Why tennis players are cheating?
Because junior tennis players have to enforce the rules of the game against each other, cheating to give a player an unfair advantage is common. While this deviant behavior is found to be commonplace in the sport, there is little research to investigate its cause or influences. Results indicated that junior players felt that personal and parental pressures were the most common sources of perceived pressure to win that resulted in cheating behavior. The prevalence of parents who cheat was also cited as a major issue with the participants. Implications as to how the current study adds to the literature of youth cheating as well as practical implications are discussed.
Cheating in youth tennis is a prominent issue. There are many opportunities to make a bad call or call the score in one’s favor without an outside spectator being able to overrule because the players make the line calls and report the score themselves,. The following is an example (based on the tennis warehouse forum) of how easy it is that bad calls can easily get out of hand, see the debate about Nikola Samardzic cheating in tennis.
See tennis warehouse forum at
http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=239422&page=2
Or check out the video with 15,000 hits
The following are some Postings from the tennis warehouse for details follow the above link:
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The kid cheated. No doubt in my mind. He had time to look at the ball cleanly. He was in a weak position so he decided to win the point by cheating …
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Is there a campaign in progress to expose or out Samardzic? So many people seem to want to accuse him of cheating, has he beaten a lot of juniors and they ganged up on him or is he really a cheater that has made bad calls before?
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Yes. Samarjic indicates with his hands, well over 5 inches out. Sorry Samrjic defenders, no top junior has eyesight/judgemnt that bad on a ball he was clearly on top of and looking at?… Though he might have well been actively trying to delude himself. It happens, under pressure, but nothing excuses it. Shameful
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Us Tennis Parents 
Reblogged this on Crazy Tennis Mom and commented:
I recently watched a player call so many in balls out the coach had to go onto the court to make the calls for him. This is a fifteen year old boy who knows better than to cheat. What is it that makes them cheat? If you had been at the match the previous day you would know. This poor young man was playing his match and struggling with some of his shots. Dad sat behind the fence adding his rather “negative” (I’ll be nice) thoughts about the young man’s ability. Frustrated the young man finally screams out “I am trying Dad!!!” My heart broke, you could hear how upset he was with disappointing his dad. So why did he cheat the next match? He was not going to disappoint his dad again! To my dismay, the father did not show any negative feelings about the bad line calls. What do we teach our kids?
Sandra - April 30, 2012 at 11:36 am |
I know how you feel, and it is bad if the parents and/or spectators are watching this bad behaviour. Mostly these cheaters are known and it looks like that this Samardzic guy is well known for it. What a surprise that this small little youtube video was watched 15,000 times. I’ll guess that in the past a player could get away with cheating much easier. In todays world were many major tennis tournaments are being recorded, it is easy to document these events and expose a player.
Mango - May 13, 2012 at 3:29 pm |
…. mostly the majority of these kids do not do well but of course some do. There is no real advice other than get a tournament official and stay out of it, don’t get involved. A cheater is often even questioning the other line calls to just swing the momentum arround, or calling a ball out so convincingly that even somebody close to the line may think he is right, or calling the other player a cheater and often making a scene if he is close to loose a game, set or even the match. Often even the parents teaching the kid winning is everything and they do not step in to adjust this shameful play.
All you can do is let your son or daughter know that he/she played well, and that he/she did enough to win the match.
Final word of advice to you – no matter how bad the line calls are, do not get involved in the match or even worse with the other kid or his parents. Show your support for your kid at the match and if you want proof document the whole match with a high quality video camera. You may be surprised how many balls you thought are in or out that actually weren’t. It is difficult to stay out of the battle, it is natural to protect your kid.
Stay out of any discussion with the parent this can get easily physical, and what kind of example would that be for your kid?
SliceIt - May 13, 2012 at 4:13 pm |