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Swing Interference: 12.8.2 & G7

Do you or your opponent have an excessive swing?

This new rule (12.8.2) puts into writing what was common practice, and that is, to award a stroke to the striker whose swing has been prevented – regardless of the opponent’s clearing effort. The reason is the sensitivity of the swing to the least of disturbances. Remember those times when you have clipped a wall while swinging at the ball, and it goes nowhere. Well, that shows in a nutshell what we’re talking about.

We must acknowledge that any actual physical interference to the swing will affect the outcome.

• However, for this rule to apply, the swing has to be ‘prevented’- basically a major interference. This results from either actual contact, or as a result of the opponent being so close that had the striker attempted to swing, physical contact or interference would have occurred.
• When the interference is minor – a touch or brush of the racquet but not sufficient to prevent the stroke -- or has the potential to be minor, then consideration of the opponent’s clearing effort is crucial. In other words if the opponent was making no effort to clear then even minor interference may justify a ‘stroke’, whereas if the opponent is making every effort to clear and only minor interference occurs then the call should be ‘let’.

We all know that players commonly play around all sorts of interference; both interference to view and interference to access. Interference to the swing, although certain to cause an unintended return, has to be expected and a balance has to be struck before penalizing all swing interferences in order to make the game playable. The rules allow for this fair outcome of a ‘let’ when the swing is affected with a minor contact or the anticipation of minor contact.

Of course, if the striker refrains from swinging due to Reasonable Fear Of Injury (RFOI) and the referee agrees that there was RFOI, then a ‘let’ is allowed. There does not need to be the potential for any actual contact for RFOI to exist – only that there was an obvious and justifiable concern about injury with an opponent in close proximity.

However referees should be on the lookout for players who refrain from swinging in the hopes of being awarded strokes by lenient referees, even though it is clear that the opponent has cleared sufficiently. In this situation the proper call must always be ‘No Let’.

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