Safety Guidelines For Tennis Clubs During COVID-19

Safety Guidelines For Tennis Clubs During COVID-19

Safety Guidelines For Tennis Clubs During COVID-19

While the coronavirus carries on affecting our country in various ways, we can still keep our tennis clubs open. We just need to make sure that we’re all following the relevant state and local guidelines. Below, you can find a variety of regulations that you should implement in your tennis club including how to prepare your facility, some checklists to hang up around the courts, and so much more.

Ready to ensure your tennis club stays fun and healthy? Let’s get right into the details.

Tennis Covid-19 Guidelines

Tennis COVID-19 Guidelines

Court Access and Facility Guidelines

There are so many things to consider about your facility now that COVID-19 has turned the world upside down. While we’re sure you can think of the main ones, we’ve included some lesser-known rules below to help your club flourish.

  • Ensure you have a supply of disposable face masks for people who forget to bring one.
  • Ensure people stay 6 feet apart and wear face masks when they’re not actively playing on the court.
  • Encourage players to monitor their bodies to ensure they’re in the right state to play.
  • Do not allow court access to those without the right PPE.
  • Display health and safety signage around the courts and facility (see our handy quick-glance checklists below).
  • Put hand sanitizing stations throughout your facility.
  • Make sure your ventilation system is working effectively (if you’re inside).
  • Remove benches to ensure nobody sits too close. Tell players to bring their own chairs.
  • Set the limit for people allowed at the club at one time during these times.

Tennis COVID-19 Guidelines — Game Play

  • When players change ends, do so on opposite ends of the net. This avoids walking too close to each other.
  • Return balls from other courts without touching them. Use the racquets instead.
  • One-to-one coaching is ideal.
  • Players should bring their own balls to serve.
  • Players should not touch their opponent’s balls with their hands.

Equipment Guidelines

In a perfect world, all the players would bring their own equipment and be hunky-dory. However, we’re fully aware that this does not always happen. Below, you’ll find some ways to limit the risk when situations like this occur. 

  • Players shouldn’t be touching coaching equipment.
  • Players should bring their own racquets. Where this is not possible, the equipment will be thoroughly sanitized before, during, and after use.
  • No one, including coaches, should pick up tennis balls without sanitizing their hands or washing them with soap and water.
  • Coaches should avoid sharing equipment with other coaches.
  • Only the coaches should clean, disinfect, and sanitize the equipment.
  • While water should be supplied, players and coaches should bring their own, full water bottles to the court. This limits touching taps and water fountains.
  • Players and coaches should bring their own hand sanitizer.

Tennis COVID-19 Guidelines — Administrative Requirements

The coronavirus has brought new and unrelenting challenges to sports venues and clubs like ours (and yours). We’ve found that our admin team has been incredibly stressed and flooded with extra work thanks to the social distancing regulations.

Thankfully, there is a way to combat this. How we hear you ask? By using an online reservation system!

This nifty plugin makes it easy to plan for increased levels of staff, communicate expectations, stagger your court bookings, provide information to all your members, and so much more. All of these things are more important than ever before so we can work together to stop the spread.

During these unprecedented times, your tennis club does have the power to run smoothly!

Tennis Covid-19 Guidelines

Health, Safety, and Hygiene Tennis COVID-19 Guidelines

As a tennis club owner, you should be thinking about how to properly regulate hygiene standards and provide the best cleaning possible. The easiest way to do this (in our opinion) is to employ dedicated cleaning staff who are trained in enhanced cleaning.

This will ensure that your facility has:

  • Sanitized high contact surfaces.
  • Procedures in place for cleaning uniforms and other training fixtures.
  • Used EPA registered disinfectants.
  • Been cleaned, disinfected, sanitized, and ventilated properly. The ventilation side of things is less important if you’re playing outdoors.
  • Followed all CDC guidelines for using COVID-19 disinfectants. 

The Quick-Glance Tennis Covid-19 Guideline Safety Checklists

While everything we’ve discussed so far is incredibly important, you will need something easy-to-digest and eye-catching to put up in your tennis club and around your courts.

So, use the text below to do just that! We’ve set everything out helpfully in three sections — before play, during play, after play — to encourage adherence.

However, you might also want to put a little paragraph about when not to play as well. Something like this will do:

Do not play if you are showing symptoms of COVID-19 or if you have been in contact with a person who tested positive with COVID-19 in the past 2 weeks. 

Before Play

  • Wash your hands with soap for 20 seconds (longer if you can). Alternatively, use hand sanitizer if you can’t access soap and water.
  • Bring tissues with you.
  • When you’re not playing, make sure all facemask conditions and PPE regulations are followed.
  • Use your upper sleeve or a tissue to cough or sneeze into.
  • Don’t touch the court gates, fences, or benches if possible.
  • Bring a water bottle, already full, with you. This ensures you don’t have to touch the water fountain or taps.
  • Arrive as near to your timeslot as possible.

During Play

  • Don’t touch other players.
  • Stay at least six feet apart from other people.
  • Hand washing procedures should be followed when touching tennis balls.
  • Use your towel and water bottle only.
  • Don’t share food.
  • Don’t touch the net.
  • When you’re changing ends of the court, keep six feet apart.
  • If you’re playing doubles, coordinate with them to adhere to social distancing guidelines.
  • Make use of hats, towels, headbands, and wristbands to ensure you don’t touch your face with your hands.
  • If you’re playing indoors, you may need to wear a mask.
  • If you’re not active on the court, wear your mask over your nose and mouth.

After Play

  • Don’t congregate after the match is over.
  • Don’t participate in other social activities after it’s over.
  • Don’t use the locker or changing room. Instead, use the shower at home.
  • Wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds (or longer) as soon as you come off the court. If this isn’t possible, use hand sanitizer instead.
  • Leave the premises as soon as you’re finished playing.

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5 Simple Indoor Mini-Games Your Tennis Club Will Love

5 Simple Indoor Mini-Games Your Tennis Club Will Love

5 Simple Indoor Mini Games Your Tennis Club Will Love

“Serve” something new at your next tennis club meeting. Instead of practicing drills or matches, try playing simple Tennis Mini Games.

Benefits of Tennis Mini Games

– Warm-up before a real game or practice session
– Build strength and endurance
– Teach or improve basic movements in a fun way
– Get kids excited in the sport
– Build team bonding

Hungry Crocodile

This is a good game to play with younger children who are just starting to learn how to volley. Every time they lose a shot, they “lose a limb” – or the right to use it – to the proverbial crocodile.

For the first miss, they can’t use their dominant hand. For the second miss, they can’t use one leg and have to catch the ball while kneeling.

However, if they successfully receive a shot, the crocodile gives back the limb and they can use their hand/leg again.

This can be a group game, with the kids lined up to see who will literally be the last one standing! It’s a fun way to break the monotony of passing the ball from one side of the court to another.

Potato Race

This is another great mini-game for kids (or kids at heart). Three players stand behind the service line. They have to run to the net, grab a ball, then run back to the service line and hit the ball over the tennis net.

To add more fun, you can put other balls and objects in a Mystery Box—ping pong balls, small stuffed toys, oranges, balloons—to add to the fun and challenge of getting a “dud”.   

Serve Box Drill

This tennis mini-game is a good warmup for people who are still learning to perfect their aim. You need to give people: one who will serve, and four others who are positioned behind the service line. These four players stand in “serve boxes”: two in the front, and two in the back.  

 The player must now serve and return the ball in a way that it falls into one of the boxes. You can call out the Serve Box number, or say “Odd” or “Even.”

This can also help correct habits of always favoring one part of the court, or the tendency to overshoot and send a ball out of bounds. Even more advanced players can use this game to improve the power of their serve.

Target Practice

All players of all players can learn from this game. Stack tennis balls into pyramids on a table. Ask them to hit the balls.

You can increase the level of difficulty by using different colors of balls. For example, ask them to hit the blue ball, or hit the yellow balls without touching any red balls.

This tennis mini-game improves aim, control, and power. It’s also a good way to entertain players while waiting for their turn to use the tennis court.

Go figure

This tennis mini-game helps players improve how they control the ball, place their shots, and their footwork.

You need two players. One of them is only allowed to hit the ball down the line, while the other is only allowed to hit it to the crosscourt.

They’ll be running around often, which improves endurance while forcing them to stay focused. So they are able to practice both types of shots, the players will switch roles for the second set.

Shrink the Court

Even more advanced players have difficulty slicing or chipping the ball. This mini-game can help them master this important skill.

The rule is simple: any ball that falls outside the service line is considered to be “out.” They have to work with a smaller court, which will challenge them to use wide angles and short chips.

This is also a good way to prepare them for competitions since those types of shots have helped win many a match.  

Dribble + Obstacle Cours

New tennis players have to learn hand-eye coordination, concentration, footwork, and control of the ball.

You can teach this through dribbling: bouncing the tennis ball down to the ground with their racket, much as they would do with a basketball.

While this is often done during the first few lessons, you can turn this into a mini-game with increased levels of difficulty (and fun).

Instead of just staying in place, they have to dribble while walking around the tennis court, or even through an obstacle course. You can also ask them to dribble with their non-dominant hand or pass the ball to another player in an Obstacle Course/Relay Race.  

These are just some of the fun mini-games you can play with your tennis club. You can adjust the difficulty according to the age and skill of your team members, or tweak the game to suit their specific training needs. The most important thing, however, is to have fun!

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Corona (COVID-19) safety measures for your tennis club

Corona (COVID-19) safety measures for your tennis club

Corona (COVID-19) safety measures for your tennis club

The following rules of conduct and safety measures are guidelines and recommendations that we have drawn up from various sources and guidelines. They should help your tennis club in handling the current corona (COVID-19) pandemic. The responsible operator can copy these and adapt them for their own purposes.

Court Reservation - UI

For the operation of tennis facilities during the global corona pandemic, we defined three areas, for which the following rules of conduct and safety measures are relevant.

  • Club Operation
  • Game Operation
  • Training Operation

The club board members, but also each individual member, are responsible for being compliance with the rules listed below.

Club Operation

  1. Every club must display house rules with the Covid-19 rules of conduct and safety measures. People who violate the house rules are to be expelled from the facility.
  2. The general government guidelines must always be complied with (minimum distance rule, restriction of gatherings of people).
  3. Mouth and nose protection must be worn in the indoor customer area (secretariat / office, club room / home, indoor sports facility / cloakroom, …). No mouth and nose protection are necessary while exercising.
  4. The provision of disinfectants and / or disinfectant dispensers at heavily frequented areas of the system and on the squares is recommended.
  5. It is recommended to provide special playing times and / or tennis courts for the risk groups.
  6. It is recommended to set up an electronic tennis court occupancy system. If this is not possible, it must be ensured that possible physical contact with other people is avoided when reserving the seats.
  7. We recommend a documentation (schedule) of the daily operations for each club.
  8. Benches or seats are to be positioned with a sufficient safety distance – at least 2 m.
  9. Persons who do not actively play tennis are only allowed to stay on the facility outside the tennis court.
  10. Group gatherings outside the tennis court are permitted with an appropriate safety distance (1m rule).
  11. A COVID-19 prevention concept should be worked out and implemented at the following events: indoor from 50 people, outdoor from 100 people.
  12. A COVID-19 officer should be designated for events with over 50 people in closed rooms and over 100 people in the open air.

Game Operation

  1. Every player participates in the game at his own risk.
  2. In the case of a double game, it is essential to ensure that people who do not live in a shared apartment complex keep the prescribed minimum distance (2 m). The 2 m distance may exceptionally and briefly be undercut during sport.
  3. Side changes must be carried out with a sufficient safety margin. Physical contact between players (shake hands etc.) is to be avoided.
  4. Personal items such as clothing, towels, beverage bottles, etc. must be kept in the bag.
  5. The playing field should be cleaned and vacated in good time (approx. 5 minutes) before the official end of the game to avoid contact with the next players as far as possible.
  6. It is recommended to clean the tennis court bench and the trawl net or broom with disinfectant before use.
  7. Spitting on the tennis court is prohibited.

Training Operation

  1. Buffer zones (“waiting area”) for changing players must be set up and observed – see the following graphics.
  2. The players come onto the field with a sufficient safety distance (2 m).
  3. Disinfectants are provided on every training ground (disinfect hands before and after the game).
  4. Balls are collected through collecting tubes whenever possible to avoid contact with the ball. The collecting tubes must be disinfected after each training session.
  5. Physical contact between players and between players and coach is to be avoided. The 2 m distance may exceptionally and briefly be undercut during training.
  6. Benches or seats are to be positioned with a sufficient safety distance of at least 2 meters and, if possible, disinfected after each training session.
  7. Training is to be carried out in all age groups as individual training or in small groups with sufficient distance as a station. Aids should be used to maintain physical distance.
  8. Aids may only be touched by the coach.
  9. Several groups with up to 10 people per seat can train next to each other in one hall. Mixing of these training sessions or pairings must be ruled out.
Tennis Club Corona (COVID-19) - Documentation of done reservations

Disclaimer

Any liability on the part of Court Reservation or Webmühle e.U using the rules of conduct and safety measures is excluded.

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