Tennis court conditions can quietly shape every rally, and league players often don’t know the rules until something weird happens. We talk through real USTA league scenarios where a flapping windscreen, a slippery patch, or poor visibility turns into an argument about fairness. The big theme is simple: safety comes first, but you also have to protect the integrity of the score by handling problems early, clearly, and in good faith so nobody feels blindsided after the match is over.

Here’s a complete transcript of our conversation

Windscreen Blowback, Slippery Courts, and Lightning Delays: Talking Court Conditions with Gin

Carolyn: Hi, this is Carolyn, and I’m here with Erin — and Gin is back with us. Gin started as a 3.5 and is now a 5.0. Today we’re talking about court conditions: when people should play, when they shouldn’t, and all the different things that happen out there. Gin, I know you have a story — can you start us off?

Windscreen Blowback and Hindrance Calls

Gin: Absolutely. We were recently at States, playing our 8.5 combo division, and it was a tight match — my partner and I went down love-five.

Erin: I was scared.

Gin: We were on the end court with our whole team right beside us watching, and we started coming back. We ended up winning that first set 7-5 and won the match. But during the match, our opponent — who was short in stature — kept hitting deep lobs back at us. My partner and I both have some heavy topspin, so our shots were landing deep in the court. A few times she went back to the fence, and the windscreen tacked up there was blowing — we were near the beach, so the wind kept pushing it out into the court. From what I heard, it went right over her head; I didn’t actually see it happen myself.

Erin: I would’ve hit anyone else in the back with it.

Gin: It kept catching under the windscreen and bothering her shot. She and her boyfriend were pretty upset about it after the match — they wanted to know what the rule was. Could we call a hindrance? Could we replay the point? Fortunately, we had our league coordinator there.

Erin: Yeah, she’s our local coordinator.

Gin: So I asked her what the rule was, and she said it’s considered part of the court — a permanent fixture, just like the back fence. You can’t replay the point; it’s over. But if the windscreen is genuinely impacting play — blowing into the court on every point — you can stop and go to the desk and say you don’t want to play on that court with that windscreen. You can do that, but you can’t ask to replay a point.

Carolyn: Was it affecting you when you switched sides?

Gin: No, I don’t even remember seeing it happen, so I’m not sure why it only got to her.

Erin: I think it was one big gust — it wasn’t happening constantly. I watched that whole match and was nervous the entire time because they’d gone down love-five, Carolyn.

Carolyn: Congratulations — these two don’t usually go down love-five.

Erin: That was rare. I was ready to go hide in the bathroom and change up the mojo. But they just crawled back, and it was genuinely high-level tennis to watch.

Gin: She’s an extremely good player.

Erin: She really is. But I understand what our league coordinator said, because you do play points in good faith.

High Nets and Points in Good Faith

Erin: I remember being upset years ago after a match where I played terribly and didn’t realize until the very end that it had nothing to do with me. I was just in a bad mood and playing badly because of it. Right around the last point, I realized the net hadn’t been tacked down properly and was probably high. I hadn’t measured it — some people measure the net, some don’t. I used to think people were a little crazy for measuring, and now I think it’s a good idea. But I didn’t notice the whole match, and after I lost, I was pretty snotty to my opponents about their high net. The truth is, I played the entire match in good faith, so it was on me to say something at the start, or the moment I noticed. If our opponent had stopped mid-match and said the windscreen had gone right over her head, Gin and her partner would have agreed to replay that point. But if it had kept happening, she could have asked to switch courts entirely, because you clearly can’t play comfortably on a court like that.

Slippery Mold and Switching Courts

Gin: That’s exactly what happened to us at States, actually — it happened twice that weekend. The first time, they were staggering the start times, so we were the first court to go out. Our opponents were warming up, and one of them said, “I’m worried about this black substance back here on the court — come take a look, it’s a little slippery.” We went and looked, and it seemed to be black mold. It wasn’t slick exactly, but if it got on your shoes it felt like it stuck a little and made things slippery. All four of us asked for a different court, and we got put on center court — which is my worst nightmare.

Erin: It was her worst nightmare.

Carolyn: You have another one besides that too, right?

Erin: Right, not that one — we just don’t like center court.

Gin: Our teammates were up next on that same court, and they rejected it too, though we didn’t know at the time that both teams had turned it down. Then the next day, at our final, the same thing happened on different courts. At that facility, windscreens were up, and the way the sun hit the courts, it left a strip in the shade because of the windscreen — which let black mold grow there.

Erin: We delayed a good 30 to 45 minutes and switched courts completely. Several of us manually tacked the windscreens back up halfway so the sun could hit the court and dry it out — but that was after we’d already moved off the courts that had mold on them.

Erin: So it really comes down to court conditions. Gin and I don’t know the rules everywhere — I’m sure every area does things a little differently — but we’ve had a couple of situations. One was recent, with the same team that went to States: players didn’t want to play on our courts, and we can get into that. But a long time ago, we played at the club where Carolyn and I met, which has both clay and hard courts. A team showed up for a winter match — one singles and two doubles — and the singles player flat-out refused to play, almost stomping her feet like a toddler, because she wanted a clay court and didn’t want to play on hard courts. Locally, in Raleigh, the rule is that you play where you’re assigned. If your facility only has hard courts, your singles match is on a hard court — as long as the court is safe.

That woman refused simply because she preferred clay, and the rule is you play where you’re assigned. Our mold situation was different — that was a genuine safety issue. Someone could have slipped, or gotten mold on their shoes. That’s different from someone just not wanting to play somewhere because the surface doesn’t suit their game.

Leaves, Lines, and Home Team Duties

Carolyn: I have a question for you both. If you’re the away team and you show up to find leaves all over the hard courts, whose job is it to deal with that?

Gin: I bring a broom — that’s actually come up before. Our local league coordinator said she needed to remind all the captains to bring blowers and brooms and be ready to clear the courts. I believe the home captain should be responsible for making sure the court is safe and in good condition for both teams. You’re the home team — you’re the one responsible for the court.

Erin: I agree. Gin and I play at a club, and I wouldn’t expect a visiting team to show up and start blowing leaves off our courts — that would be strange. But we also play a lot of city courts, where the home captain may belong to a club but is fielding a team out of a public facility. I still think it’s that captain’s responsibility to make sure the courts are ready, even though I know some captains feel that’s the city’s job. The truth is, a lot of parks and rec courts don’t have anyone assigned to maintain them — there’s no building, no staff, just courts in the middle of a park. I think the home team should go out early and make sure the courts are ready, whether that means a broom, towels, or a blower. We wouldn’t expect a visiting team to do it at our club, so we shouldn’t expect to have to do it at someone else’s. This past fall, with all the trees in North Carolina, there were several matches where we knew we’d need to clear the courts ourselves — I brought a blower, someone brought a broom, and the other team did too. But I would have been irritated if we’d shown up prepared and the other team hadn’t brought anything at all.

Carolyn: I’ve also played on a court where I couldn’t see the lines because of pollen — or maybe it was just that the clay courts hadn’t been swept, but the lines were really hard to make out. Looking back, I should have said something and asked to sweep the lines instead of just playing, because it got really hard to call balls in or out. Has anything like that happened to you?

Erin: Not exactly that, but a facility with clay courts usually has a brush line tool you could use. Did you notice it during warm-up, or during the match?

Carolyn: During warm-up. I didn’t say anything — it was a makeup match — but the whole time I was squinting, trying to find the line.

Gin: I think the key is to speak up beforehand. We’ve played through leaves on the court, windscreens blowing, even a court at States with a strange spot — almost like a medallion — that made the ball bounce oddly. But once you walk out, get into ready position, and start the match, you can’t come back later and say you didn’t like how something played. If there are too many leaves to be safe, or something’s off, you need to say so before the match and get it addressed. You have to be proactive.

Erin: Gin and I also have a really good friend, Canna, who’s been on the podcast before — she did the New Jersey episodes. If people haven’t listened, they should go back, because they’re great episodes about the differences between playing in New Jersey and where we play. She had a situation where she showed up to some city courts and one of them wasn’t playable — maybe it was slick, since it was getting into winter and everything was cold and gloomy. They switched courts, but it took a while, and the next court wasn’t good either. They didn’t get the match started before other teams — who’d begun after them — were already finishing theirs. I showed up to cheer her on and was irritated on her behalf, even though I wasn’t on the team. Between switching courts twice and then doing a full warm-up, it was over an hour’s delay. I complained to our local league coordinator that it was ridiculous, and she said that if you feel unsafe on a court, you don’t have to play on it. But then I found myself wondering — could that become gamesmanship? Someone claiming a court’s unsafe because there’s an acorn on it?

Bad Lights, Lightning, and Rain Decisions

Carolyn: I have a question — what about lights? I’ve played a match that started in daylight and then got dark, and the lights on our particular court weren’t very good. I said I was fine either way, so we ended up staying. But afterward, my opponent complained that we hadn’t switched courts. If you want to switch, say so and we will — but you can’t stay quiet and then get upset about it afterward.

Erin: Was she saying she genuinely couldn’t see the ball and couldn’t continue, or was she just upset after she lost?

Carolyn: It was afterward. I’d even asked her during the match, “Can you see okay? Is this fine?” and she said yes. Then after we won, she said, “We should have moved courts — I should have won this.” We’ve all felt that way at some point, and I wasn’t even the home team that day — I was the away team.

Erin: There was one other thing I thought of. My partner and I were playing a makeup match — and any time you say “makeup match,” you know there’s going to be some weirdness. It was a summer night, and in our area we get a lot of summer storms. I was serving, and our opponent — the one who really didn’t seem to want to finish the match that night — stopped abruptly. I looked behind me and asked what was going on, and she said there’d been a bolt of lightning, then just walked off. I understand being cautious, but it was far away, and we asked if we could wait it out, or move to our own clay courts since we were playing at their club. She refused outright and walked off. The only reason I bring it up is that every other match at that club kept playing — nobody else left the courts. She later admitted, “I always make a comeback.” Sure enough, we picked the match back up two days later, and they won the next set, forcing a third-set tiebreak, even though we’d been up 6-1 or 6-2 in the first set. I felt like the lightning was more strategy than safety at that point, though I couldn’t have forced her to stay. I think there’s probably an unwritten rule that you wait out a delay for five, ten, thirty minutes — but she just declared it unsafe, said something like “I have a metal racket, I’m leaving,” while every other court — all twelve of them — kept right on playing.

Carolyn: That’s interesting. We had a match where it started drizzling — I’d driven an hour to get there, and there were three courts going. The other two started playing, but our opponents weren’t sure if we should start. We said, everyone else has started, let’s go — if you don’t feel safe, that’s fine, but the courts weren’t slippery yet. It turned out one of them was a last-minute sub who didn’t really want to be playing and would have preferred two other people take her spot.

Erin: They were doing a rain dance on the way to the courts, hoping.

Carolyn: They kept showing me the radar on their weather apps. We decided to start anyway since the other two courts were already playing, and we ended up finishing the whole match without any problem.

Erin: Of course — they had every radar app out, showing you.

Final Takeaways and Listener Stories

Carolyn: Thanks so much to Gin for coming on the podcast. I know that if I see lightning, I’m quick to get off the court myself, but I’ll wait around to see if it passes. If you have any strange or interesting court-condition stories, let us know — you can message us through our website, secondservepodcast.com. Thanks so much for listening, and we hope to see you on the court soon.