This wasn’t Wimbledon. This wasn’t even a tournament. This was a local amateur-league team tennis match. We were all grown men in our 30s and 40s, some of us husbands, fathers. My wife was watching our two boys on a Saturday afternoon so that I could play this three-hour doubles match, which was supposed to be recreational fun.
The dispute happened at 5-5 in the second set. My doubles partner, Patrick, and I had dropped the first set in a close one, and we were trying to break to serve for the second set. I was returning, and Matthew, one of our opponents, served a bomb down the T. I saw it land just wide of the white line, barely out. Patrick was in the middle of the service box, so the ball had flown past him.
“Out!” I called. If the serve had been in, I wouldn’t have been able to touch it – a clean ace – and that’s how Matthew, the server, saw it.
“What?” he said. He thought he had won the point. His partner, Josh, at the net, saw it the same way.
“No way,” Josh said, standing up straight.
“I saw it out,” I said.
I held my ground. I knew the players on the other side of the net. I had practised with them both. I would even call them new friends of mine. We had known each other for about a year, but in the heat of battle, we acted as if we were strangers. There were no pleasantries, no compliments, no small talk. That was the code. Just eyes on the prize: who was going to win. In my experience, this was normal behaviour for an amateur men’s league tennis match.
“It was just wide,” I explained.
Matthew let his racquet fall to the hard court.
“No way,” Josh repeated.
“Ashton,” Matthew laughed, “you’re kidding?”
“The ball was out,” Patrick asserted. “Second serve.”
“Ashton!” Matthew implored again.
Josh was shaking his head. I stood in the returning position, at the baseline, and Patrick crouched low at the net, bending his knees, racquet up and armed, letting them know that we weren’t budging.
There was more grumbling before Matthew finally served, double-faulting. We went on to win the game, the set and then the tie-break for the victory.