Foot Faults

Well, you learn something new everyday. In all of my years on the tennis tour, I’ve never seen a sideline foot fault called.

I’m sitting in the photo pit shooting Vince Spadea “I’m not afraid-a-yuh “(one of the lines from his Rap), and the mad Russian, Marat Safin. It’s late in the 4th set... maybe 4 all or 4-5, the score is deuce and it’s second serve so it’s an important point. Safin is at the line ready to serve when we hear a line judge call “foot fault” and Marat starts to go crazy and complain. I turn to the Reuter’s photographer sitting next to me and ask “what is going on?” The official on the opposite end of the court made the call. Everyone was looking around asking what happened … could a linesman make that call from 35 meters away? Apparently yes. The rule is that the server shall stand at rest with both feet behind the baseline and within the imaginary extension of the centre mark and the sideline. I guess I always knew about this, but I’ve never seen it called. The line judge at the opposite end of the court called this foot fault, through the net, saying that Safin went over the center line with his back foot while starting his serve. I have to give Marat credit for not completely loosing it, he argued a bit with the chair umpire, went to his chair, sat down took a drink and continued to argue even though the game wasn’t finished. The score at that point was advantage Spadia. Next we see him get up and walk toward the exit... is he just going to walk off the court? No one can figure this out, but no one would be surprised if he did. Next we see Brian Earley, the Tournament Referee, walk back on the court with Safin. They talk and gesticulate then Earley talks to the Chair Umpire. We are all dying to know what is going down, but the next thing we know, Marat is walking back to his side of the court and finishing the game. Spadia ended up winning that set, but Safin eventually won in 5. Safin’s point made at the post match press conference was the players should receive a warning, “If you are doing a foot fault on a second serve, first of all you need to get a warning. So basically you’re making a foot fault? Just watch out: next time I’m going to call you. This is how it should be.” Frankly I see his point and have to agree. Nice little drama to start my day.

I wanted to catch a bit of the Tommy (Hottie) Haas match, but with all the Safin drama I missed his match... he took out the 12th seed, Richard Gasquet in five sets, so I’ll get another shot at the most gorgeous Haas.

On the Fashion watch, Serena looked good in the red Nike, but I’m not mad about the black knickers underneath, especially with the red and white shoes... would rather see matching red undies. Not my favorite, but way better than a lot of her outfits, but of course she was wearing really nice earrings.


Venus once more got the fashion award for the day in a cool black number with the logo from her own Eleven line in red … only criticism is the shoes … white really doesn’t make it with that outfit… red would be great, but if that seems too much, then something cool in black would be good too.

As for the men, I’m liking Roger’s new taupe colored duds with the orange trim. Pretty racy for the conservative Swiss, but a huge improvement over the Black formal wear with the satin stripe going down the leg of last year.


And speaking of the guys... did you girls get a look at Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina? Wow... another hot Latin on tour. He lost 6-3, 6-0, and 6-3 to Roger in tonight’s match but it was his first pro match on a hard court, and he looked pretty comfortable against the former number one. I’m putting him on my “Player’s to Watch” list.

Well, here it is 11:55 PM, and I’m hoping to catch the 12:30 bus back to the city, so I’m going to wind it up for today.