The art of umpiring tennis

This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s new series on the joy of tennis

Imagine being given three days’ notice that you’ll be taking charge of one of the biggest matches in tennis. That’s what happened to chair umpire Marija Čičak last year when she became the first woman to oversee the men’s final at Wimbledon, breaking tradition in the most traditional of the four major tennis tournaments.

Her cropped silver-grey hair instantly recognisable over video call, Čičak says she “didn’t really believe it” when she was told the final was hers to officiate. “When things never happened before, you kind of question,” she says. “Why would I be the first one?”

For players, the build-up to a final is a rush of interviews, social media and unrivalled attention. Čičak, who fondly remembers watching her fellow Croat Goran Ivanišević win Wimbledon on a “wild card” entry in 2001, switched off her phone two days before the event.

Umpires occupy the loneliest seat in the house in a globe-trotting profession where careers are launched on a lucky break and hard work. From the coin toss, they are responsible for calling the score, keeping players’ tempers in check and hushing boisterous fans.

Going into the final, Čičak could draw on vast experience of the big stage, having officiated the Wimbledon women’s singles final in 2014, the equivalent doubles fixture in 2017, and the 2016 Rio Olympics women’s gold medal match.

This time round, from the elevated chair on Centre Court, Čičak made and witnessed history as Serbia’s Novak Djokovic won his 20th grand slam title to tie level with Swiss great Roger Federer and Spain’s Rafael Nadal. (The Spaniard has since gone two better.) “My matches are the only kind of peaceful place for me because not many people can reach me,” says Čičak. “When I actually put my phone on again, it was pretty intense . . . I needed to clean the mess that I was awaiting for two days.”

What qualities make a good umpire?

In the words of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), the sport’s global governing body, chair umpires are the “guardians of the rules of tennis and enforce them to ensure a match is played in a spirit of fair play”. Concentration and a cool head are vital.

“Communication is very important as an official, because we have all these different personalities we need to deal with,” says Norwegian-Japanese chair umpire Julie Kjendlie. “That’s part of the fun; something you can say to one player . . . won’t work with another.”

Sometimes a nod or a smile will suffice, says Kjendlie, who chaired the women’s doubles gold medal match at the Tokyo Olympics last year. Occasionally, she’ll tap her watch to deal with players who are “dragging the time”, perhaps by bouncing the ball for too long, intentionally or otherwise.

Careers begin at national level. In Britain, that means the Lawn Tennis Association, the domestic governing body, which invites line judges — who call if the ball goes out of play — to take a course and subsequent exam to make the step up to the high chair.

Certification

National chair umpires study and train to obtain the so-called white badge qualification, which is the first step in becoming an ITF-certified official. Match experience, performance and further training dictate progression to international status.

After gaining bronze and then silver badges, the top chair umpires reach gold status — the highest level of the joint certification programme overseen by the ITF, the tours and the grand slams. There are only 32 gold badge chair umpires in the world.

These select few compete to oversee Grand Slam finals, such as Wimbledon and the French Open, along with other major Tour events. At international tournaments, such as the Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup, depending on their badge grade, chair umpires can make up to $2,352 for the whole event, according to the ITF, although many lower-ranked officials work part-time and juggle other jobs.

Resilience

Irish gold badge holder Fergus Murphy remembers the obstacles he faced in the mid-1990s when he took time away from legal training to focus on work as a chair umpire. His first appearance at a Slam, the Australian Open in January 1996, came about despite being turned down in the first instance. “Someone must have pulled out and I got a call around December 1,” he says. “I was a poor student, so flying to Australia wasn’t cheap, but of course I said yes.”

Murphy, who says he still feels a buzz whether chairing junior events or grand slams, has climbed the ranks to umpire doubles finals at Wimbledon. Like referees in any sport, his job requires resilience. He was in the chair when David Nalbandian was disqualified in the 2012 final at Queen’s, a grass court tournament in London that takes place in the run-up to Wimbledon, after inadvertently injuring a line judge’s shin with a misjudged angry kick at an advertising board. More recently, in August 2020, mercurial Australian player Nick Kyrgios told Murphy he was a “potato with legs and arms” in a series of back-and-forths with the umpire.

In keeping with ITF rules, Murphy declined to comment on specific incidents with players but stressed the importance of maintaining professionalism and relying on a rule-driven approach. “That means sometimes you have to be fairly thick-skinned,” he says. “I would prefer not to be called A, B, C, D at any time but if I am, I’m not going to respond the way I might on a bus or on a street.”

The future

In its pursuit of accuracy, the sport is embracing automation. The trend accelerated during the pandemic, when the priority was to minimise human contact. Čičak says technology has removed the “personal part of the decision that was kind of hanging there in the air”, freeing umpires from accusations of bias.

In 2020, more than 314,000 line calls were made electronically at the US Open but it wasn’t until the Australian Open last year that a slam tournament ditched line judges altogether in favour of technology known as Hawk-Eye Live.

Kris Dent, senior executive director at the ITF, says the governing body is undertaking a strategic review to determine its plans for officiating over the next decade. The ITF intends to have a plan in place by the end of this year, he said. Though the “significant cost barrier” means only the very top events will be able to implement live electronic line calling in the foreseeable future, Dent said the ITF’s review must weigh up the implications of technology for the traditional route taken to becoming a chair umpire.

“You’ll always need chair umpires, you’ll always need referees but you may not always see line umpires at the very top of the game moving forward,” said Dent, “although . . . I think there’s a long way until that comes.”

Samuel Agini is the FT’s sports business reporter

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