Originally Posted by Cindysphinx
Unless you are looking down the net or have slow-motion replay at your disposal, you are in no position to be sure the net player made contact on the other side of the net.
Personally, I think "hand faults" should be made legal. If you can make contact with the ball without touching the net, why shouldn't you be allowed to play the ball? People hardly ever call a "hand fault" on themselves because they are in no position to judge the exact point of contact down to the inch, so why do we saddle them with that obligation?
Exactly. When saddled with that obligation, they might end up losing their game.
Tennis is full of mental issues. Footfaults and handfaults are two of them. I compare them to the requirement of touching the wall in swimming when turning around and the requirement of not starting off before the gun in track. So many Olympic athletes have experienced the disappointment of being disqualified after 4 years of training. Handling the mental pressure is part of the skill.
The handfaults are especially obnoxious. Footfaults barely result in an advantage for the servers at the club level. But impunity from handfaults has given rise to a number of doubles players who take full advantage of it and end up putting away balls in an illegal fashion. They stand at the net and basically you have no recourse when they hit a ball on the other side.