Newsletter #4

Hello everyone,

The seventh season of the Rochester Tennis League is in full swing. The doubles league  is going to be finished this week, and singles league is into it's 6th round. Last week we missed six matches in  the singles league, three in the doubles and none in the women's division. I have to say that women's division has been  fantastic this year, they completed 39 matches out of 40 scheduled so far. All 3 divisions combined we  managed to complete 80% matches last week which is pretty good effort considering it included Memorial day weekend.

Every once in a while someone asks me why we don't have a week off for holidays.. Well ,  holiday weekend is 3 days long and you still have 5 days to get your match done before that weekend comes around, . If you plan to be away for the entire week , you know it's coming well in advance so you can play your match early. The summer season in Minnesota is short as it is and taking 3 weeks off in the summer for the  holidays would cut it even shorter. It hasn't been a major problem in the past six years , we probably miss couple of more matches because of it but as you can see our completion rate doesn't drop too much.

Late arrival
Arranging  matches and issues that go with it is  something we can talk about every week. This time I wanted to talk about people arriving late for their matches The main question is how long should a person wait for their opponent to show up? Ideally we would like to have everyone showing up on time, but I would think that 15-20 minutes is the most a person should wait. To me it's reasonable to wait at least 15 minutes in case your opponent got stuck in the traffic, 20 minutes should already be good time to start packing. Some of us would stick even longer just to get a chance to play, but being late more than 20 minutes without a notice is not considerate towards your opponent. I am not sure how often this happens and how many of you are bothered by it but you have a chance to voice your opinion in the poll on the right side of this post. Please be considerate to your opponents and do your best to show up on time.

Inter-league
The inter-league meet is coming up soon. Keegan asked me to remind everyone that participation in this even is free  just in case some of you were wondering. It's a nice opportunity to meet other RTL players since we don't gather as a group that often and  also compete against another team from the area. These meets are fun ,  relaxed and low key events. We  still of course want to win but the main goal is just to get out on the courts and have a good time playing tennis.  Every meet so far has been memorable and tight battle. One we played last year will definitely stick with me and probably the rest of us tennis junkies that traveled to Cannon Falls to play in those inhumane conditions . It was probably the worst day last summer to be outside chasing a yellow fuzzy ball , incredibly hot ,  humid and on the top of that it rained  as we were traveling up there. Despite all of that , when rain passed  20 of us from both leagues  started mopping the courts as the water evaporated out of hot concrete.  Before you know it we were out there playing matches well into the night.   Nobody even mentioned canceling this thing, although most of us probably wondered about it  next morning when we struggled to to get out of the bed due to severe exhaustion.  It was a great display of commitment and love for the sport. I probably glorify this meet even more because that is the only one out of 3 that we ended up winning so forgive me for revisiting this event too often.  Anyway  here is another chance to represent the league , hopefully in a lot better conditions   I encourage you to participate, team captains do a very good job matching  you up with players close to your level. The meets consist of various doubles and singles matches. Hopefully many of you will decide to join us at 6:15pm  June 9th at Mayo HS. If interested e mail Keegan nageek4@gmail.com.

Session II
Sesison II singles league sign up is starting this week. I will send you an e mail  about this. Session II starts  on June 18th and it will be 7 weeks long. We normally have a good turnover in between sessions so a week off in between sessions will be needed to set up the divisions, move people up or down and incorporate new players.

Doubles league (session II)
As some of you know,   we didn't get enough players to continue doubles league through the session II. USTA is starting soon so most of our doubles players will be turning their attention to that competition. I think session I had a perfect timing and it turned out great.We will  restart the doubles league  next year and possibly even set up a doubles tournament this fall.

Have a great week.