NCAA Tennis Rules for Taping & Bandages

While the National Collegiate Athletic Association has rules committees that promulgate official rules for many NCAA sports, other sports like tennis and their rules are governed by independent associations. For college tennis, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) maintains the governing rules. These rules reference and incorporate many concepts from the United States Tennis Association (USTA), as well as a code of conduct that, while not a part of the official rules, governs for unofficiated matches and when the rules do not directly apply. While the ITA rules do not directly refer to taping and bandages, they do contain several references that seem to allow their use.

  1. Medical Timeouts

    • The ITA official rules allow for medical and bleeding timeouts. They consist of evaluation time as allowed by the referee plus up to three minutes of treatment time. This allowance seems to condone the use of taping or bandages to treat in-game injuries.

    Emergency Care

    • The USTA Emergency Care Guidelines, which are incorporated into the ITA official rules, allow officials to have and use a basic first aid kit. According to the guidelines, a basic first aid kit includes athletic tape and bandages. In combination with the rules allowing for medical timeouts, this indicates that the ITA rules expect and condone the use of bandages and tape by players in a match.

    Courtesy

    • An overarching concept in the ITA code of conduct is "courtesy." According to the code, "[t]ennis is a game that requires cooperation and courtesy from all participants." This concept of courtesy could extend to taping and bandages. If such support or treatment is needed, courtesy would seem to dictate its allowance.