could not have known the ball didn’t touch his racket.  When you get a tennis ball whacked off your leg, you tend to feel it.  Chair umpire Carlos Bernardes said he did not see the ball touch Petzschner (understandable as Petzschner’s right leg obscured a clear view of the ball glancing off his left leg), and when Matkowski asked Petzschner directly if the ball hit him, he said it didn’t. 

Last night, in a women’s doubles quarter-final match at the Australian Open, five time Grand Slam champion Liezel Huber and her partner Lisa Raymond were down match point in the third set tiebreaker to Sania Mirza and Elena Vesnina when Huber ran forward to return a drop shot. The ball bounced twice as Huber flicked it over the net.  The replay was so clear that, as with Petzschner, it is unfathomable to think Huber did not know the ball bounced twice. No call was made and Huber and Raymond went on to win the point. Mirza and Vesnina complained vehemently to the chair umpire, to no avail, and asked Huber directly whether the ball bounced twice. Huber said it didn’t.

In both these cases, the outcome of the match could have hung in the balance. While Petzschner and his partner Jurgen Melzer had won the first set handily, the controversial point gave them a break point opportunity at 2-2 in the second set. Matkowski and his partner Mariusz Frystenberg were broken and never won another game.  Huber and Raymond were allowed to save the disputed match point (and three more) to tie the deciding tiebreaker at 6-6. Mirza and Vesnina ultimately won the tiebreaker, 8-6, and the match.

Sometimes, the result is not as important as how it is achieved.  It should not matter if you are playing for a Grand Slam title (and lots of cash), the club championship, or who buys lunch after the match. The integrity of the game, and fair play, should always be paramount.