Most code-violation penalties seem rather humorous to me, especially when watching tennis on TV. Verbal obscenity, visible obscenity, and the dreaded "racquet abuse" have always impressed me as prissy holdovers left over from the anachronistic sensibilities that brought us the days when players dressed all in white, "ladies" didn't sweat, and the sport was always referred to as "lawn tennis".

Obscenity, we all know, must be kept from the television audience and the censors

don't want to stay too busy, so penalize the player for causing the intrusion. Of course, if it isn't seen or isn't heard, it isn't a penalty. Motto to this story: just don't get caught! And since it is a matter of pure subjectivity on the part of the chair umpire, just what does constitute the parameters of "racquet abuse"?

This spectator was amazed when, at a critical juncture of a dramatic match recently, the chair umpire assessed a point penalty against a player who had merely scraped her racquet across the service line while awaiting her opponent's serve. Neither the umpire nor the referee (who had been subsequently called) could explain exactly what had happened, either to the bewildered player or to the crowd, but the almighty Umpire of the Chair had decreed "racquet abuse" and "racquet abuse" it would remain. All of the point-by-point battling of the two players was destroyed in a single instant. It then became not a contest of player against player any longer; it was now player against fragile racquet. True, this was only one point in a long match, but as any player can tell you, one point can be all that is needed to dramatically shift the momentum of any match.

In another match I recently witnessed, a player who had already received a "racquet abuse" code violation warning was busily digging the clay off the service line in obvious frustration when a voice form ths stands yelled out, "Point penalty! Line abuse!" Still another time, when a player received a warning for racquet abuse, she smartly replied "Racquet abuse? I'll show you racquet abuse!" and proceeded to reconfigure her racquet into the likeness of a pretzel. The outcome? You guessed it? "Point Penalty!" With these examples in mind, is it hard to imagine that the day is not far off when there will be yet another code violation -- ball abuse! (Sorry, Mr. Phillipoussis, but you just hit that ball just TOO hard this time! Point penalty!")

With a new awareness thanks to these incidents, I have spent the past few weeks paying very close attention to the code violation calls. What I found is that there is no consistency in these calls -- either in the number of times one is allowed to "bounce" one's racquet (sometimes ten bounces constitute a warning or penalty; at other times, one bounce is enough). Nor is there consistency in the amount of punishment a racquet must endure before it is pronounced 'abused'. It does not seem to be a matter of the force used on the racquet, the distance the racquet is thrown, the object hit, or the condition of the racquet at the end. Many a delighted toss of the racquet was even smiled upon by the chair umpire, while it was doubtful the racquet was any happier or less abused being tossed than it was being bounced.

No, the racquet itself does not seem to be the main object of concern. What the umpires seem to be targeting is the expression of anger. If you hit a good shot, abuse the racquet all you like; you'll never receive so much as a warning. But if you should hit a bad shot, keep that racquet off the ground, your voice quiet, and your hands in your pockets, The umpires are watching, waiting with baited breath to penalize your every expression of a negative emotion.

Isn't one of the benefits of sport supposedly a cathartic release of pent-up negative emotions -- take it out on the ball rather than a fellow human? Don't we want our players to get emotionally involved in their game? What do we want -- power-hitting tennis bashers or lollipop lobbers? To "get into" the game, one must "feel" the game. And to "feel" the game means to let the players be human, even if a racquet may suffer some "abuse". I say eliminate this needless penalty today!

The opinions expressed by panda are hers and hers alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of "On The Line" staff in general.

Thanks for the support guys - PANDA