Canada’s Vasek Pospisil was hit with two time violations at critical junctures of service games during his straight sets defeat to Andy Murray on Wednesday, and both led to service breaks. Though it's not likely that either had a substantial effect on the outcome of today's match, they very well could have (there is a psychological effect from these rulings, not to mention they interrupt a server and force him to begin his routine again. Pospisil also lost a first serve on his second warning), especially given the delicate moments that chair umpire Pascal Maria chose to issue his warnings.
“A lot of times these umpires, they seem to just want to be seen,” said Pospisil. “I don’t know why they would do it at a time like that… How many times do you see top guys go more than that and they don’t get any violations?”
He added, speaking of the first warning: "Not at 5-all, 30-all, that was ridiculous in my opinion."
Though the time violations, handed out by Maria, were in accordance with the rules, the arbitrary nature of the warnings irked commentators and those discussing he match on Twitter. Both John McEnroe and Brad Gilbert disagreed with the timing of the calls.
Umpires, seemingly guided by ATP policy (this has not become a problem in WTA matches), have elected to impose their penalties during the most critical moments in matches. The logic is sound in theory: Players would typically abuse the time when they are in trouble on serve, taking a moment longer to gather themselves and concentrate, so they would more typically be in violation of the rule.
But the logic is also twisted. Players don’t have clocks embedded in their brains. They have no way of knowing how long they are taking between points, and they shouldn’t be punished for taking an extra second or two to prepare for critical serves. That might be different if a shot clock was placed on court so players were privy to the constant tick of those precious seconds.
One goal of good officiating is to remain invisible during a match. Tennis matches should be won on the court with clutch serves, passing shots, overheads and the like. The mere fact that the ATP continuously interjects these senseless violations into otherwise competitive and entertaining battles of its top-flight athletes is at best annoying. At worst, it’s unfair, arbitrary and opens the top of the game to favoritism. Rather than hand out violations whenever infractions occur, umpires are given license to hand them out whenever they see fit. If an umpire fears the wrath of a certain player, he’ll likely refrain from calling him out, instead seeking an easier, lesser-known target with less pull in the press.
Rafael Nadal has become a target of this ruling more than any other player. It makes sense in one way, because Nadal is one of the slower players on tour, but it also smacks of a witch hunt in others. Nadal is routinely given warnings on bigger points, often hours into matches where he’s violated the rule hundreds of times. Why then? It’s arbitrary, unfair and wrong. And virtually zero tennis pundits are behind the rule in its current form. So why have it?
And yet, here we go, soldiering on through matches where players are forced to succumb to the whim of officials, without any clue to how much time they have between serves because there is no clock to tell them.