Davis Cup initiative introduces officiating to the next generation
When a point ends, where should an umpire be looking? If a court has automated line calling technology, how do they monitor and announce foot faults? And what signal does a line umpire use if they couldn’t see the ball bounce?
Those questions and many more were posed to – and by – the ball kids working at the Davis Cup by Rakuten Finals venues last week as part of the ‘Introducing Officiating to Next Generation’ sessions hosted by the umpiring teams in Bologna, Glasgow, Hamburg and Valencia.
“The idea was to explain simply the work of the officials to the ball kids so they see it as something that they could try,” said Eva Asderaki-Moore, one of many Gold Badge ITF umpires co-ordinating the workshops. “We want to find the next generation of tennis officials.”
“When we're at a tournament we always work with ball kids and we never have the chance to explain what our job is, other than them seeing what we do,” Jaume Campistol added.
“It was a great opportunity for us to sit down with them and share what we do, and have them ask questions about rules, or why we do some things one way or the other.”
The groups were introduced to the various officiating roles the team were carrying out that week, what the day-to-day of an umpire looks like at a major tournament, and the career pathway from line judging at local events to sitting in the chair at Grand Slam finals.
“Officiating has the following roles: line umpire, chair umpire, referee and chief umpire, while a fifth is a review official,” James Keothavong explained. “We have technology in place now, so we need an experienced official up in the booth controlling matters.
“It is about planting the seed and raising awareness about officiating and the possibilities that the ball kids may be able to venture into going forward.”
“As I was coming up, there were no sessions like this for sure,” Marijana Veljovic said. “The ball kids are actually sharing courts with us – they are part of a tennis match. They experience many things on court, so it's nice to give them opportunity to find out some things they would like to know about. “
“In Sweden, when you lose a match, you go up and ‘do a chair’. That educates the kids in the future to respect the official"
Like many umpires, both Veljovic and Asderaki-Moore were players before switching their attention to officiating, but for other top officials the opportunity to umpire matches came at a young age.
“In Sweden, when you lose a match, you go up and ‘do a chair’,” explained Mohammed Lahyani. “That educates the kids in the future to respect the official, to see how tough it is to be an umpire. You learn to make decisions, you see that it’s tough. This is the best way to do it, to educate the kids to respect the umpire.”
The Davis Cup ball crews were made up of local 12-16-year-olds, most with tennis experience as players themselves. They were put to the test with some rare scenarios seen on court and given the opportunity to ask questions of their own, before being invited to role play as chair umpires and line umpires themselves and getting the chance to see the officials’ on-court tools such as the net sensor and chair umpire’s tablet up close.
“They really asked some good questions – there were some great questions, actually,” said John Blom. “It shows they've been thinking about what's happening on court; some of the situations that took place they just got some clarification on, which was really interesting.”
“Sometimes it’s not very easy to talk to us, so we need to be more open,” Damien Dumusois added. “These activities, it helps them to know us, what we do, how do we enjoy it – not just be seen as a referee punishing players, for example!”
The sessions took place on the penultimate day of group stage play at the Davis Cup Finals, when the ball kids had played an integral role on court in close quarters with the world’s leading players and officials.
“We could talk personally to officials that we see on the television – it was very special to communicate directly with them"
“It was very interesting to learn a few things that we don’t know, and it was nice talking to all the officials,” said Ida Schuchhardt, a member of the Hamburg ball kid team, while Lennit Both added: “We could talk personally to officials that we see on the television – it was very special to communicate directly with them.”
And the officiating teams were full of praise for the job done by the ball kids at all four Davis Cup Finals venues.
“We complimented the ball kids at the start of the session because we haven’t had to think about them or say anything at all to the chair of ball kids this week,” Keothavong said. “A great ball kid is a ball kid who isn’t noticed. That has been the case with every single ball kid this week.”