allow tennis

I am an LTA registered tennis coach who operated social distancing outdoors in the West End of Glasgow pre-Lockdown with predominantly singles play but a maximum of 4 per court. The clubhouse remained closed apart from toilet use although most were advised only in an emergency and one person at a time.
Players were required to change sides if at all at opposite sides of the court and hand sanitiser as well as wipes were available to use before and after play. No sharing of rackets and no hand shaking at any stage. All Club handles were wiped by me with bacterial wipes and players arrived and left individually unless from the same household. Coach had to be present to supervise and if no courts players were not allowed to queue and advised to return when a court was free. Gates would now be secured by padlock if no coach was present. I have always felt this was an entirely safe form of exercise with the balls being replaced or indeed
washed after each session. All players were from the Glasgow area so no unnecesary travel required.
I feel this is well worth considering both physically and mentally for all concerned.

Why the contribution is important

Really allows players to get more time from home and as a player myself a great release mentally formerly from my daily work routine and even more so from these difficult rules in place. I think generally this would make all those participating more likely to adhere to all other restrictions as they will have had the chance to get to play their hobby and likely quite tired after the exercise.

by Apartm3nt52 on May 05, 2020 at 06:43PM

Current Rating

Average rating: 4.3
Based on: 13 votes

Comments

  • Posted by edballs May 05, 2020 at 18:56

    Tennis is for losers, ban it permanently and instead allow badminton.

  • Posted by AndrewGAFyfe May 05, 2020 at 19:45

    'Guided by the science' the C-19 risk in open air properly socially distanced is minimal. Outdoor tennis can easily be played meeting these guidelines, along the lines already laid out above (with clubhouses remaining closed). I would add that my own club introduced an additional measure of players using their own tennis balls to serve and then putting them to one side when the next player served. Passing balls back to the server was done using racquets. This worked surprisingly well and mad little difference to pace of play. That meant all contact was avoided with items another player had touched. This could be adapted for coaching, with just the coach touching his/her tennis balls.

  • Posted by Cymlee May 06, 2020 at 15:52

    I would totally agree with this approach to re-opening tennis courts and using own balls for serving is a great idea! I also play at a local tennis club and that was the only thing that I thought might be a problem with the touching of tennis balls - so using your own balls to serve is a a really great idea!

  • Posted by BH850 May 07, 2020 at 11:37

    Agree with the comments above, we played tennis safely at a distance before the lockdown at our club with everyone only using their own balls and taking sensible precautions to keep our distance. The benefits of a short period of exercise every day are well understood and as defeating the virus is a marathon rather than a sprint we all need to look after ourselves to last the pace.
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