Ready to make a racket again!
Strict guidelines as tennis clubs re-open next Monday
WITH THE Government giving tennis players the go-ahead to return to the courts for recreational purposes next Monday, May 18, clubs can begin to take tentative steps on the long road back to something resembling normality.
Of course, re-opening locked gates won’t be without its difficulties as members will have to follow strict guidelines to ensure they are not responsible for further outbreaks of Covid-19.
To that end, Tennis Ireland have issued ‘Return to Play’ protocols, which must be strictly adhered to by clubs the length and breadth of the country.
Wexford Harbour Boat and Tennis Club tennis captain Bernie Morrissey warmly welcomed the fact that players can get back to the sport they love, although understandably her enthusiasm is tempered by a dash of caution.
‘We’re absolutely delighted because in truth social distancing in tennis shouldn’t be that difficult. We were a bit disappointed when we were shut down, as were the golf courses, but it was inevitable it was going to happen, everything was shut down.
‘It’s great to be in the first phase of the re-opening of things. There is a hell of a lot of work involved in it as well, ensuring we’re providing the necessities for people to protect themselves. The virus has not gone away unfortunately,’ she said.
For now, clubs will only be open to members who are living within a five km radius of the facility, while over-70s will also have to wait a while longer before they are allowed to return to the courts, and it will be singles tennis in the main, with doubles only permitted under strict rules.
‘Essentially from the beginning it will be singles only, unless you’re playing with a member of your own household, in which case you can play doubles, as long as you can find another two members of somebody’s household to play against.
‘There are quite a few couples in the Boat Club, so from that point of view we’re lucky that we will probably have some doubles,’ she explained.
‘People won’t be able to travel. Quite a few of our members are living in or around town so we will have quite a bit of activity, but there is quite a big cohort who won’t be able to play yet. The 20 km extension, which I think is coming in June, will open it up much more, which will be great.’
Policing, to ensure protocols are being followed, is also an extremely important aspect of the return, while clubs will be expected to leave gates to courts open, to avoid a possible spread of the virus.
‘We have to try to provide somebody on the premises. We also have quite good CCTV footage in the event of contact tracing and things like that. Hopefully it will never be needed.
‘If something unfortunately goes wrong and somebody inadvertently comes into the club who may have an infection, we would be able to contact trace and that’s a consideration coming down from Tennis Ireland. We’re hoping to have somebody patrolling the gates,’ she said.
Bernie said the Wexford club will leave no stone unturned to ensure that members, who will be craving a return to the courts after an enforced break, will be able to enjoy their tennis in a safe, although an admittedly much-changed, environment.
‘As part of the protection of people, we won’t be opening our clubhouse. We’ll be opening the club from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. so people don’t need access to lights for the courts.
‘The lights won’t be accessible. The toilet facilities won’t be accessible because we don’t have somebody who can be there to clean the toilets after every use and we don’t want to expose anybody to any danger, we want to be as safe as we can.
‘We want to keep our social distancing, we will keep all the hand hygiene protocols going, so we will provide sanitisers on every court. Again, there won’t be any shaking hands. That was in place before the lockdown, we had stopped hand shaking.
‘We’re going to leave the courts open so that people don’t have to touch gates. We’ll leave the gates open while the club is open,’ she said.
Advanced booking is now essential at all tennis clubs, with no spectators allowed, while children must be accompanied by an adult and all names have to be given in advance to enable contact tracing should the need arise.
The stringent measures have meant a change in the way the Wexford Harbour Boat and Tennis Club does business, with players being able to book their slots online, while they’re also using the world wide web to get the message out there about the importance of following the rules.
‘We didn’t have an online booking system in place so we’re introducing that, and that will mean that people won’t have to gather to write their names in a book, so it will all be very much hands free.
‘We’re hoping to have a Zoom webinar meeting with members just to explain the whole situation to them. We’ll have lots and lots of notices up around the club explaining how it’s to work to be successful for everybody, both in terms of being able to play tennis and being able to remain safe,’ she said.
Tennis players find themselves in an entirely different landscape this summer, and instead of trying to recreate shots that they saw stars of the game pull off at the French Open or Wimbledon and have a chat about it over a drink afterwards, they’ll have to come and go from the courts swiftly and on a staggered basis.
The competitive edge will be lessened as tournaments have to be sidelined, while the usual new influx of players is not possible, while existing members have to be extra careful as they have been asked to only handle their own tennis balls.
With so many restrictions in place, it’s a sea change from the normal carefree days of summer, but Bernie, like the majority of tennis players, is just thankful that they can return to the courts in any capacity.
‘We would encourage anybody who is a member to do their best to get back and get playing because tennis is just great. It’s great to be outdoors and the weather has been fantastic, so if it stays that way it’s great tennis weather.
‘We hope there will be plenty of activity, the problem is that the social end of it, which was a big part of our club, won’t be there yet because the clubhouse won’t be open. You won’t be going up for a tea or coffee or a drink or whatever after your game.
‘You won’t be able to hang around chatting to people. The provision is for tennis and just tennis,’ she said.
The August bank holiday weekend would normally see an influx of visitors to the sunny south-east as the Wexford Harbour Boat and Tennis Club host their main event of the year, but unsurprisingly the plug has had to be pulled on it.
‘We knew a while ago that we wouldn’t be able to have a Business Houses League, which would have been our open team tennis. That’s usually on in June, so that obviously won’t be on this year.
‘We then took the decision about a week ago that the big open tennis tournament on the August bank holiday weekend won’t be able to go ahead.
‘We would have a lot of players travelling from Dublin and all over the country to it and they would be looking for accommodation in Wexford. We don’t know what the situation will be with accommodation at that stage, plus a weekend away for tennis like that is a social thing and that end of it wouldn’t be available.
‘It’s a very difficult decision because the August weekend has been there every year for probably the bones of 50 years, maybe more even. Hopefully we’ll only be losing it for this year.
‘Tennis Ireland would probably have said you can’t do it anyway, but it was still a difficult decision,’ she said.
Like all clubs, they have taken a big hit due to the coronavirus pandemic, with courts lying idle on recent bank holiday weekends when they would normally be jampacked with players.
The clubhouse remains eerily quiet, instead of being filled with the sounds of those enjoying the social aspect, but Bernie is grateful to the lifeblood of the club, the members.
‘Unfortunately it has been tough, but like any club our main source of income is our memberships. Our members have remained generally loyal to the club, they’ve renewed their membership and hopefully they’ll continue to do that and they’ll get the activity back going again.
‘Incidental income from the bar is gone and it’s something we will probably work to get back whenever we can open. But again we have to do everything in as prudent and as safe a manner as we can and abide by the rules.
‘There’s a huge drop in income, but I suppose there’s no activity either so we’re losing that expense,’ she said.
Summer camps have obviously gone out of the window, although private coaching will be possible and it’s hoped small groups will be permitted in the not-too-distant future, but for now Bernie and others are just looking forward to getting back to playing.
‘We have a coach on site and he would have organised two or three tennis camps over the summer, and there would have been an Easter tennis camp. The coach will be able to do private lessons and maybe very shortly with smaller groups, but not big camps,’ she said.
‘Just getting back is a big step. Personally I play tennis two or three times a week. It’s a big gap in my activity level to be without it.
‘You’re sort of looking around thinking, “what did I do before?”. It will be brilliant to be back. Looking at the positive it’s just great to be able to get out and play,’ she said.