Hi Everyone, I hope you are all keeping well.
The Southport and District Tennis League Executive Committee has met to review the feasibility of starting the 2020 season at the half way point of 15th June. Unfortunately this will not be possible due to the restrictions still in place by the Government and the LTA.
The committee was therefore left with a decision to either abandon the season completely or to push the start date back further with the hope that doubles tennis between people from different households would be permitted. It was agreed that any competitive tennis would be better than none at all and therefore the start date should be postponed rather than abandoned.
A tentative date for starting the season on either 13th or 20th July was agreed and this will be reviewed at a further meeting of the League Executive on 24th June. If these revised start dates prove impossible it will be postponed further to try and allow at least some competitive tennis to be played this year.
It was then discussed how we could work this in and agreed that in these difficult times this season should be played on a more friendly basis with no promotion or relegation. We will also be asking clubs to be very flexible on the day and location of matches, particularly for clubs without floodlights as the daylight hours become shorter. Some matches might have to be played at weekends and, if necessary, we may be asking whether some clubs would agree to hosting an occasional match on behalf of another club. Depending on how many teams clubs are able to put out in the current circumstances we may also have to temporarily alter the division structure.
The committee will be meeting again to discuss any further developments but in the mean time we wanted to ask each club if we went ahead on this basis how many teams do you realistically feel your club would be able to field. We also wanted your thoughts on whether it would be a good idea to reduce the size of the teams to 4 players (two men and two ladies) as a further option taking into account less contact and any difficulty in fielding full teams.
Can you please discuss this within your club and let me or another Executive Committee member know your views before our next meeting on Wednesday 24th June.
Kind Regards
Pauline PopeS & D Tennis League Secretary