Tennis rules for supervisor Kelso

Bruce Emond ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Nusa Dua, bali   |  Fri, 11/06/2009 2:45 PM  |  Sports

Tennis, not fame, is the name of Donna Kelso's game. But the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour supervisor suddenly finds herself featured in one of the most popular YouTube videos of the year.

The Australian is the blonde woman who came onto court after Serena Williams' outburst at a lineswoman at the US Open. The incident - Williams, down matchpoint, was penalized a point, and lost the semifinal match to Kim Clijsters - took tennis from the sports page to the front page.

For Kelso, it was just another day at the office, albeit an unusually tense one, with the sparks flying before thousands of raucous spectators in New York City as well as millions more TV viewers at home (and at least 1.3 million viewers have watched the incident in various videos on YouTube).

For she is not afraid to lay down the rules.

"I was sitting courtside the whole match, when it all happened action needed to be taken," she says simply during the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions.

In the incident, an irate Serena gradually calms down as she listens to what Kelso has to say, before putting down her racket when she realizes that it's game over.

"You don't consider who it is," Kelso says. "As WTA Tour supervisors, we are able to build up strong professional relationships. We are able to talk to them with respect, because we have their respect."

Kelso adds that officials must have confidence about the decisions they make.

Personal feelings should never into any of their decisions.

"We have a job and they *players* have a job. You have to have an inner strength and confidence that this is the rule and this is how to apply it .particularly as a chair umpire, you are there to make the calls . Consistency is key, from one match to another, one event to another."

She also believes that it's essential to be happy doing the job. On that count, the Sydney native also is in her element because tennis is a sport that she loves. She even likes the travel, although it keeps her away from her husband and young son.

That love started young. Kelso joined a tennis school after winning a racket in a children's coloring contest. On rainy days when they could not practice, the young players would be given lessons in tennis theory. When they played in tournaments, early-round losers would be given the job of umpiring matches. She was fascinated by the rules of the game.

She umpired her first official match at the age of 16, and later applied to umpire matches overseas, including Wimbledon, in the mid-1980s. She would pay her own way, hoping to break even on the stipends provided by the tournaments.

It was an era of transition with the emergence of professional umpires, and Kelso was one of the pioneers. Even Wimbledon was still using club members to call the lines in the late 1970s, some of whom would doze off during long matches.

Now umpires must be accredited and undergo periodic evaluations.

"It's great," she says. "Obviously it has benefited the sport, and a number of us have made a living from it."

Men officiated at most major women's matches until the mid-1980s, and it also would have been laughable to suggest having a woman umpire a men's event. All of that has changed. In her long career, Kelso umpired five Australian Open singles finals and a couple of Wimbledon semifinals.

"I'm very proud to see women being given opportunities, whether it is in women's or men's tennis," says Kelso, who was the head umpire for the 1993 ATP World Doubles Championships in Jakarta.

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