#6

September 7, 2013
Volunteering as a tennis judge in Mežaparks, Rīga

Ever since I started playing tennis I have found judging and organizing tournaments almost as appealing as being on the court myself. That is why a little bit more than two years ago I got a certificate that affirms me being a proper tennis judge... though only for children up to age of ten. Back when I got the license I was not yet fifteen years old, so I was not allowed to officially judge older players; after that, however, there has not been a chance to do so.

Anyhow, for the past two years I occasionally have been judging mini-tennis tournaments. A week ago there was a tournament for eight and nine years old children in Mežaparks, Rīga, and I gladly accepted the invitation to help out. As usual, the tournament took place on Saturday and Sunday, the first day being for the younger children (u8 - Red group), the second for Orange group (u9). This time I judged only Red group, for  they are playing only a tie-break to seven points and they do not keep the ball in game nearly as long as the nine year olds do, making the whole tournament less time-consuming. If there are not thirty children of course. 

This time only eleven boys and eighteen girls had applied for the tournament. The boys were divided in two groups of five and six, the girls - in three groups of six, and there were five judges - each of us had his own group of children to judge. Personally I prefer judging girls, because they are calmer and more friendly to me as their judge. By now I know quite a lot of them from different tournaments and I am actually interested in their progress. 

This time I was assigned to judge the group of six boys, though one of them did not show up. Therefore I had five less games of boys and got to judge some girls as well. Everything went quite well, there were no ambiguous or disputable situations and I was really glad about that, because parents often love to meddle. Also this time I did not have to judge any Russian-speaking boys or girls, but a part of me wished I had, since now my Russian is better and this would have been a good practice. The most interesting moment definitely was when one of the boys could not tie his own shoelace and very politely asked me to do it. He was not allowed to go to his mother at that moment, and of course I did not refuse.

Later I got to judge the finals as well and was proud to see that a boy from "my group" got the gold medal. Thanks to the nice weather we were able to finish the tournament in approximately three hours. I was surprised to see that a very capricious girl's, who is now ten years old, younger sister got the third place. Hereafter I am definitely going to keep an eye on her, might be that she is really talented.. who knows? 

Sadly my phone's battery was low and I did not risk taking pictures. Therefore the only pictures I have were taken by one of the organizers and published on u10 tennis association homepage.

the certificate I got two years ago

me tying a kid's shoelaces

the person on the other court in the green pants, whose head did not get in the picture - that is me 

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My reflections

Since this was not the first time I volunteered as a mini tennis judge, I knew what was expected from me and could organize my job more efficiently. From my experience I was aware of my abilities to always remember the score regardless of how long the ball is played, and prepared a piece of paper beforehand, so I could write down the score. 

Regardless of my prior knowledge, each tournament and each game is different. Every time I have to find the right approach in order to establish a respectful, yet friendly relationship with the children, depending on how they behave and what is their attitude. I tried to make an impression of a grown up, because on the court they have to treat me as one, even if I am not in the same age as their parents. I think, I managed to get the children to trust me and look at me as at someone who knows better, because one boy very sweetly asked me to help tie his shoelaces and several other children asked my opinion whether or not they should put on their jackets, so that they would not catch a cold.

As always, I was a bit nervous of ambiguous shots that could be considered as either IN or OUT, mostly because some parents tend to get very emotional and I did not want to be blamed for their kid's defeat. However, this time there were no conflict situations, and everything went quite smoothly.

Over several tournaments I have also proved myself to be a good judge, which the organizers can trust. In addition to my primary task, I was assigned to collect the results from other judges and help them write the results down correctly, for some of them did not know how to operate with a round-robin type of table. This activity was definitely a great opportunity to improve my skills at working collaboratively with others, and, I think, I succeeded at that. Reflecting on my communication skills with children, I still have a plenty of room for growth, but it is getting easier every time.