UTR Tennis Tournaments (in Britain or with British Players)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

UTR Tennis Tournaments (in Britain or with British Players)

indiana · Tennis legend

UTR Tennis Tournaments (in Britain)

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

I saw this on social media, good luck to Barry Fulcher running it. I've certainly never seen UTR tournaments before in the UK.

EddietheEagle · County player

More tournaments like this would bring thousands of players out the woodwork.

-- Edited by EddietheEagle on Tuesday 11th of July 2017 01:19:56 PM

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

I don't think they would. Which recreational/club players can take annual leave from work to play in a mid-week tennis tournament? Answer = hardly any. More tournaments are needed midweek and at weekends using fast4 and other short formats.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I think Eddie has a good point.

Obviously not everyone will be available but there will be lots of students, some entrants will take 'sickies' in order to play and, in France, quite a lot of people plan their holiday (or at least one week of it) around their favourite tennis tournament, especially if promised at least two matches as it says here (or doubles as well).

Talking purely from personal experience, I have been horrified to find not a single adult singles tournament, with ranking points, for me to take part in since moving back to England - and that despite living in London.
Yet, in France, in the middle of nowhere, I have at least 20 a year, within 30-45 mins drive, (and about 60 a year within 60-75 mins drive).

Mind you, £44 entry fee is steep, to say the least.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

Coup if you live in London there are weekly Grade 5 ranking point events for adults run by Tennis Services at places like David Lloyd Hatfield. For example this week and next there is a grade3 in oxfordshire, grade4 in surrey, two grade4s in Hertfordshire, all accessible from London.

I agree that £44 is crazy, I try to make mine £10 or £15.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Born2WinTennis wrote:
Coup if you live in London there are weekly Grade 5 ranking point events for adults run by Tennis Services at places like David Lloyd Hatfield. For example this week and next there is a grade3 in oxfordshire, grade4 in surrey, two grade4s in Hertfordshire, all accessible from London.

I agree that £44 is crazy, I try to make mine £10 or £15.

Thanks, Born2Win, that's great - I called the LTA (a while ago, it's true) and got nothing!

Problem is that I don't have a car in London so I'll look into transport - to be honest, I'm not schlepping somewhere that's 2 hours away or costs a small fortune. (And I'm not actually there at the moment although I will be again a couple of months time)

But appreciate the help and I'll look into it a bit more, I was completely discouraged after my first efforts and just gave up.

(And, yes, £10-15 seems perfect).

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Yes £44 plus travel possibly accommodation is expensive. Surely the LTA should facilitate a ranking system through the clubs as in golf.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Just to be clear, I'm not looking for ranking events because I want to be ranked.

I was (am?) looking for 'serious, proper' competitive matches (at a lowish level). I don't want doubles, or short-format, or variations on friendlies, with the two people having to make their own arrangements and it can only last an hour because that's all you can book the court for, and usually gets canceled anyway. (And, no, I'm not willing to spend £100 or so to enter and travel).

This is my whole gripe with normal adult tennis in Britain being a leisure activity and not a sport.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

So you tend to have:

Grade 5 (this is the minimum for ranking events) - usually one day or half a day, using short formats.
Grade 4 (3-5 days) - no short format.
Grade 3 (5-7 days) - no short formats apart from British Tour Grade 3s

Then anything else would be too high a level. I'm an 8.1 and I have won a few matches at Grade 5 and got to the consolation final of a Grade 4. I wouldn't enter a Grade 3.

So it sounds like you want to visit the LTA competitions website and search for a nearby Grade 4. Let me know if you need the link.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

www.hunstantonltt.co.uk/

This one looks interesting, it claims to be the Britain's biggest tennis tournament. Apparently they convert the local cricket ground into 40 temporary grass courts!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Well, with the winner's cheque of £1800 and the runners-up of £900, it's not surprising that quite a few of our 'older' top players turned out for the Brighton UTR tournament.

Well done to Josh Goodall who defeated Matt Short in the final, winning 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (9-7).

Semifinalists (£450) were Josh Paris and Ryan Penniston.

And quarterfinalists (£250) were Tommy Bennett, Evan Hoyt, Josef Dodridge and Keelan Oakley.

The women, if I understand right, play in the same draws because it's all based on your UTR ranking which is gender-neutral.

There was a £500 one-off prize though for top finishing woman which, it seems, went to Marianna Zakarliuk

EddietheEagle · County player

Coup Droit wrote:

This is my whole gripe with normal adult tennis in Britain being a leisure activity and not a sport.

You have it in a nutshell with that comment. I regard that as THE central issue why the sport doesn't push forward here.

Logically, why do you need coaches if the game is largely for leisure? You don't, hence coaching gets affected as well. Less need for performance coaching if it'just for leisure. And so on and so forth. You end up with a sport that becomes moribund at the competition level.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

A reasonably interesting article about the recent event:

blog.universaltennis.com/2017/08/14/three-generations-compete-in-british-tourney/