Overidding Official Line Calls

6.D.13. Players may call faults on themselves or line calls to their disadvantage during or after the completion of a rally. This does not includes overriding a referee’s or line judge’s call if it is to their disadvantage.

13.D.3.b. Player line calls are not valid in matches with line judges, except to overrule a line judge call to disadvantage their own team (see Rule 6.D.13). Players may appeal a line call made by the line judge to the referee. (See Rule 13.F.)

6.D.13. Players may call faults on themselves or line calls to their disadvantage during or after the completion of a rally. This includes overriding a line judge’s call if it is to their disadvantage.

13.D.3.b. Player line calls are not valid in matches with line judges, except to overrule a line judge call to disadvantage their own team (see Rule 6.D.13). Players may appeal a line call made by the line judge to the referee. (See Rule 13.F.)

Officials are to ensure fair play during tournaments. They are charge with making unbiased and accurate calls, especially for tournaments involving prize money. A player moving on the court will not have a better view of a ball than a stationary official (line judge or referee) or an official reviewing a video replay in slow motion.  Therefore, players should not be allowed to override line calls made by the officiating team. Allowing a player to override an accurate call made by an official is not fair to the game and can result in players influencing the results of a game and/or match. With the entrance of gambling into the sport, this can result in match fixing. It also defeats the purpose of using an officiating team.

1. Team B serves and a rally ensues. A line judge makes an "out" call on a ball that clearly lands out but close to the line on Team B’s end of the court. Team A loses the rally but aggressively pleads to Team B that the ball was "in." To avoid argument with Team A since they are popular players who Team B hopes will invite them to a prestigous event, Team B concedes the rally to Team A instead of standing firm on the point they earned. A similar situation happens at the end of another rally resulting in Team B conceding a point to Team A while Team A was serving, making the score 11-13. Team A winds up winning the match, 15-13, when the match should have been 14-14 at that time had the players not been allowed to override accurate line calls.

2. Team C concedes three points to Team D during a match since they know their friends have bets on Team D to win the match by a margin of X points. The current rule allows Team C to influence the outcome of the match and gambling results.