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It’s not often that a tennis official becomes a household name among fans. And yet that’s exactly what Lars Graff has been able to achieve.
Considered to be among the most acclaimed gold badge chair umpires in the history of the sport, Graff has umpired at all the top-tier events on the ATP tour. He has also officiated at the Grand Slams, the Davis Cup and the Olympic Games.
Among the most memorable matches that Lars Graff has had an on-court view of, is the 2009 Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. Federer won that match 16-14 in the fifth set, which was a particularly historic feat given that it helped him overtake Pete Sampras' then-record of 14 Grand Slams.
Graff also umpired the Wimbledon women’s final between Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska in 2012, which Williams won in three sets. That made the Swede the only international chair umpire in the modern era to umpire in the Wimbledon men's as well as women’s finals.
Lars Graff’s last match as Chair Umpire was at the ATP Finals in 2012. He then completed his MBA from the Stockholm School of Economics, after which he moved from chairing matches to working for the ATP tour on the administrative side.
First Graff was a Manager, and later he was promoted to Director. Both roles also included acting as an ATP Supervisor, before he was appointed the vice-president of officiating.
In August 2020, Lars Graff began a five-year term as the new co-tournament director of the China Open. In a recent interview with Sportskeeda, Graff spoke about his childhood and what made him move into tennis officiating, as well as about his new positions with the ATP tour and the China Open.
Excerpts of Sportskeeda's exclusive interview with Lars Graff
Sportskeeda: We get to hear directly from players very often, but we rarely get insights into the tennis world from the viewpoint of a tennis umpire or a tournament director. Can you tell us more about your journey in tennis officiating, and what it takes to get into such a career?
Lars Graff: When I was a young man, many years ago, I was very fortunate because my grandparents had a house in Bastad - which has an ATP 250 event in July. My parents and grandparents lived there, and I was there during the summers.
One year, they told me that I should apply to be a ball kid at the tournament, so I became a ball boy at the age of seven. That was my first connection to tennis.
In Sweden, we have a system where the ball kids are very young, whereas in some other countries like England, ball boys can be adults as well. So after being a ball kid for a few years, I progressed to the organisation side, and took up different kinds of positions there. Then I played junior tennis.
In Sweden's junior tennis circuit, we had a system where the loser had to umpire the next match. And this is something that everyone - from Stefan Edberg to Mats Wilander to Robin Soderling - has done. You lose in the first round, second round or quarterfinal, you have to umpire the next match. That’s how I first started umpiring matches.
Then I was asked to be a line umpire by the Bastad event in 1974. I took up that position without any training. The only lessons I had received were before the match - they told me that if the ball is out, you say out, and you put the arm out. If it's close to the line, you show a safe signal. And if you cannot see the ball, then you can show a sign that you're uncertain.
So without any training, I went out on Center Court, and I officiated matches - at the age of just 14. At that time we had a very young player, Bjorn Borg, coming up.
I got into big matches immediately after that. Bastad was a very good tournament, and a lot of good players came to play there - including Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith and Adriano Panatta.
After I spent some time as a line umpire, the Swedish association asked me if I wanted to go to umpiring school. So I actually went the opposite way; first I became a line umpire and then I went to umpiring school.
I got the lowest level of umpiring certification in Sweden, which they called the club umpire or the district umpire. And then I had to wait a couple of years, after which they sent me to a national umpiring school. That's how I started.
I was also very lucky because during the 1980s, Sweden played Davis Cup finals many times. I was the line umpire when Sweden played India, who fielded the Amritraj brothers, in Gothenburg.
I was very fortunate that Sweden was good in tennis, and we had so many good players. There were two big tournaments, where a lot of the top players would play – Stockholm indoors and Bastad on clay. Growing up in Sweden at that time was great, as tennis was a very big sport.
Sportskeeda: Going from there to umpiring on the ATP tour and then the Grand Slams – what were the steps you took to make that transition?
Lars Graff: In Sweden, we had a system where you had to wait until you were 25 years old to become a national top umpire and get the highest certification. You had the district umpire, then the regional, and finally the national umpire. So when I turned 25, I went to the Swedish umpiring school, and I got the national umpiring certification.
In 1987, the Swedish Tennis Federation sent me to an International School in Paris called the MIPTC (Men's International Professional Tennis Council). After I graduated from that school, I started applying for tournaments.
My first tournament outside of Sweden and Denmark was in 1987, and it was at Wimbledon - where I worked as a line umpire. After that, I got selected for more and more tournaments - including the US Open and a few others.
At that time, you had to apply to tournaments. The first event the ATP sent me as a designated umpire to was Rotterdam in 1991. And then I had another job in Sweden.
I was the director for a big tennis club in Stockholm. They gave me five weeks a year where I could umpire. So I had five weeks of vacation and another five weeks which my employer gave me.
I did some tournaments like ATP events, Monte Carlo, the Davis Cup. At that time, things were not very organised. Then in 1990, when the ATP tour got set up, they had their own professional umpires, while the ITF also had their own professional umpires.
In 1994, the ATP asked me if I wanted to become a professional umpire and gave me a contract. I then worked as a professional umpire from 1994 to 2012. My last match was in 2012, the final of the season-ending championships in London between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer.
After that, I focused more on becoming a supervisor. I became the vice-president of officiating and moved from Sweden to Florida to work in the office there. I started as a supervisor with the ATP in 2007.
From 2007 to 2012, I worked for half a year as supervisor and half a year as chair umpire. From 2012 I worked only as a supervisor, but then I also worked with the administration team.
Sportskeeda: A lot of tennis fans may not necessarily understand what role the chair umpire plays in relation to the tournament supervisor, especially when it comes to situations like defaulting a player. Can you please explain that to our readers?
Lars Graff: When you talk about a default situation, there are two things that we consider. Firstly, we see if there was an intent from the player. Did they have an intention to hurt the line umpire or the ball kids?
Then the second thing we look at is if there is a result. There can be a result without intent. We have seen players being defaulted, even if there is no intent.
For instance, once at Wimbledon Tim Henman he hit the ball in anger against the net, and the ball girl ran straight into the net. Henman had no intention of hurting the ball girl, but there was a result; the ball girl was hurt. We look at the intent, and we look at the result.
If the chair umpire sees a situation, which they consider a default situation, they have to call the supervisor to report the incident. The chair umpire cannot default a player; they call the supervisor to the court and explain the incident to them.
The supervisor then talks to the player and understands from their side what happened. The player has a right to present their side of the story as well.
The final decision - on the ATP and WTA tours - whether to default a player or not rests with the supervisor.
At the four Grand Slams, they have a referee who is running the show. And it is the referee who has the final decision about defaulting a player.
We saw the case at the US Open last year when Novak Djokovic hit the lineswoman. He had no intent, but the ball hit her. So the referee and the tournament supervisor came on court.
They asked the chair umpire what happened, they asked Djokovic what happened, and after discussing between them, they decided to default him.
Sportskeeda: Over the years, you have officiated a lot of matches. What is the one act of on-court sportsmanship that stands out in your memory?
Lars Graff: From the matches I have watched as a viewer, I remember the one between Mats Wilander and Jose-Luis Clerc at Roland Garros, where there was a match point and the ball was called out on the near side line. It should have been 'Game, Set, Match Wilander'. But Wilander went up and said that the ball was good and gave the point to Clerc. Wilander went on to win anyhow, and got a sportsmanship award for that.
Among my matches, I have seen many times when there is a call, and maybe there is a mistake from a line umpire, and the player scratches the mark. I have seen that from many players over the years, including Pat Rafter, Carlos Moya, Alex Corretja, Rafael Nadal and many other top players doing that.
Sportskeeda: There are some players who have a reputation for arguing with umpires and officials or having outbursts on the court. Have there been any such incidents that stick out in your memory while you were officiating a match?
Lars Graff: We have to realize that tennis is a professional sport, and that what happens on the court stays on the court. Also, the players who have grown up on clay are very good with the marks and knowing which the right mark is and whether it was in or out. Players who grew up on hardcourts may not be as good with marks on clay courts, which is natural.
They do not have bad intentions; they just think that the ball is out because they want the ball to be out.
Tennis officiating has become a lot more professional in recent years. 20 or 30 years ago there were a lot of difficult players, but now the players are a lot more professional. The chair umpires are professional as it is their full-time career – some of the line umpires are professional too. Now, all the players know a lot of the chair umpires by their first names.
Earlier, one chair umpire would officiate matches in one country. So you would have one umpire in London, another in Tokyo and a third in India. And the same situation would be treated differently in London compared to Tokyo, so there was no consistency.
That’s why tennis realised that we need professional umpires to get consistency in the interpretation of the rules and how to deal with the players.
In earlier times, when I had just started officiating, the chair umpire was often the person with the highest social status at that tournament or club. At Wimbledon in the old days, the chair umpires were military colonels, doctors, lawyers, dentists and so on. The same was also the case in Sweden.
So the chair umpire was there due to his place in society and not because he had good umpiring skills. Today, the chair umpires have to go through a rigorous training system with the ITF, ATP and WTA, and they have to go through a school too.
We have a badge system – a white badge, a bronze badge, a silver badge and a gold badge. So tennis officiating has come a long way.
I want to add that officiating is not a science; it's an art. There are always some other factors that are involved. It could be the spectators, the wind, the court surface, or it could be something happening live.
It’s easy to see something on video and say that should be a warning or that should be a default. Now, due to social media and YouTube, every mistake a chair umpire makes is out there online immediately, so it's easy for you and me to judge it. But we were not there on the court, and we don't know exactly what happened before or after.
These are split-second decisions made under the glare of maybe millions of viewers. That's hardly an easy job.
Sportskeeda: One of the things you mentioned is that what happens on the court stays on the court. That leads me to my next question: when you have had an argument with a player, do they tend to leave it on the court, or does that extend to your equation outside of the court as well?
Lars Graff: I would say in 99% of the situations, these things stay on the court. If I gave the player a warning or a point penalty, or even a default, the player knows in most cases that they did something that they should not be doing. Maybe they hit the ball girl or broke a racket or said something to a person on the court.
The other players also watch these matches on the TV, so it’s difficult for a player to come to the locker room and say, 'Oh, that was a bad chair umpire. I should not have gotten a warning'.
Today, players don't discuss when a player gets a warning. They tend to discuss cases where players don't get a warning. They sit in the locker room and say, 'How can a chair umpire allow a player to use the F word or hit someone with a ball'.
It’s very difficult for a player to go into the locker room and say, 'Oh, I should not have gotten a time violation'. Today, we have a shot clock. We see that when a player is over 25 seconds, they get a time violation. It's very, very unusual that a player comes to the supervisor or to the referee and complain about being penalized.
The players now go to ATP University, and they know there is a limit to everything, and that they shouldn't use foul language.
Today, the television cameras and microphones pick up everything. In tennis tournaments in Sweden back when I started, there was no YouTube, and there were no good microphones that picked everything up like they do today.
If I raise my voice against my son or my daughter, it is because they do something I don't like. It doesn't mean that I love them less. It's the same with the players. If I give a player a code violation, it doesn't mean that I don't like that player. It's just that I'm doing my job.
Sportskeeda: There is a big debate about electronic line calling, especially in the pandemic period where a lot of the linespeople have got replaced by electronic tools like Hawkeye or Foxtenn. What are your thoughts on that?
Lars Graff: I think that electronic line calling, when it came 10 years ago, was very good. I don't think there is any chair umpire or anyone else who wants a player to lose a match because of a bad line call. We don't want that to happen in cricket, football or in tennis. So the electronic line calling is a big help for the chair umpires.
When you see that the players are right 33% of the time they challenge, then line umpires are probably right maybe 95% or 98% of the time. That's because players only challenge when there is a close call. Electronic line calling has shown that line umpires and chair umpires are doing a good job.
What happened during the pandemic is that we wanted to reduce the number of people on-site. So we started using something called Live Electronic line calling or 'Hawkeye Live', which means that every ball is called by Hawkeye. There is a voice from the computer that says 'out' or 'fault', and there are no line umpires.
It started last year in Cincinnati and the US Open, and has been used in many tournaments since then. (But) live electronic line calling is something that has to be analysed more, because if you have live electronic line calling, it sanitises the game.
We don't want tennis to be like a PlayStation game. If there are no line umpires and if the only job of the chair umpire is to make sure that players are behaving and that everything else is done electronically, you might get another type of chair umpire - the kind who will not be used to taking action.
We also have something called video review, so a player can ask if the ball bounced twice. We had a video review in some tournaments last year but players hardly used that.
So I think tennis players have to give their opinion on this matter, the tournament directors have to give their opinion, and I even think journalists and the media should give their opinion. It's a very big decision to take away all the umpires completely, because that can sanitise the game completely.
Right now, there is a tactical element when a player has free challenges. People can see, for example, Roger Federer is challenging a call and whether he is right or wrong. That creates some interest and drama in the stadium. We don't want to have two players justplaying the game; we want to have the crowd engaged.
Of late, in many tournaments, there have been no crowds. We have the best players in the world playing, and there is no one watching, which is very sad. So I think tennis as a sport has to analyze this whole situation a lot more.
We have to remember that tennis officials are part of the tennis ecosystem. I started as a ball boy and then I had different positions; I became a line umpire and a chair umpire.
The line umpires and chair umpires are playing tennis themselves. They get married; they have kids who start playing tennis, and they buy tennis clothes for their children. Then they have a neighbour who starts watching tennis on television just because they are involved.
Now my neighbours are interested in seeing me on TV. So they start watching tennis, and there's a whole ecosystem that is very, very difficult to measure.
Even players realize that the community of umpires and officials is part of the whole ecosystem. Buying tennis rackets, tennis clothes, tickets to tournaments, having a subscription on television, et cetera are all part of it too, and that is very, very difficult to put a value on.
Also, the second point I want to bring up is that if we take away line umpires, it is difficult to imagine who will become chair umpires in the future. Because right now, all the chair umpires that you see were once among the best line umpires.
When you turn on your television, and you see the best chair umpires - whether it’s Mohammed Lahyani or James Keothavong or Maria Cicak - all of them were top line umpires at one point. This is a very good learning process; to start as a line umpire and learn how the game is played, and then progress to a chair umpire.
So if we take away all the line umpires, it’s going to be difficult to recruit chair umpires in the future.
It's a big debate, and different associations are going to get involved. People think it's only about money, but it's not; it's about the whole system, the whole infrastructure.
Sportskeeda: What are your thoughts on the controversy around the ball mark at the end of the Roland Garros semifinal between Barbora Krejickova and Maria Sakkari? Do you think technology such as HawkEye Live and Foxtenn should be used on clay courts as well to avoid such incidents?
Lars Graff: There is a system in place to approve electronic line calling. At the moment, there is only one vendor approved to be used on clay. The ATP and WTA are testing electronic line-calling on clay this year.
It has been done at the Charleston WTA event and the combined Madrid event, and will be done at some other events this year too. When the test is finished, it will be evaluated by the Players Council and the Tournament Council, and the final decision will be with the ATP and WTA boards.
Personally, I think it’s a very difficult decision because the mark you see on Hawkeye may not be the same as reality. This discrepancy can be difficult to sell to the players if they see an out mark, and electronic line-calling shows the ball to be in.
If the technology works 100%, I think it would be a good aid to the chair umpires - assuming the players accept it.
Today when you have Hawkeye on television, it can create a problem. At Roland Garros, Hawkeye is there simply for data, player analysis and graphics. You either use it and show it on television, or you don't use it and don’t show it on television. It’s not a simple solution on clay, as there is a margin for error.
Sportskeeda: In 2020, you retired from officiating as you were appointed the co-tournament director of the China Open. Could you tell us more about the major responsibilities of a tournament director, and how your experience has been so far?
Lars Graff: The China Open is the only combined tennis event in Asia, and the tournament has limitless opportunities for the sport. The biggest advantage of tennis is that we play men and women together at the big tournaments. And for television viewers and for the spectators, it's the best of two worlds.
Our sport is unique in that respect; if you look at many other sports, it's not possible to have the men and women play together.
As a tournament director, you are responsible for making sure the operations are run smoothly. You're also responsible for recruiting players. For the WTA the China Open is a mandatory event, so all their top players must come there.
On the men’s side it’s an ATP 500, which is not a mandatory event, so we have to recruit players. That task is made more difficult by the fact that it's in the same week as Tokyo. So Beijing has to contact players and tell them why they should come to their city rather than the Japanese capital.
In addition to our event, we also tell them that the following week they can play another tournament in China, so it's more convenient. We have to use different methods to convince different players to come and play our tournament. This is a core part of the job.
Then as a tournament director you are in charge of the sponsors; you have to make sure the tournament is financially viable. At the China Open, we have big and well-known international sponsors such as Rolex, Mercedes and others coming in.
Then you have to make sure you have the tournament aligned with television. Television is extremely important today, with all the different platforms available to consumers. This started maybe 10 or 12 years ago, when the ATP and the WTA started televising matches from the Centre Court. They wanted to televise the matches on the show courts, especially the singles matches.
Later they said they wanted all doubles matches to be televised too. And now they want all qualifying matches to be televised. There is a lot of competition in television today, and they need to have content for the viewers who subscribed and who paid the money.
So now every match is televised at a tournament, and as a tournament director, you have to synchronize the daily schedule with television.
You have to prepare a match schedule in your mind before the tournament. How do we want to play? What time do we want to start? What should Centre Court look on Monday? How should the Court No. 1 look on Monday?
It's like a puzzle, and you have to make the various pieces fit together. And then when the tournament starts, as a tournament director, you are in the scheduling committee together with a supervisor and television, maybe together with people in charge of tickets.
You also see which matches you have for the next day. As the person having the ultimate responsibility and authority, my duties cover all the parts of a tournament.
Then if there is a female Chinese player, we need to give her a Center Court match because she's very important for this market. And of course, we need to give a Centre Court to someone like Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal.
As the tournament director, you are responsible for this scheduling process so that everyone’s needs and preferences are met, or if that is not possible, at least always respected. Respect is the key ingredient for a tournament director - respect for the players, the staff, the broadcasters, the sponsors, the fans, the tournament owners, etc.
So as you can imagine, it is a balancing act. Of course, I have over 25 years of experience working at tournaments, so my knowledge of what works and what doesn't is invaluable in helping me make the right decisions.
A tournament director is like a manager of a company. Basically, you make sure the finances are there; you make sure the flow is there. You look at the tickets, and you think about what we can do to increase the ticketing.
We need to put the crowd-pulling players on the Centre Court. Then if you have sold out for Centre Court, you have to think about how to sell tickets for the other courts. Maybe you put more players on an outside court or a doubles match with Djokovic or Williams so that people buy those tickets as well. It's a very complex picture.
Sportskeeda: Could you throw some light on the 2021 edition of the China Open? Last year’s tournament, along with all the other tournaments in China, were obviously cancelled due to the pandemic. How confident are you that the tournament will go ahead this year, and what kind of discussions are happening at this point?
Lars Graff: The process right now is that we have applied to the local government in Beijing; we have applied to them to host the tournament. We have explained in our application that we're going to host the tournament in a safe environment for the players and for the fans and for everybody involved.
We have to follow the COVID protocols that ATP and WTA have. Moreover, if the government has some other COVID protocols - some countries have stricter rules and guidelines than others - those have to be followed too.
In some cases, the players have to do a PCR test every day. The best example I can give is that we had a tournament in Singapore after the Australian Open, and it was very strict.
The players had to do the PCR test, they had to stay in a room, they were escorted from the room to the car, taken to the arena where they practiced or played the match, and then went back to the room. All meals were taken in the room too. But some other countries have different rules.
Our advantage right now is that Beijing is going to host the Winter Olympics in 2022. And we are applying for the China Open to the same committee that is in charge of the Winter Olympics.
And of course, they want to have a big event in China before the Winter Olympics, to show that the infrastructure and everything else is working - especially the airports, the hotels and the transportation. We are applying, and we are positive, but we don't know what's going to happen.
I'm very lucky to live here in Florida because they have been very generous. The government here has been very proactive with the vaccine, making sure that everybody gets vaccinated. But there are a lot of people who live in countries where they cannot get the vaccine.
The problem with a tennis tournament is that players are coming from 50 different countries. So even if everybody is trying to be as careful as possible, you don't know where somebody came from, whether he met somebody on the bus or somebody on the train.
That one person may have been infected. And then it takes a couple of days, and he takes the train or the flight to a tournament. Tennis is more difficult to stage than other sports. I think the ATP and the WTA and the Grand Slams have done a good job staging the tournaments so far.
Sportskeeda: You mentioned about how you have been associated with tennis from a very young age – from being a ball boy to a linesman to a chair umpire, then administration and now Tournament Director. Did you ever wish that you were a professional tennis player competing at the top level for the big titles?
Lars Graff: Of course; it was my dream to be a good tennis player. But I wanted more than I could be maybe, and not everybody can become a top tennis player. Still, I was very fortunate because Sweden had so many good players during my time and even later.
I'm very happy with the way things have happened during my tennis journey. I always tell people that tennis is my best-paid hobby. I am very fortunate to have this as my hobby, and I'm getting paid for it.
There are other people who have hobbies, and they have to pay money to do them. But I’m very fortunate to be in tennis.
Sportskeeda: You have officiated so many matches over the years. Which is the best match you've seen in terms of quality of tennis that you have officiated yourself?
Lars Graff: Among the men, the best match I saw on clay while officiating was I think in 2005. It was Rafael Nadal against Guillermo Coria, and Nadal won 7-6 in the final set. The match lasted five hours; it was probably one of the best clay-court matches ever.
Another great one was the 2009 Wimbledon men’s final, where Roger Federer defeated Andy Roddick 16-14 in the final set. Roddick lost serve just once in the entire match at 14-15, and that was it.
Among the women’s, the best match I was part of was the 2012 Wimbledon final between Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska. I was very fortunate that during my last year I was able to do the women's final. It was a big honor to officiate a ladies final at Wimbledon.
