Intercollegiate women’s tennis demands honesty and sportsmanship.

Tennis players at the university level are responsible for calling their own lines without the aid of an official, which means each player is responsible for calling the ball “in” or “out” on his or her side of the court.

Few sports give competitors as much say in refereeing the game as tennis does. There are no umpires or line judges to determine whether balls are foul or fair or if a player has gone out of bounds.

“Tennis is kind of a mental game for the most part. You try to be fair because if you aren’t fair with [your opponent], they won’t be fair with you,” senior Tara Goedjen said.

Head coach Michele Conlon said she just tells the women on the team to conform to the rules. “I tell my players to call them how they see them, simple as that,” she said.

The Intercollegiate Tennis Association rules for Division I play state that a meet should be officiated by two United States Tennis Association certified officials.

In other words, when Iowa State plays a non-conference opponent, there is often only one official for every three matches that are being played if all six singles matches are played simultaneously.

The Big 12 Conference rules require three officials for a meet, meaning there is one official for every two matches being played.

Whether two officials is sufficient depends on the match, Conlon said.

“You can have some conflict where you are playing someone who is known to call the lines pretty close,” Goedjen said. “You can either ignore it and go on playing, or you can question that and let them know that you think they are close calls.”

Conlon said the main reasons for not having officials to watch every court or every line are that there is a limited pool of qualified officials and the team’s budget could not accommodate an excess of officials.

“We spend several thousand dollars over the course of a year on officials,” she said. “Some of the schools in the Big 12 will have six officials for the matches, some will have four, some will designate more officials for bigger matches. It depends on the school’s budget and the availability of officials.”

Conlon said conflict about a questionable line call happens only occasionally and is usually not an issue. A player is not going to have the liberty to change the entire outcome of a match because of close calls, Goedjen said.

“It’s my feeling that these student-athletes have competed through their junior career calling their own lines so they should be able to work it out,” Conlon said.

Conlon said having the players call their own lines helps them to learn to deal with opponents who will have a varying degree of sportsmanship.