US OPEN

September 1, 2001

Brian Earley

Stefan Fransson

THE MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us tonight. We have with us ITF Grand Slam Supervisor Stefan Fransson and referee, Brian Earley. Mr. Earley would like to read a statement.

BRIAN EARLEY: All right. An investigation was conducted by the Grand Slam referee in conjunction with the Grand Slam supervisors with regard to an on-court incident during the match between James Blake and Lleyton Hewitt yesterday. After interviews with both players, the lineman in question and the chair umpire, and after reviewing videotape of the incident, it was determined that there was no violation of the Grand Slam code of conduct committed by Lleyton Hewitt. Furthermore, the evidence was inconclusive as to the intent of Mr. Hewitt's remarks to the chair umpire. Let me also add, and this is not written down, that the jurisdiction here is with the Grand Slam referee, who is me, and with the Grand Slam supervisors, the chief of whom is Stefan Fransson, here. Let me also say that I not only -- it says I reviewed the incident on the videotape. I did that many, many times. I will tell you that Mr. Hewitt's version is that the remark that he made -- and I have a transcript of it here -- "Look at him. Look at him and tell me what the similarity is." His explanation is that he was -- he couldn't understand why the chair umpire didn't see that this was the same line umpire who had made the exact same mistake, to use Lleyton's words, twice, in very short order. He couldn't understand that the chair umpire didn't realize it was the same guy. I will tell you looking at the tape, there was no gesture in the direction of Mr. Blake when he made the comments about the similarities. He did not use Mr. Blake's name; he didn't say, "my opponent." He made no reference to Mr. Blake. If I am going to go from there, from where I was and from the report from the chair umpire, who issued no code violation at the time and didn't feel like there was a code violation to be issued and didn't feel that it was a racist remark, if I was to go from the report that I got and from the videotape, it would be -- there would be a lot of inference. I would have to assume that I know and that I knew what Mr. Hewitt was thinking when he made the remarks that he made. Again, on the videotape and the audio of the videotape, the transcript of which is right here, you cannot make the case that he was obviously referring to James Blake in these remarks.

BRIAN EARLEY: He does.

BRIAN EARLEY: I think he'd rather -- he would just like to put the situation behind him. What he said was, "I learned a lot from that match." I would let you ask him what his reaction was. I don't think I can -- he didn't really say much when I told him.

BRIAN EARLEY: I can't tell you. I think he's happy that it's been made, though.

BRIAN EARLEY: Yes. His explanation was that he couldn't understand that the chair umpire didn't realize it was the same umpire making the two footfault calls. You have to understand, a footfault is an unusual call, and when it happens, it takes everybody off guard, not just -- I shouldn't say that, it doesn't take everybody completely off guard. But it's a bit unusual. Mr. Hewitt's contention was that it was just one person making this call and couldn't the chair umpire understand that it was the same person making that call.

BRIAN EARLEY: Well, during any given match it could be four or six, depending on what the rotation is. Remember, this is a five-set match. So we had the potential that several different line umpires could be on the match. Baseline umpires in particular. Then also remember that the line umpire was switched, and that is not an unusual situation. We talk in officiating, we say, "If your line gets hot, sometimes we'll switch you with another line umpire. It will help to diffuse the situation." This was Andreas Egli who made the call, to moving him around after the incident happened. So as far as Andreas was concerned, Mr. Egli, he was diffusing the situation. So, yes, there could have been four or six people making a footfault call, but there could have been as many as eight or nine on any given match, especially a three-hour match like that was.

BRIAN EARLEY: James did not -- I spoke at length to James, and James wasn't really paying much attention to what was happening there. James had just won the game, was just on the break. He noticed what was going on, but he really didn't take much from the conversation. Remember that, too, it was very loud out there and our privilege to hear it was based on microphones on the court. We are basically listening to what could be called a private conversation with the chair umpire. While we do allow the microphones out there, sometimes they're -- they don't allow everybody to hear everything. In other words, we at home or we watching on the TV screen are hearing exactly what's being said. And some who's sitting six or eight feet away only hears little bits and pieces of it. The chair umpire is not speaking on the microphone, and the player is not listening to anything.

BRIAN EARLEY: Absolutely. Absolutely. More than I can tell you. Contrite is a word I would use, except that he didn't feel like he had to apologize for what he meant. He felt like he had to apologize for the way it was taken.

BRIAN EARLEY: No, I interviewed them both personally, and Mr. Egli personally. The line umpire filed a very short comment that he had -- that nothing was said to him, derogatory or otherwise, that the chair umpire couldn't hear. In other words, his comments about the line umpire were made to the chair umpire with a reference, gesturing, towards the line umpire. I will also say that in my discussions with James Blake, he was specific that there was nothing else in the match that led him, James Blake, to believe that there was any racial undertones to the match or there was anything personal going on out there.

BRIAN EARLEY: Five to ten minutes. Somewhere between five and ten minutes.

BRIAN EARLEY: Little bit, yes. That's why we're here. If it were easy, then it would not have been misconstrued. Or whether it's misconstrued or not, I can't tell you. I only can say that I would have to draw conclusions from what I see and what I hear that it was a definite racist -- that he was definitely making racist remarks, and I can't do that from what I have. I can't say the court of public opinion won't do that, and I can't -- I'm not saying that I'm a mind reader and that I can say that he didn't mean it. I can't say that at all. I can only say that I can't -- that it's very, very tough to prove that he did. That's why I made -- that's why we made the decision we did.

BRIAN EARLEY: Fair statement. Absolutely.

BRIAN EARLEY: I have not had any discussions. I can't answer that question really.

BRIAN EARLEY: Does he have a history of making racist remarks?

BRIAN EARLEY: No, I didn't take that into consideration.

BRIAN EARLEY: I am absolutely concerned about behavior on court.

BRIAN EARLEY: Players' behavior.

BRIAN EARLEY: I'm speaking to Lleyton. If there is an incident that requires a code violation and a fine, I can speak to that specifically. But I'm here tonight to speak about the specific incident that happened yesterday.

BRIAN EARLEY: Yeah, I try very hard not to. I try to make the decision based on what I see and what I can show. So, no, I did not use any other context for it.

BRIAN EARLEY: Okay, I don't -- I'm trying to make a determination whether or not I can prove that it is a wrong situation, and I have worked and thought about this quite a long time, in discussions with the Grand Slam supervisors and, again, the people who were on court and involved. This is not -- this was not a USTA decision. The good work that the USTA has done in this regard, please do not overlook that.

BRIAN EARLEY: I think yesterday -- no, I really can't speak to what he said yesterday. Let's just say that. I just cannot. I think you'll have to ask him that question.

BRIAN EARLEY: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. He did not say that at all. He was embarrassed that it was taken that way. He was crestfallen. But, again, I can't speak to the intent of anything, and that's the hard part for me and for Stefan and for the other Grand Slam supervisors. We are now put in a position where we're asked to determine the intent of something, and that's -- that is a very, very steep hill to climb. I see in all the things that you folks have written today, I see the words, "apparent," "implied,"

"inferred." Those words speak to my problem. Anything that is inferred or implied is very difficult to prove.

BRIAN EARLEY: Absolutely there is, and Stefan can answer those.

STEFAN FRANSSON: The code of conduct for

on-site offenses includes unsportsmanlike conduct, would cover all those situations that you are referring to on site at the Grand Slam. That would have been where we would have been in case we would have felt that this was a code violation.

BRIAN EARLEY: He did not. He did not. I can tell you that.

BRIAN EARLEY: I think everybody -- it is policy not to give the name.

BRIAN EARLEY: I can tell you who the chair umpire is.

STEFAN FRANSSON: I have no problem.

BRIAN EARLEY: Marion Johnson is his name.

BRIAN EARLEY: Yes.

STEFAN FRANSSON: I don't know. I have to look at that. I haven't looked for that here.

STEFAN FRANSSON: That's a different situation. Let's stick to this one here. That was totally different. It wasn't during a match, like this. That was a different situation.

BRIAN EARLEY: No, did not hear that and.

BRIAN EARLEY: The transcript's here.

BRIAN EARLEY: I did not. Absolutely not.

STEFAN FRANSSON: Well, I think Andreas was the chair, just felt that he wanted this guy off the line. He called a footfault twice, and he took care of that situation. He also told him when, he told him that he would rotate him, as I'm sure you heard on TV, that if he moves another line umpire in, he didn't want to have any complaints about footfaults and all that. It's obviously, in a situation like this, with as many baseline umpires as we could have here, that it's the one person that makes the calls often sparks off a comment like that from a player, so.

STEFAN FRANSSON: He didn't feel anything like that when he was on court. He didn't say it was close to a code violation.

BRIAN EARLEY: I can read it. It's really very brief because it's the part we're talking about. "Change him. Change him. I have only been footfaulted at one end. Okay. Look at him. Look at him and you tell me what the similarity is. Just get him off the court. Look at what he's done." He, him. Always the reference is clearly in those cases to the line umpire. Which is not unusual, by the way, when we're talking about players complaining.

STEFAN FRANSSON: The other supervisors as well.

BRIAN EARLEY: We talked to the line umpire involved, if that's what you're asking.

BRIAN EARLEY: No.

BRIAN EARLEY: Yeah, very, very close on that. I'm not gonna -- I could deny that I could have made a case for, "Yeah, he was impugning the -- he was saying he didn't think he was doing a very good job." But I can't go there and then not do that every time a chair umpire or a player complains to a chair umpire about a line umpire, "He's screwing up the whole -- he keeps screwing up." Okay, we hear that all the time. "He's made 50 mistakes so far," I hear that all the time. Yes, there is a line to be drawn in the clearest definition that we can make of that line, he didn't cross it in that case, no. And he didn't do it. He didn't show the man up publicly. I would tell you that, yes, he did gesture to him, to the audience that he was having an argument with the chair umpire and it was about the line calls down at this end of the court. That was very clear.