Team Tennis

Program Structure

Play Director

• Responsibilities
  • functioning head of Team Tennis
  • responsible for initiating Team Tennis each season (usually Fall and Winter)
  • Recruiting team captains and players
  • Arranging the pre-season captain’s meeting
  • Arbitrate disputes
  • Makes an equitable schedule of which teams are: home & away
  • Ensures that team captains have balls for each session’s play
• He / she may be a Team Tennis player, but not be a team captain to avoid a conflict of interest

VTA Board

• Responsibilities
  • Appointing a Team Tennis Play Director
  • Handling the financial aspects of Team Tennis, including making court bookings, purchasing balls, and collecting player fees

Team Captains

• Attend captain’s meetings, make suggestions on changes to Team Tennis rules
• Put forward a roster for each session their team is to play
  • Players with the least # of sessions-played should always be given priority for an upcoming match
• Distribute balls to their players for matches

Captain’s Meeting

• Draft
  • VTA doubles points are used to rank all TT players
    • Players who do not have VTA ranking (or a disputed ranking) are categorized by mutual agreement or vote of the captains and commissioner
    • If a player has been mis-categorized (usually a new player), they may be re-categorized at any point by vote (see “voting” section)
  • All players are sorted by rank, and split into two categories of equal numbers:
    • Intermediate and Advanced
  • The draft for each category is done separately, so that each team has approx the same number of players in each category
• All captains to go over the GuideBook, and agree on any changes necessary

Players

• • Responsibilities

• Provide reasonable notice of their availability to their captain(s)

• Show up for match play in a timely fashion

• • • Payments will be processed through paypal on GTN (Global Tennis Network)

• Embody sportsmanship in their play by putting forward full effort, fairness in play, and courtesy for their team members and opponents

• • Players must arrive sober (unintoxicated)
    • Players found to arrive drunk may be removed from program at the discretion of the play director

Teams

• Consist of 10-17 players for the program to function correctly
• All team players (and spares) must be VTA members
• Players may be added mid-season at the play-director’s discretion

Play Structure

Matches

• There are two consecutive sessions each week, each lasting 1.50 hrs
• In each session, 2 teams face off in 4 separate matches
• Matches are identified by:
  • Category: Intermediate, Advanced, or Mixed (doubles only)
  • Type: Singles or Doubles

Line-up

• Home Team
  • Each week the captain of the ‘home’ team puts forward a roster of players that will contest their four matches for that week
    • They will play at least one double and one single
    • Spares should only be used as a last resort
  • When putting forward a roster, a home captain may (but is not required to) consider the availability of the opposing team’s players.
  • ‘Home’ roster deadline: Monday at midnight
• Away Team
  • After receiving the home team’s line-up, the captain of the corresponding ‘away’ team will put forward a roster to match the ‘home’ team’s roster
  • ‘Away’ roster deadline: Wednesday at midnight
• Intermediate players are allowed to be submitted for advanced, but not vice-versa

Match Format

• A warm-up of no more than 5 minutes per match (strictly enforced)
• All games are regular scoring (with deuces)
• Best two of three sets
• If split-sets, the third set will consist of a single 10-point super tiebreak
  • If less than 10 minutes are remaining, use a 7 points tiebreak instead (first to 7)
• When 15 mins remain
  • Finish current game
  • Use “convert to tie-break” to finish set. ie
    • If I am to serve in the set at a score of: 3 serving 5 (ie 3-5), then we start the set tiebreak where I am serving at 3-5. Regular tie-break rules from there (first to 7, win by 2)
• Before your session time is up, a winner must be decided. Make it happen.

Late Rules

• 10 minutes late = loss of toss and 1st game
• 20 minutes late = loss of toss and 2 games
• 30 minutes late = loss of 1st set
• Time starts after 1st full team arrives
• In the spirit of flexibility, the rules don’t penalize anyone if they are <10 minutes late
• The existing rules for finishing the match remain

Team Scoring

• 1 Point will be awarded for each match
• 1 Point for winning a set
• 1 Point for winning in straight sets

In the rare event that < 4 players are available on a team roster

• If a captain is in need of a spare, a request is sent to the spare list(s):
  • The can reach out to any player in the club
  • These player lists must be reset each season to include all non-TT VTA members
• In call-out email for spares, ask spares to reply to the spares list
• Spares can play both singles and doubles

Player Participation

• Any player considered a full-time player is likely to play approximately half the outings the team plays
• Team captains must ensure that their players each play
  • one singles match
  • two doubles matches
  • four matches in total

Selection of Players

• Players are recruited by the VTA board and by the Team Captains
• The Board should be sure to publish via the newsletter, website, Facebook page, or other methods that it is recruiting players to participate in Team Tennis
• There should be enough time for players to respond in a timely fashion
• Recruiting should start about a month before the season begins

Disputes

• This manual should be available to all VTA members
• If a player believes there is a problem or they are being unfairly treated they should first refer to this manual
• If this does not resolve the issue, they should bring it to the attention of their Captain
• If after reasonable time, the problem is still not resolved, they should bring it to the attention of the Play Director
• If after reasonable time, the problem is still not resolved, they should bring it to the attention of the Vice-president
• If the dispute persists, the matter should be taken before the Board

2015 Team Tennis Session 3 (Aug-Dec)

Winning Team: Carmine’s Cobras

2015 Team Tennis Session 2 (May-July):

Winning Team : Dave’s Diablos

2015 Team Tennis Session 1 (Jan-April)

Winning Team: Carmine’s Cats