LOS ANGELES — A lawyer for Rochelle Sterling turned with a grand gesture and allowed his eyes to sweep over the courtroom as he asked for his first witness.

“I call Donald Sterling,” the lawyer, Pierce O’Donnell, said.

Sterling was nowhere to be found, something O’Donnell surely knew. But the moment was what passed for drama on Monday at the opening of the trial to determine whether Sterling, the disgraced owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was legally removed from the trust by his estranged wife, Rochelle, clearing the way for the team to be sold to the former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

There were two lengthy recesses while a federal court judge considered a request by Donald Sterling’s lawyers to have the case moved from state court, and a series of small victories for Rochelle Sterling.

The federal court judge, George H. Wu, kicked the case back to state court by midafternoon, denying Donald Sterling’s argument that his federal privacy rights had been violated by the release of his medical records.