UNC CLUB TENNIS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How do I join UNC Club Tennis?
We are a selective team and tryouts are held at the beginning of each school year. If you were not able to attend tryouts, send us an email at uncclubtennis@gmail.com and we may be able to set up another time for you to tryout.
Where and when are practices held?
Practices are held from 5pm-7pm Monday-Friday at the North Campus Recreation Courts. We encourage people to play with each other outside of practice if they cannot make that practice time. Other facilities to hit at include Cobb and Hinton James.
Are practices mandatory?
We encourage members to come to practice, but it is not mandatory. Attendance at practice is considered for the challenge ladder and tournament roster selection. If you are interested in playing tournaments try to come to as many practices as you can! Due to limited court space, we only allow members to practice at the OEC during this time unless there are open courts and not a lot of people at practice.
What does practice consist of?
Normally we try to divide people up at practice based on what they would like to play or work on. We typically focus on both singles and doubles match play. We don't do drills that often, but we are always open to suggestions for practice and always want to help people work on what they want.
How does the tournament selection process work?
In order to pick the roster for tournaments we hold a sign up period and then create a challenge ladder based off who has signed up. The ladder is then sent out with a preliminary team and members are encouraged to play challenge matches during the challenge period. The executive board then looks at challenge match results and determines the roster.
What is the difference between matches and tournaments?
Any number of members are allowed to sign up and play in the matches that we schedule with other club teams in the area. These typically last for multiple hours on one day. You will most likely play two to three times. Tournaments are limited to the number of teams we can take to them. We take two teams, 20 people, to most tournaments, but other tournaments like nationals are limited to one team. Fortunately for the past few years we have been able to take four teams to our Southern Sectional Tournament!
What is the format of club tennis?
Club tennis is played in World Team Tennis format. It can take some getting used to because it is different from what you are used to in high school, juniors and league tennis. For a tournament you can take 5 women and 5 men per team. There are five positions - Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles, Men's Singles, Women's Singles and Mixed Doubles. Each person on the team can play up to two times during a match. The number of games is what matters, not the number of positions that you win. Each position plays first to 6 games, no-ad, with a tiebreak to 5 points at 5 games all. You switch sides every 4 games. You want to either win by the biggest margin you can or lose by the smallest margin. Mixed doubles is a special position because of the comeback rule. It can be a little confusing so we will explain this more at the beginning of the year. Always feel free to ask about the format or any other questions you may have :)