Can I get a point if my opponent makes a footfault and wont admit it?

Question

My opponent always steps over the line. It's so ovious, and then he won't admit it. What should I do! I get so mad and then we both just sit down on the court and get silent and wont talk for the rest of the game.

Answer 1

The correct answer to this question is...NO, you cannot call a foot fault on your opponent and expect to get the point.  A foot fault can only be called upon yourself by you.  It is unfortunate.

If you face an unrepentant foot faulter, you can ask him to stop.  If he won't, you can call for an impartial third party to help watch for your opponents foot faults...and preferably this person will be a USTA official of some sort.

Short of that, you can refuse to play with this person until they get their foot faulting under control.

Answer 2

No you can't do that (I assume this is an informal game); besides there is no point in doing that if the other player doesn't admit the foot-fault on the first place.

What you can do is refuse to play with that person. I know how annoying it is to play with people that doesn't respect the rules.

Answer 3

Well yeah, but that ruins the intergrity of the game. It's kinda like winning because you opponent takes too long or something. I'll admit I am an avid foot faulter, but it's not on purpose. You should just play through it because I don't really care if my opponent steps an inch over the line?

Answer 4

I am suprised how many people do not know the rules of a foot fault. Actually, I think last months tennis magazine addressed this..  Here's the procedure pursuant to the rules of tennis.  In an unofficiated match that has officials or a referee available but they are not watching your match, if your opponent foot faults, you

1) Warn the player

2) Get an official (if she continues and an official is there)

3) Call the fault--

Let's assume your match, like most, was unofficiated. All you do in eliminate Step 2.  So, you should have warned your opponent on the first serve and then if he FF again, called the fault.  In this case, it would have been a double fault.  There would be no more warnings.

One other point:  The FF has to be obvious to the opponent, so it has to be pretty bad unless she was over the center mark or outside line.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

technically, if your in highschool, a lil footfault doesnt make that much of  difference.

Even though it may be obvious that he is foot faulting, you can not call it on your opponent, you may only call foot faults of your own.

You should first ask him to stop, and if the foot faulting continues you should get an official, or impartial third person to call the foot faults.