I've been thinking about this for a while: Who is my favorite umpire?
On the women's side it's definitely Allison Lang, primarily because her soothing British voice has narrated many of my favorite matches. And because she has the cojones to make calls from the chair and even call a challenge on herself (yup, that was her during the USO Women's Final). Lynn Welch is also very good, but I give thed edge to Lang because of the voice.
Kader Nouni is a very close #2. I love his voice but he doesn't seem to make much of an effort to control the matches from the chair.
But on the men's s it's been pretty wide open. Until today. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Mohamed Laylani, cutie patootie, distinguished gentleman, man of good humor and class, and umpire extraodinaire.
Mo had himself quite a day today. During the Roddick's serve today in a tight third set, Andy served a ball at game point that was called out. He challlenged the call. Mo radioed up to the Hawkeye booth to roll tape, but get this. The Hawkeye operator refuses because by his count, Roddick has no more challenges remaining. Mo's like "Uh, I'm keeping track of it down here and you're wrong, he has oen challenge remaining." But the Hawkeye tech simply refuses to take his word for it. Mo calls the guys over and explains the situation, and both of them agree that Andy has a challenge left. Mo tells the tech that not only is he wrong, but the players both agree that the challenge should go forward. The frickin' operator still refuses! He is literally holding the challenge hostage. Mo has to call the tournament referee over, explain the situation, and event then it takes about 5 minutes to convince the tech to roll tape. The tech finally does, and of course, the ball is in and Roddick gets the game.
But through it all, Mo handled it with class, fairness, and a smily. I kinda love him.
