The TT Board have now agreed the plans for some level of competitive tennis activity this season, Covid guidelines allowing. The Ladies and Men’s Leagues will be run starting from w/c 31 May and will be on a home and away basis, ie will last for 10 weeks, with the HV and Singles/Doubles Leagues following on.
The format for the Ladies and Men’s will be as ‘normal’, ie across the whole of the Tennis Tayside district, with the teams in each Division based broadly on the 2019 results. Some clubs asked in the recent request for information that their teams be placed in lower divisions due to team players leaving or new untried members joining. These requests have been granted as far as possible as this is a ‘one-off’ year and intended to be more of a social structure than usual.
The social structure of the Leagues this year means that there have been slight changes to the Rules on concessions:- There will be no ‘minus’ points for concessions whatever the reason for the concession. Furthermore, clubs will be able to concede a higher team match but still play a lower team in the same week as long as the team sheet for the higher team is sent in as confirmation of the concession. The idea behind relaxing this rule is so that clubs do not worry unnecessarily about league positions and covid/school holiday related issues.
There will be a Junior League, the start time is not yet agreed but will be either at the end of June /early July. In line with the Adult leagues this will also be run as ‘normal’ based on the 2019 results. Junior results will count towards ratings and so the Junior League will continue to use the League Planner software as usual.
Results will be returned to League Secretaries and logged on the TT website but – across all Leagues, including the Juniors – they will not be used as the definitive basis for the 2022 Leagues. Clubs entering next year’s Leagues will be given the opportunity to say what level / division they think their teams are and these opinions will again be taken into consideration along with the 2019 results.
There is no Handbook this year so a hard copy of the list of team captains will be sent out to the Club Secretaries for them to distribute within their club. From next weekend, 22 & 23 May, the TT website will have all the 2021 League match fixture lists, together with an up to date version of the Rules, which includes some updates from 2019.
The TT Board is very mindful of the recent guidelines on travelling in private cars and is in no way encouraging that any guidelines are broken. It is the responsibility of each player to get to and from each match in as safe a manner as they feel appropriate. Home teams will not be providing after match teas so players should take any food and drink they think they shall require.