COVID-19 Guidance – August 22nd 2020

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As you are aware, revised COVID-19 restrictions were announced this week which included key measures affecting sporting activities. For us as a tennis club, the main changes are detailed below. More than ever, it is vital that we follow the player guidelines issued by tennis Ireland. We will be asking our stewards to ensure that these guidelines are met in order to continue to be able to play tennis in a safe environment.

New guidelines:

• We now need to limit group sessions to no more than 15 players. This will affect club night, men’s night and ladies morning. As ladies morning has attracted full courts, we will be changing the format to meet the new rules. There will now be 2 one-hour sessions at 11am & 12pm.
• No spectators at matches are allowed.

Guidelines staying in place:

Social distancing:

We need to make an extra effort to keep 2m apart from other players.

• Enter & exit the courts in single file
• Avoid mingling at the courts after your game
• Players should keep their bags/drinks at opposite sides of the net and swap at opposite sides when changing ends
  -No hand shakes/high fives

Hand hygiene:

• Each player is required to sanitise their hands on entering and leaving the courts
• Use your own hand sanitiser regularly if sharing balls, e.g. when changing ends
• Avoid touching any surfaces, e.g. net cords

Balls:

Sharing balls is still allowed, however you should avoid touching tennis balls from other courts. This can be achieved by:

• Bringing clearly marked balls
• If a ball rolls onto your court, send it back using the foot to racquet technique (use this technique where possible on your own court too)
• Use hand sanitiser when changing ends

Court change over:

We need to allow 5 minutes for players to leave their court before the next group arrive. This is to avoid congestion at the gates. Therefore stewards will call time after 55 minutes of play (with the exception of club championship matches or where 2 hours have been booked).

Stewards:

We will be relying on stewards to enforce COVID regulations at club sessions. In particular, to ensure players avoid mingling at the gates and use hand sanitiser on entry. Thank you to all the volunteer stewards who have helped to date. We may need to keep this system going for a while yet, so we would appeal to any player who is using the courts regularly but has not as yet helped out, to contact Leán to go on the rota.

Thanks to all our members for your support throughout this period, if you have any queries please do not hesitate to get in touch.