Hot Seat at Wimbledon: Judge, Jury and Shrink

By PAUL A. WITTEMAN/WIMBLEDON

Sultan Ganji, sitting in the umpire's chair at Court 8 last week, had a small problem. Olivier Delaitre, a French tennis player of modest repute, was hammering his countryman Rodolphe Gilbert mercilessly in a first-round match. As another Gilbert forehand went beyond the chalk in the opinion of the judge on that line, Gilbert turned to Gangji and pouted, "How could that ball possibly be out?!" Gangji paused, looked beneficently down at Gilbert and said, "I don't know. It was too close for me to call."

Potential tantrum defused. Gilbert went quietly to his demise thereafter, although he did drop-kick his racket into the net after the final point and mutter a few Gallic epithets. But Gangji, 41, one of the top professional umpires in tennis, chose to ignore this final frisson of petulance.

Graf, Courier, Stich and Edberg may be gone, but as Wimbledon moves through its final week, Gangji and the other 359 umpires employed by the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club for the tournament stoically march through the draw. Underpaid and often abused by the churlish multimillionaires they judge, umpires must display the probity of a Supreme Court Justice, the acuity of a marksman and the patience of a marriage counselor.

Few do it with the skill and grace of Gangji, an employee of the International Tennis Federation, who makes a modest salary of $45,000 for the 35 weeks a year that he officiates at tournaments in New York, Lagos, London and various other way stations on the endless tennis circuit. He is one of the handful of salaried professionals in a field traditionally peopled with volunteers calling lines for a cold beer and a pat on the back. At Wimbledon the umpires receive about $200 a day plus meals for squinting into the near distance and making a call that could well determine if a player advances to, say, the fourth round. Trifling it's not. Those players who do advance that far earn $67,000 this year; the men's winner will pocket $517,000. Says Gangji, who first began drawing a salary only four years ago: "I'm not going to become a millionaire, but at least we are getting the respect we deserve now. Besides, I love the sport."

Gangji did not see a tennis court until he was 11. They were not in abundance on the island of Zanzibar, off the coast of East Africa, where he was born. He first took racquet in hand when sent to the Prince of Wales boarding school in Nairobi. But field hockey was his sport at the University of London, where he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry. Gangji first sat in an umpire's chair 20 years ago, when he was drafted for a match at his London club.

Since then, he has presided at three Wimbledon finals and numerous other Grand Slam tournaments, along the way giving clinics in the essentials and art of officiating. "I think Sultan has trained virtually every official in Africa," says Jay Snyder, director of the U.S. Open.

And taken abuse from aggrieved players the world over. "The player comments always come down to blindness," he says. "'Which match are you watching? Did the dust get in your eyes, Sultan?"' Actually, notes Gangji, his eyesight is better than good. He says he can pick out the number on the ball as it comes across the net on a ground stroke.

He hears almost as well as he sees -- and much of what he hears is unprintable. The decorum police at the governing bodies of tennis privately circulate a list of words in nine languages, the utterance of which would allow the umpire to give a player a warning. Two more such offenses, and the match is forfeit. The list, however, is incomplete. Last year at Wimbledon an alert TV viewer called in to tell the umpires that Goran Ivanisevic was not complimenting them on the fit of their blazers in Serbo-Croatian. Then there was the time Gangji summoned Anand Amritraj to the chair to tell him to cease swearing in Hindi. "But, Sultan, you and I are the only ones here who understand what I'm saying!" was the reply. Gangji shook his head and pointed out a group of Indian spectators in the stands.

Gangji had no trouble understanding the star player who insisted on calling him "Mr. Zanzibar." The player raced to the chair during one match after Gangji overruled a line judge and called a serve from his opponent good. To add insult to injury, Gangji also ruled the serve an ace. Then began the diatribe, a sanitized version of which follows:

"Do you know who my opponent is, Mr. Zanzibar? Do you know how fast my opponent serves, Mr. Zanzibar? Do you know that my opponent's serve goes only 55 m.p.h. and it would be impossible for him to ace me, Mr. Zanzibar?" "Play," said Gangji, not entirely sure he was right until he saw the replay later on TV.

By comparison his assignments at Wimbledon this week should be a cakewalk.

Unless he blows a call.