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.