Who is to call the let? Server, receiver, or both?
by Liz
Q:
This is what happened... Playing doubles and I was receiving 2nd serve. A "good" serve came over and I returned it quite nicely and out of my opponent's reach. She proceeds to start serving again and when my partner and I react perplexed she tells us the previous serve was a let. I said that I thought the receiving team calls the serves:in/out, footfault and let. She told me that I was only partially right: BOTH teams are allowed to call a let. It doesn't make sense to me that both sides have that power.
We let them have the point because we are nice (and were winning!). But I promised everyone I would find out the rule. Can't wait to hear it!!!A: Liz
Your opponent was correct in the fact that either player or team can call a service let if there was one in an unofficiated match. What a player or team cannot do is both create and call a let on themselfs such as calling a let if their hat, or visor falls off in the middle of a point and thus stopping play and wanting to replay the point. The key on this is that you would hope that someone else other than the server also hears a service let and can confirm that there was indeed a let.
Brian