Brian Dimsho is a USTA certified official and the resident official of the Orange County Grand Prix.

by Zach

Q: During a recent open tournament, the referee stopped by and decided to watch our doubles match. We didn't ask him to but he just watched and decided to make calls on the baseline and serves. Neither did my team find it annoying so did the opponents. Can we ask him to leave or to replace him with another referee??

A: Zach, From What you discribe you had what is known as a "Roving Offical" stop at your match. A Roving offical can overrule line calls and call foot faults when in direct observation of the court. In most cases something may have happened on your court to attract His or her attention to observe your match. And depending on what happened on the court to attract the attention, the Official may have to stay for the remainder of the match and in most cases they will not be replaced.