Refereeing Medal Rounds

Depending on the size of a tournament, the number of Referees available and the court space available a medals match might have anywhere from one Referee to six or seven.

For small tournaments a single Referee might handle a medal match much the same as any other match.  Many tournament directors prefer to use line judges and two Referees.  The following are some variation examples:

Option 1

With this very common option a secondary referee, who is positioned on the opposite side of the court from the primary referee is added.  During  the serve the primary referee stands on the server's side of the net.  He concentrates on the server for foot faults, illegal serves and watches the non-volley area on that side for foot faults.  He also calls balls out-of-bounds on that side.  His other assignments are covered in the "Examples of a Referee's game procedure" section.  The secondary referee moves to the receiving side of the net and watches that non-volley area for foot faults and calls out-of-bounds on that side.  Receiving players call center line serve violations and make out-of-bounds calls on the baselines.  The primary referee may overule any secondary referee or line judge call.  When using this system it's best if the referees can stand near the side lines so they have a better "down-the line" view of balls near the lines.

Option 2

With this option two line judges are added to Option 1 for the base line "out-of-bounds" calls. This option can be used if there is enough room on the court sides or there is visability through side fences. 

Option 3

This option adds two more line judges to Option 2 for side-line "out-of-bounds" calls.  This option depends on court space availability or visability through fences.  Using this option, the referees only make rulings on side line calls to overrule a line judge call if it is appealed.

Option 4

This option adds another line judge at one end of the court to call "center-line" serve violations.  Here, the players do not make the calls but may make appeals to the primary referee.

An example of how a primary referee might handle a medal match using options 1 through 3

In this video Wayne Muggli uses clips from several different games to give us an example of how a medal match might  be handled.

In this follow-up video Wayne adds a few ideas on important parts of a Referee's responsibilities.