Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick
One of my players is running late and isn’t at the tennis courts yet. How much time do our opponents have to wait and what happens if our player doesn’t show up?
Siobhan Schaeffer, Thursday Women’s Vice President
This scenario happens occasionally. As defined in the ALTA General Rules, a team is in default if a pair is not courtside within 20 minutes of the scheduled start time for the position. If the previous match extends beyond the default time, play must begin immediately when a court becomes available. The non-defaulting team captain or acting team captain may agree to wait past the normal default time but must be specific about the length of time they are willing to wait.
- A defaulted match must be at the lowest position.
- If a defaulted match is not the lowest position, then any points earned below the defaulted position will be forfeited.
- To avoid defaults and forfeits, you may move a player who is in the lineup to a higher position as long as it is a legal move; or you may bring a new player onto the scorecard/lineup to play for the missing player. You may never move a player who is on the original scorecard/lineup to a lower position.
We’re All in This Together
I play Sunday Women’s tennis and every spring we run into the same issues: Spring breaks for schools and Easter Sunday. How can we make the other teams play early?
Diane Royston, Sunday Women’s Vice President
ALTA recognizes that early play can be difficult to schedule. We try to publish the season schedule at least two weeks before the first matches to give teams an opportunity to schedule early play for those weeks affected by spring breaks and religious holidays. While we cannot force any team to play early, we do strongly encourage teams to work together to schedule as many lines as possible. Remember, you may be the team asking next season!
Early play does not necessarily mean the entire match has to be played early. You can always play some of the lines ahead of time. You should be careful that your L1 and L2 don’t end up defaulting because of a lack of players at the last minute. When that happens, any early play line wins below end up being forfeited. If possible, early play should be in line order. Also, please remember that once a new time is agreed to, in writing, by both captains, that becomes the new default time and if play does not occur on that date, the defaulting team will lose the point.
Religious Holidays
The following is a reproduction of the official ALTA policy concerning religious holidays. It states that ALTA will not schedule league play around any religious holiday. Captains are urged to accommodate teams that may have a conflict by playing the scheduled match early. Captains who know their team will have a conflict are urged to contact the opposing team captain as soon as possible to try to schedule the match for an earlier date. Under no circumstances can two captains agree to play a match after the scheduled date of the match in the absence of rain.
WHEREAS, the Executive Committee of the Atlanta Lawn Tennis Association, Inc. (ALTA) has been requested by certain religious groups to schedule league play so as not to conflict with religious holidays; and
WHEREAS, it has in the past been ALTA’s policy not to discriminate in favor of religious groups by scheduling league play around a particular religious group’s religious holidays; and
WHEREAS, ALTA is of the opinion that if it should show partiality for one particular religious group that it should do likewise for all religious groups and that to do so would create a difficult logistical problem; and
WHEREAS, ALTA has encouraged the team captains to make accommodations for conflicts with religious holidays on a voluntary basis, and ALTA believes that this is the most appropriate method for meeting the needs of this particular situation; and
WHEREAS, THEREFORE, that the Executive Committee of ALTA reaffirms its established policy of not scheduling league play to avoid conflicts with religious holidays of any particular group, but the Executive Committee does further strongly urge team captains to make every reasonable effort to reschedule matches on a voluntary basis and to play before the scheduled day.
