Graham Waters

Director

WSF Rules & Referees Committee

Table of Contents

1. Background

2. Refereesí School

3. Referees Used

4. Refereeing

s Refereesí Position

s Refereeing System & Supplies

5. Summary of Refereesí Assignments and Assessments

1. Background

I was invited by Craig Brand to be the Tournament Referee at the United States National Squash Championships, held in New Haven, CT from 13-17 March 2002. To be more precise, I was asked to be the Tournament Referee for the S.L. Green and Womenís Open divisions of this event. This would entail assigning referees to all of the matches for these two divisions and performing as many assessments as possible on the U.S referees used for these matches.

I was also asked to lead the second US Squash Refereesí School, which was scheduled for Thursday, March 16^th.

I was provided with a very comfortable room at the New Haven Hotel, one of the tournament hotels, where I shared a room with Ben Harris, the US Squash National Director of Officials. The hotel was within walking distance of the playing venue.

2. Refereesí School

On Thursday, March 14^th, 2002, I conducted a US Squash Refereesí School with 15 participants. Topics covered included: a review of the changes to the rules that became effective in May, 2001; a video session on swing interference; the importance and purpose of assessment; a video presentation called ìLetceteraî; an overview of the WSF publication ìTournament Referee Guidelinesî; a third video on minimal interference; and finally an open question and answer session.

3. Referees Used

There were 11 U.S. Referees available for duty in the two elite divisions. However, most of them were also playing in their respective age groups, and one was also involved in one or more of a series of US Squash meetings, which were being held over the weekend. So, the word for the weekend was ìflexibilityî as it was not always clear who would be available at any given time. However, with the great cooperation of the 11 referees, all matches in both the main round and consolation of these two divisions were covered. In addition, the finals of the Menís 30+, 35+, 40+, 45+, and the Womenís 35+ were covered by this group of referees. I was also able to fill in on 4 matches where the available number of referees was one less than the number of matches scheduled for that time slot. The 12 referees and their # of matches were:

Wendy Ansdell, MA, National - 7 matches

Paul Ansdell, MA, Regional - 7 matches

Paul Brogna, MA, National - 5 matches

Bruce De Wet, VA, State - 1 match

Ben Harris, VA, National - 6 matches plus 1 as marker

Wayne Hodges, NH, National - 6 matches plus 2 as marker

Sam Jernigan, RI, National - 1 match plus 1 as marker

Maherji Madan, MD, National - 6 match plus 1 as marker

Mike Riley, RI, International - 5 matches

Andrew Strasvogel, DC, State - 2 matches plus 1 as marker

Rob Thompson, GA, National - 8 matches

Graham Waters, CAN, National (honorary) - 3 matches plus 1 as marker

4. Refereeing

Refereeing Facilities

The facilities for the referees were very good, although it might have been better to allocate a designated position for the officials on Courts 1 and 3 (the glass courts). However, a continuing problem at the US Nationals is the lack of crowd control, resulting in a seemingly endless stream of traffic walking behind the courts, particularly courts 1 and 3. Not only can this be distracting to the players on court, but it sometimes makes seeing balls close to the tin and questionable pickups very difficult for the officials. Some spectators realize the problem and wait for a break between rallies before running across behind the court. Others, however, have no idea that they are even doing anything wrong and occasionally walk right in front of the officials, stop, chat with somebody, all the time blocking the officialsí view of the play and distracting the players. I strongly recommend that something be done about crowd control at future championships. This was not an issue on the other courts (including the #9 glass court) as the referees stood on the balcony overlooking the back wall although, movement behind the glass back walls below was still causing a distraction for the players.

Refereeing System & Supplies

It was decided that the traditional marker/referee system would be used. As so many of the referees were also playing and attending meetings, we were only able to provide one referee, who performed the duties of both the marker and the referee, per match. However, the semi-finals and finals of the championship side of the both open events were provided with both a marker and a referee. There was an abundant supply of score sheets, clipboards, balls, pencils, etc. for the use of the referees.

Conduct on Court

For the most part, the players behaved very well throughout the event. There were a few signs of disapproval for calls that went against them, but that is to be expected, and there was no prolonged dissent as the decisions were accepted and then play resumed.

There was one Conduct Stroke assessed when a player in the S.L. Green draw carelessly tossed his racquet into the corner of the court after losing a game. This drew an apology from the player in question, and there were no further incidents. Further evidence that Rule 17, when applied properly, really works!

5. Summary of Refereesí Performances

Assignments & Assessments

Assignments were done each day, with some contingency plans in the event that other duties prevented anybody from fulfilling their refereeing assignments. All of the referees were diligent in being on time for their assigned matches and happily accepted whatever matches were assigned to them. All of the National Referees justified their status and performed very well. The US Squash now has a very good core of National Referees. It is now time, however, to encourage the next wave in order to supplement and take over from this top group over the coming years.