Club Play
ADULT SOCIAL TENNIS
The club captain, or his delegate, will be on hand and will arrange fours. The first thing to do is to arrange who plays with whom. If there are two men and two ladies then it may be normal to play a mixed, but mens or ladies doubles are more common. Preference may be given to the strongest player partnering the weakest, or encouraging new acquaintances; or to spin for partners.
Players can if they wish arrange their own games, singles or doubles.
Courts may be booked for 1 hour (or on occasions longer eg for tournament matches).
At certain times of the week organized sessions take priority of most courts. These times are:
- Saturday afternoons: tea is normally provided; a minimum of 4 courts are reserved;
- Wednesday evenings;
- Tuesday mornings;
- Sunday evenings – new members ("Rusty Rackets and Newbies").
(Tea Rota – on Saturday afternoons it is normal for tea and cakes to be provided, and members are encouraged to share this task by volunteering).
The general protocol to ensure that court time is fairly divided is that each friendly match is normally expected to be for one set, whether the set be 6-0 or 7-6; if the courts are busy it may be good practise to have the tie break at 5-5 rather than 6-6. At the end of the set players should leave the court to allow others to play before returning when courts are available.
It should be noted that:
- doubles normally takes priority over singles (but there are exceptions);
- adults normally take priority over juniors (except for those times reserved for juniors);
- matches get priority over friendlies;
- one court may be reserved for coaching
JUNIOR SOCIAL TENNIS
- On Saturday mornings all 7 courts are reserved for junior play until 12.30pm.
- On Saturday mornings, the head coach, or his delegate, will be on hand and will arrange social for juniors
- At other times players can arrange their own games, singles or doubles.
- Juniors are encouraged to liaise with coaches to find times of the week when adults may have priority but courts are known to be generally available.
- The head coach may grade players and encourage competition by running ladder competitions.
- Mini tennis competitions will be separately organized for red, orange and green grades.
- The canteen is run by volunteers and drinks and snacks served.
- There is a junior code of conduct – details are shown on the club notice board. Experience has shown that breaches are extremely rare and the children at Westcliff Hard invariably behave in a friendly and responsible way, whether it be playing tennis, table tennis, table football or kicking a football on the grass.