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Post Info TOPIC: Tennismatch.com
wimdledont


Challenger level

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Tennismatch.com
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Tennismatch.com or Tennismatch.co.uk being a website that does not, to my knowledge, exist...

 

The idea being prompted by the recent webcast with Mr Downey, in which the female presenter complains that she woud play a lot more, if only she could find an opponent of the right level. This has certainly happened to me before. I've either not played for years on end, due to not finding an opponent; or played among the same small circuit of friends, and not lost a match for a couple of years, which is tedious for all concerned.

 

What would be great, I think, is if there was a 'tennismatch.com' thingummy website - basically like a dating website, but for arranging tennis matches. In London, for example, there must surely be thousands of young urban professionals, who enjoyed tennis at school, but live 15 tubestops away from any personal friend that also likes tennis.

When I lived in London, I used to live right next door to some courts - and play regularly with mates, but like I say above...

And actually, I'm not that good, and I would regularly walk past said courts and see a game in progress between players better than me, or the same sort of level. It never occurred to me to go and ask if one of them fancied a game some time... We are British, after all.

 

And even for somebody who is a keen club player, who knows 15 potential opponents at their club... How could you know which one has Tuesday afternoon off, and might want a game at 2 hours notice... In London, you could live next door to another keen club player, who plays at a different club. You would never know.

 

If you're the schoolchamp at aged 15, you can probably find a game through the county system; but the best practice partner for you could live 5 miles away, but in a different county. You might never meet.

 

Etc, etc...



-- Edited by wimdledont on Sunday 19th of April 2015 04:13:09 PM

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wimdledont


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Oh, that's hilarious. The internet has now turned the 'tennismatch.com' thingy above into a link - to a website which clearly does exist.

 

I might join. Looks like a good idea. I thought it was mine, all mine.

 

This is not marketing spam for them. Honest.



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wimdledont


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...though on closer inspection, that "tennismatch.com" is actually just a dating website.

 

So, nothing like that. But you could have a 'tennismatch.co.uk' that is actually people meeting up to play tennis. If love blossoms; and they're all consenting adults, fine, but...

 

There might be 300 keen tennis players in the London borough of Ealing, say. Wouldn't it be great if the internet gave them a way to arrange matches between each other. I am going to have to stop digging this hole shortly, having now run out of any potential sentences that aren't double-entendres.

 



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The Optimist


ATP qualifying

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It's called Londontennis.co.uk

Believe the poster here BornToWin has set up similar types of operations around the country.



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wimdledont


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oh.

www.londontennis.co.uk/findplayer/findplayer.php

yeah, sort of like that. Posting the link in the hope it is of use to someone.

Please BorntoWin feel free to tout your own operation on this thread as well; I haven't seen that one.

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PaulM


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Yeah there are a few of these initiatives already out there. But you need to know where to look.

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Born2WinTennis


Club Coach

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Great idea Wimdledont, the same idea I had over a year ago when I had recently moved down from Scotland, didn't know anyone tennis related, had bad experiences at a couple of local clubs and was easily winning against the park level opponents in localtennisleagues....and I'm just a mid-club player.

Paul Barton from London Tennis is who I am working with on my Corporate Tennis venture. The forum on his site is probably your best bet for the "who can play on Wednesday evening" type broadcast.

There is also the aforementioned localtennisleagues who have a huge park following.

Then there are my series of county postal tournaments and singles leagues - offering prize money to keep the better players interested. Struggling to get much traction in London, but good setups in Herts, Bucks and a few other area.

There are apps such as Tweener who I am working with on our National Tennis Championships, Tennis Buddy and also Find a Sports Partner. They all need a critical mass of players before they become useable however, so you can have a great app but it is useless without anyone using it.

And we should not forget the Saatchi & Saatchi designed, huge budget LTA AllPlay system, this was intended to solve your problem, but basically no club players got involved and since there was no organised competition format, most of the players simply fed into localtennisleagues as they had a massive advertising deal with the LTA.

It's interesting your borough idea, I had a similar idea yesterday that I put to the LTA about borough based tennis competition, rather than county. Then winners could play off against neighbouring boroughs before a Greater London finals day. This could solve the problem of two massive clubs, say 2 miles apart, but one in Surrey and one in Middlesex, never actually playing each other.

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