The New 30-Minute Rule
Anyone who has played at WTC a few times has probably experienced the situation in which players on a court did not record their time. Frankly, most of us are guilty of this practice once in a while. Perhaps we show up when there are only two occupied courts, and it doesn’t look like all the courts will even fill up anytime soon… but then a flood of cars shows up 15 minutes later (Murphy’s Law of Tennis at WTC).
At the very least, this causes a great deal of frustration on the part of those who show up later. On occasion, it leads to disputes. In fact, under these conditions, which have been in place since the conception of Washoe Tennis Club so many decades ago, one could even say that it is inevitable that several disputes take place each year. They are as inevitable as the dispute that breaks out on the basketball court in the beginning of The Last Castle (Robert Redford), after the warden deliberately provides the inmates with only one basketball during their recreational time.
In the spirit of reducing the chances of future disputes, the WTC has now adopted a new rule:
If players on a court have not recorded their start time on the board, you may write down a start time of 30 minutes before the current time. You may also ask the players their original start time, but you are under no obligation to do so.
Naturally, once this rule is exercised, players on court may not alter their time. Putting up the correct time only after others exercise the 30-minute rule is too late. The rule may also be applied regardless of how many courts are currently occupied.
Supposing this rule is applied a thousand times, statistically, it will neither reward nor deprive players of time. When players are normally allotted 60 minutes of court time, but there is no time recorded, the most reasonable mathematical guess for the correct start time would be 30 minutes ago. If the purpose of the rule were to punish players for not following rules, this would be a 35- or 45-minute rule (or, heaven forbid, a 60-minute rule).
The driving forces behind this rule are to (1) remove confusion, and (2) spare our members from an endlessly repeating uncomfortable choice. Without this rule, people must either interrupt players to ask their start time, guess at how long they’ve been playing, or write down the current time, knowing full well it’s incorrect.
While there may be some initial adjustment as players get used to the new system, ultimately this rule makes life easier for everyone – both those playing on the courts and those tasked with managing them.
