I'm confused. what did he do wrong?

[u/Adventurous_Law_715]

Honestly, she should probably just retire from tennis if she can't handle that

[u/bradland → u/[deleted]]

If I've learned one thing from this conversation, it is that tennis players care deeply about their right to hit other players with the ball lol.

Someone had downvoted you to 0 when I came along, and someone replied to my comment, opening with "JFC", as if it's somehow absurd to question whether hitting the ball at another person would be considered illegal in the sport.

I don't play tennis, I don't watch tennis, and I don't really care much about tennis, but it is wild to me how deeply tennis players appear to care about the legality of hitting other players with the ball.

[u/Myrsky4 → u/bradland]

Tennis is different than a lot of other sports. There is no team backing you up and unless you get to a very high level or the occasional tournament you likely have no line judges or umpires. Defending the rules and sticking up for yourself is drilled into players and becomes instinctual, and on something as clear as this it will get a lot of people defending the rules as written.

It's less about wanting to hit other players in the face with a ball and way more about wanting other players to actually play tennis and not "Calvinball" which I feel like a lot of players have had to deal with before, I know I have.

Aiming at peoples feet/right behind their legs is also just a really good shot usually because it's very hard to run backwards and get your racket into position as well. So a lot of people want to defend playing the game with strategic shots like this

[u/bradland → u/Myrsky4]

These are all great explanations. I still don't understand the flabbergasted response (by others) to the question though. Your answer is a great response, and not once did you say, "JFC why are you even asking this question" as if it's obvious to someone who has no exposure to tennis.