Rules of tennis amateurs get wrong

The ball touched the line. In or out?

This applies to every line, including the service line. And it does not matter how little the ball touched: a sliver counts. The rule says touching, not a percentage.

I hit the ball twice by accident. Did I lose the point?

This is the most common mistake in amateur tennis — almost everyone hands over the point believing a double hit is an automatic fault.

The rulebook says a player loses the point if they «deliberately carry or catch the ball in play on the racket or deliberately touch it with the racket more than once». The word deliberately appears twice. If the ball hit your strings twice within one swing, play on.

The serve clipped the net and landed in.

Watch the catch: a let does not cancel a previous fault. If you had already missed the first serve and the second clipped the net and went in, you replay the second serve — you do not go back to the first.

During the rally the ball clipped the net and landed in.

Only on the serve does the net create a let. With the ball in play, if it passed over and landed in the correct court, it is a good return — even if it hung on the tape and dribbled over.

The ball hit me. What if it was going out?

If the ball in play touches you or anything you wear or carry — the racket excepted — the point goes to your opponent. There is no «it was going out». Letting the ball pass is your decision; being hit is a lost point.

I touched the net after hitting the ball.

It applies to you, to the racket (even if it flew out of your hand), to your clothing and to anything you carry. It also covers the posts, cords and strap, and stepping into the opponent's court.

Timing decides it: if the point was already over, touching the net costs nothing. The rulebook itself gives both cases, and the only difference between them is whether the ball was still alive.

I hit the ball before it crossed the net.

You may follow through and let the racket pass over the net after striking the ball — that is allowed. What you may not do is reach onto your opponent's side before the ball crosses.

Who serves the first game after a tie-break?

It is the rule that confuses clubs the most. Remember it this way: whoever opened the tie-break serving, opens the next set receiving.

When do you change ends?

You also change at the end of a set — unless the total number of games in that set was even. In that case the change waits until the end of the first game of the next set.

Foot fault: what actually counts?

There are four prohibitions during the service motion: changing position by walking or running (slight foot movement is allowed), touching the baseline or the court, touching outside the imaginary extension of the sideline, and touching the imaginary extension of the centre mark.

Two things surprise people: you may have both feet off the ground, and in singles you may not serve from the doubles alley — in doubles you may.

In doubles, who returns the serve?

The receiving team decides who takes the first point of the game. The partner takes the second, and that rotation runs to the end of the game — and of the set. You cannot switch mid-set because one of you is returning badly.

Once the return has been made, either player may hit the ball.

How much warm-up am I entitled to?

And one thing almost every amateur does out of order: the toss for ends and service happens BEFORE the warm-up, not after (Rule 9).