Letter from the Hand & Racquet in Wimbledon
Everything I never wanted to know as an adult, I learned as a tennis referee
The Hand & Racquet in South Wimbledon during the 2022 Championships fortnight. A former Boots chemist, Greene King renamed the bar in 2004.
Be honest. Did you not expect a pub named after some sort of tennis appendage to exist in Wimbledon? Sadly, there is only one. And equally as sadly, the Hand & Racquet is it.
The thing about Wimbledon: it’s not just the place where the oldest professional tennis championships in the world are held; it’s also a rather large borough of London that functions outside of tennis the other 351 days out of the year. Not everything revolves around that particular lawn sport. Nonetheless, the town that the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) calls home deserves a good pub for eager fans not allowed to drink in its hallowed clubhouse.
Converted by Whitbread from a Boots shop in 1995 as the Hand & Racket and renamed Hogshead in 1999, this medium sized, modern pub was acquired by Greene King and took its current name in 2004. Beers from local independents change frequently, with ales and lagers from the nearby Wimbledon brewery on tap.
Now on to the topic at hand:
Everything I never wanted to know as an adult, I learned as a tennis referee
I saw it clearly; they saw it, too. The bright yellow tennis ball in front of our faces rotated a few dozen times, curved and then took a sharp drop to the corner outside where the alley line met the base line.
“Out,” I yelled loudly and clearly from my diaphram — not the back of my layrnx, as I had been instructed the previous December by the British Lawn Tennis Association. Next, I extended my left arm toward the side in the direction of the error. A half of a second — maybe one second — had elapsed between the bounce and the call.
The players, an Australian pair not pleased with their overall performance, weren’t having it. “That was late,” one cried out, turning toward the chair umpire, the ringmaster of the circus that day in Roehampton where an ITF Challenger tournament had been taking place for the past week. “A late call, ref!” He turned to his partner, who naturally nodded in agreement. He then asked his opponents, who shrugged as if they just preferred to move on. It was, after all, the fourth point in the first game of the match.
Next thing I know, not one, but two, very tanned, very tall men were surrounding me, providing me with all the reasons their call should be upheld, not mine. The chair over-ruled mine and the Aussies took the game. Chastened, I returned to my post and waited for the next yellow ball to hit white tape, another one of at least 120 to be played in the match.
But in that moment, I learned the first lesson of being a court official in the high stakes world of modern tennis: never argue something as pointless as a line call when two very amped up, very fit and very tall men are coming at you, racquets in hand, ready to stand their ground.
At age 45, after more than 38 years of playing tennis on courts around the world, I thought quite possibly I knew everything there was to digest about the game founded on the hallowed grounds of England. For that matter, I figured that after living through 11 September 2001 in New York, reporting on my own in places from Baghdad, Iraq to Lagos, Nigeria, and surviving a life-threatening illness (or two), I could “adult” fairly well. Not true. Tennis officiating teaches you everything you never wanted to know as a grownup. Here are few more lessons from the court:
One bad call will not make or break a tennis match. One bad call, however, will lead to the mental unraveling of a player that will send him out of the first round and on the road to the next tournament.
Pageantry is everything. It often makes up for incompetence.
Be flexible. You can rarely guess when or where a ball (or a player chasing a ball) is going to hit you.
Always keep a poker face. Dark sunglasses help.
Never call a ball before it has landed. Balls fall prey to an indeterminable number of physics rules.
Clay courts are your best friend; they leave a mark.
Mulitask with a singular focus. Everything on-court is somehow your responsibility; everything off-court is above your pay grade.
Don’t be a puritan — just let the under-breath cursing go.
Arguing with teenagers is pointless; more pointless is arguing with their parents.
Never let them see you sweat, especially at Wimbledon.
Pass that buck — make the referee earn his title.
Always, always, always, always, always BE ON TIME.
Always act as if god is watching. He is.
Never let a player know you’re new to the job — or an American.
In the end, the players are your clients. Without them, you don’t have a job.
There are dumb questions; just pull out your handbook and look it up.
Last Rule: if you ever have a chance to sneak a glance at a player’s form, do it. You just might improve your own game.