Dealing with Cheats in Junior Tennis
As a junior tennis player, you will usually be required to umpire your own games.
Not many tennis tournaments for younger players have a budget that will stretch to paying an umpire, and with a large number of matches to get through in a short space of time, finding enough volunteers to cover a whole slate of matches just isn’t practical. This is where the possibility of cheating becomes a problem. You may well be sporting enough to make honest calls, but you may not always trust that your opponent will do the same.
Making a series of poor line calls is the most likely way in which a junior player will look to use the circumstances to their advantage. Without line judges and umpires to watch over each shot, a player may well be tempted to call a ball in when it is out, and call it out when it is in. You should avoid doing this yourself. Firstly, playing fair is just the right thing to do. However nerdy that may sound, it is completely true. Doing the right thing makes it all the sweeter when you win, and avoids the problem of guilt.
Secondly, players will recognise a player who tends to make unfair calls. Though cheating is hard to detect and prove beyond doubt, reputations are easy to earn and hard to shake off, particularly bad reputations. You don’t want to be known as a cheat – your opponent is keen enough to beat you, why give them a bigger incentive? And being known as a cheat will give them just that. If you gain a reputation for cheating, everyone will want to be the player who put you in your place – making tournaments a lonely and even threatening experience.
How often have you heard the phrase “you see what you want to see?” I’d bet it’s pretty often. So if your opponent makes an isolated call that looks unfair to you, remember that they have seen it differently from you and may have made an honest mistake. If they do it more often than once in a while, then they may be bending the rules. If they are doing it regularly on crucial points, then there is a problem.
A cheat will make clear bad calls on game point or at 30-all, where if they get away with it, then not only have they got game point, they have also made sure you play the point with the injustice playing on your mind. The best way to deal with this is to walk to the net and call your opponent over. Explain to them, in a friendly way, that they’ve missed a few calls. This makes you look honourable and reasonable, and lets them know you’re on to them. It can embarrass them into dropping the routine, especially if you mention that another bad call will mean you have to call for a linesman.
