Paul Malloy, Chair of the APTA Umpires Committee reflected on recent deliberations in the August edition of Paddle Talk:

A very controversial subject in the game of paddle is the “foot-fault rule.” Everyone understands that a player may not touch the baseline or step into the court before making contact with the ball. Most people also are aware that a player may swing his foot over the baseline during the service as long as the foot doesn’t touch the court prior to striking the ball. Gordon Gray, during his championship years with Sam Sammis, used to give foot-fault judges fits because the swinging foot was practically on the deck as he struck the ball. He has since modified his delivery and no longer swings the foot over the line.

The most troublesome area of the Foot-fault rule comes under Rule 7 (a), which says ,”The server shall throughout the delivery of the service: Not change his position by walking or running.” As stated above, we certainly would be able to deal with the “running jumpers” in paddle. Unfortunately, the rules of Tennis, to which we adhere very closely, added an interpretation from the International Federation on July 9, 1958. The interpretation says that “the server shall not, by slight movements of the feet which do not materially affect the location originally taken up by him, be deemed to change his position by walking or running.” The key word above would seem to be “materially.” How far can a server move before he is deemed to have “materially” changed his position? Two inches? Twenty-two inches? More? Less? In my opinion, the interpretation stated above was probably instituted so as not to penalize the player whose front foot slides inadvertently two or three inches, without touching the line during his service. It cannot have been meant to allow a player to take one, two or three steps and then launch himself into the air and into the court while striking the ball.

In past years I have many times been responsible for gathering volunteer linesmen. Almost without exception it has been impossible to get volunteer linesmen to call a foot-fault for anything other than its violation of the baseline. Understandably, they are reluctant to accept the responsibility for administering a rule which is, at.best, ill-defined

A committee to study the foot-fault rule was formed about three years ago by Bob Brown, president of the APTA at that time, consisting of Bob, John Beck, Bradley Drowne, Dick Squires, and myself. In addition, we sent a questionnaire to twenty-five top players for their opinions. After several meetings and many recommendations we zeroed in on wording that said “one foot must maintain contact with the deck at the moment of delivery.” With this change in effect, it wouldn’t matter how many steps a server took as long as he had to stop and hit the ball with one foot on the deck.

It turned out that this was not to be the ultimate cure-all. Upon subsequent study of some slow motion films of two classic servers, Dick Squires and Sam Sammis, it was observed that at the moment of impact of ball and racket, the extension of their arms pulled them off the deck by approximately one inch. We would have ended up with base linesmen down on their hands and knees trying to see if the server remained anchored to the deck. It was decided to leave the rule as is. A combination of sufficient public comment, trained linesmen and APTA directive might cause this rule to be more properly administered.

Source: Paddle Talk, No. 5 (August)

Finding experienced umpires and linesmen was a challenge and cold weather made it worse. Paul Molloy reported on the challenges.

He wrote the following article for the May edition of the APTA newsletter Paddle Talk:

“The APTA created an arm known as the Umpires Committee approximately three years ago. Bob Brown, the APTA president, called a meeting of players interested and experienced in paddle and tennis officiating. Two of those in attendance were Paul Sullivan and myself, both members of the Eastern Tennis Umpires Association (ETUA). A committee was formed for the purpose of providing consistent and experienced officials at all APTA sanctioned and ranking tournaments. Paul Sullivan as Chairman and I as Secretary, sought out qualified Chair Umpires in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Hartford, Long Island, and the other sanctioned tournament locations.

We also recruited some ETUA members, such as Jack Stahr, Mike Dunne, Adrian Clark, Lee Jackson and Judy Lessing, who have many years of Forest Hills and Wimbledon work among their credits. Prior to the start of the following paddle season, an Umpire-in-Chief was appointed for each men’s and women’s tournament. In return for a modest fee, the Umpire was charged with the responsibility of securing officials for the final and semi-final matches. This involved contacting the tournament Chairman well ahead of the event and working with him, or her to secure linesmen in advance.

To be a good linesman, one needs a certain amount of dedication and training, as well as good eyesight. Trying to find seven or eight such people on a twenty-degree Sunday afternoon in New Canaan, Short Hills or wherever is no easy task. Not many are willing to endure both the cold and the responsibility involved. We usually had to twist a few arms and often ended up with insufficient coverage and several unskilled linesmen.”

Source: Paddle Talk, No. 4 (May)