South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
COVID-19 changes everything on Delray tennis courts
John Butler said the COVID-19 pandemic has forced local tennis tournaments to change many of the procedures from check-in to on-court experiences.
Butler, a local tennis tournament director, started hosting tournaments with the Level 5 YellowTennisBall.com Junior Championships at the Delray Swim & Tennis Club and followed that up with the USTA Florida Level 4 “Boys 12-18” Summer Smash Championships.
Butler said the junior players have made the most of the situation, which includes using the Match! Tennis application to help the players navigate the sign-in process and well as recording scores at the tournament. Butler said the app has been rarely used until
COVID-19 and has helped players stay socially distanced.
Tournament officials also walk around hourly to make sure everyone is wearing their masks. Between matches, the seats, the scorekeeping area and the entry gates to the court are sanitized. Following the match, the players touch racquets instead of handshakes.
“Hopefully this is a phase and not how things are going to be in the future,” Butler said. “What has always been so fantastic about junior tennis is when you see how all of the kids interact with each other. The other thing now is when you finish, you leave and you can only have one person with you.
“What has been amazing over all of these years is that these kids have grown up with each other,” he said. “We look at Reilly Opelka, Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz and these guys grew up together, played in our junior tournaments and they are buddies. Now, you look and you are losing the beauty of what makes it so great. So again, hopefully, this is a phase, because we want these kids interacting with each other.”
Butler said many of the higher level players are homeschooled and the situation is preventing them from getting the interaction with others. He said the players look forward to seeing all of their friends.
“We are doing everything we can to minimize the time they are here,” he said. “The players do not wear a facemask when they are on the court, but every parent, every tournament staff member has to wear one.
“It’s not difficult, it’s just new,” Butler said. “It has been so good for so long and it has been such a proven method the way junior tournaments have been run for years. We have been doing them for over a decade and have had the biggest events in the world and now to change it up like this where all of a sudden it seems so stark and not that many people are used to it. You are still getting that same end result, but that path is very different.”