line judge duties

[BlitzkriegBob]

Welcome to the board William!

When I am the R1 (Up Ref as you referenced), I typically tell my line judges that if a foot fault is obvious, I will be able to call it. I also tell them that if it is close, I will look at them, and if they are giving me a foot fault signal then I will call it, if not then I will assume it was a legal serve. So if the server was over the line by 3 or 4 inches then I wouldn't really need a LJ to signal it (though I also always tell me to give the signal anyway). You say that she was over the line by 1/4-inch, but a server does not need to over the line, merely touching the line at the moment of contact of serve for a foot fault to occur.

Now if a line judge signaled a foot fault on a serve that I am not sure about, then I am going with their call. Let's say that rather than over the line, her big toe is touching the line, then obviously it is close and who is to say that my judgment from up on the stand is better than a LJ who is much closer to the server? It doesn't matter if the score is 0-0 or 24-23, a foot fault is a foot fault. The only thing I would fault the LJ for, and that I would hopefully get a chance to tell him at the first opportunity, is to not say anything, but to merely signal the infraction. Even with that, it sounds to me as though the situation was handled correctly.