Tennis Committee
You may not be aware that, although there is a professional team employed to run the Club, a lot of roles and functions are filled by numerous volunteers from within the membership.
These volunteers facilitate operations at the Club. For example, each section has a committee that represents the views of members, as well as making suggestions on activities within the section.
The Tennis Committee met recently and recommended two changes affecting the play at the Club that were confirmed by the Club Board of Directors…
Tennis court booking
It has been noticed that courts often appear to be fully booked on ClubSpark, but are then not used. There has been a significant increase in member numbers recently and there is a lot of pressure on court space, particularly in peak periods, so it’s not in anyone’s interest to have empty courts.
If you no longer need a court booking, please make sure you cancel it as early as possible to allow another member use. Remember, each member currently has an allowance of three court bookings in any seven day period, but if you cancel prior to a booking, it does not count towards your allowance.
Therefore, it was decided that the booking allowance would be reduced to TWO in any seven day period, to prevent bulk booking and provide fairer access to all members. Also, this will reinforce that you should not use your allowance to book a court for someone else. This will take effect from Sunday 25 July.
Tennis club play
The format for club play was discussed, subsequent to the reintroduction of four sessions per week. In order to reduce players sitting out for extended periods, it was decided to introduce new playing rules to speed up each set and promote a quicker turnaround. This will also serve to mix up the ‘fours’ more, which is the purpose of club play anyway!
Warming up should be limited to five minutes as members arrive. Each ‘set’ will consist of 8 games – two service games each, irrespective of the score. Only if the score is 4-4 should a standard 7-point tie break take place. In each game, a sudden-death point is played at deuce – no advantage.
This format will be trialled until the next Tennis Committee meeting in September and comments are welcome. Furthermore, the committee is always looking for new members to put themselves forward if you feel you have something to offer – contact me in the first place, and I’ll forward your interest to Katharine Beaudry (Chair of section).
Dez Lewington
Club Manager
Contact – dez.lewington@sltcc.co.uk
