Another long winter is hopefully winding down, and our next season should start in about 6 weeks (if the snow ever melts down this year).
I am sure you are all eager to get back out there, and start playing again. So here is a little preview of the next season.
Session I should start around April 25th. Depending on weather conditions we might be able to set up some outdoor pre-season tournaments.
Season opening party
Rochester Athletic Club will most likely host our season opening party in mid April . They will reserve courts for doubles and also their pros will run drills for us. Last October we had about 20 players participating in a similar event and it was a lot of fun. This event will be free for members of our league. It will be a great opportunity for us to get together, and have some fun playing tennis. I will keep you posted about this.
Session I
You will be getting an mail from me regarding session I sign up in a week or so. Hopefully we will continue the trend and expand again this year. I will be advertising the league and looking for new players in coming months. If you know someone who might be interested let me know. Also if you have an opportunity to post fliers , drop me an email and I can send you some.
Fees
The league will still be free to join for all of you who played before.
Only new players joining for the first time will be charged a sign up fee in amount of $10 per a session. And they will need to sign up through our web site (link below)
Anyone who wants to make a voluntary donation to the league can do so using pay pal button below. The same link is posted on our main web site.
Depending on number of new players and donations we hope to pass awards and trophies like we did last year.
Contact info page
For privacy reasons, the players page on our web site is now password protected . This page has your e mails and phone numbers listed , and you will need to log in with a user ID and password to access it. You will need to go to this link to create your user name and password.
This should protect your contact info from getting picked from our web site. I had it accessible to everyone before, so players can get to this page faster, but logging in with an ID and password shouldn't be too inconvenient. All other pages on the web site will be accessible without logging in. Please let me know if you are having problems with this page.
Players page will have a table with current players, and also a directory which has all players and their previous season records.
History page on the web site has all scores and standings since the league started in 2006.
New ideas /suggestions
This is always a good time to discuss possible rule changes, or suggest different formats for the league. If you have any suggestions or ideas for coming season you can submit it in comments below this blog or e mail them to me.
Format refresher
This will be our 6th season and format hasn't changed much. Session I has players of all levels starting in the same league. According to session I results players split to levels for session II.
Session I
This session is divided in 2 phases (group phase and tournament phase)
Group phase
Players are divided in groups and they play everyone in their group once (round robin format). Each group will have players of various of levels, from advanced to beginners. I try to create groups so they are evenly matched by looking at previous results. For example each group will have one of the top 8 players from the previous season, 1 player from division II and so on. New players are more challenging to place, but I try to go with what level they claim to be and also we set up some pre-season placement matches for them as well. Depending on number of players the group phase can be 5-7 weeks long.
Tournament phase
Second part of session I is a placement / tournament phase. You get to play versus players from other groups who won same place in their respective group. For example if you were first place in your group, you play against 1st place players in other groups for places 1-8 (if we have 8 groups). They start with quarterfinals A1-B1, B1-C1 etc.
So this phase has more competitive matches and you get to play opponents who are closer to your level. This phase is 2-3 weeks long.
At the end of session I all players will be ranked from 1st to 40th place and these rankings will be used to split the players in divisions (levels) for session II. All players will be able to play one match a week , and session I is generally 7-9 weeks long (depending on number of players).
So long for now, I will email you soon to see if you would like to sign up for session I.
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