Club Update: Courts will re-open for play on 29 April 2020

The Club Committee is pleased to inform our members and tennis community that following the State Government’s easing of some restrictions effective today, the club will be re-opening some tennis courts and the hit-up wall from Wednesday 29 April for court hire and coaching only.

While this is great news with many of you keen get back on court, we’ve also put in place some guidelines and strategies to ensure we keep each other safe and avoid jeopardising the privilege of being able to play tennis as part of our exercise routine. As such:

Please continue to follow all Government and health authorities’ guidelines
Please stay away from the club if you feel unwell
There will be a maximum of five courts in use at any one point in time – courts 1, 3 and 5 (synthetic grass) and 7 and 9 (hardcourt)
The clubhouse and playground will continue to remain closed until further notice
We request that you arrive and leave as close as possible to when you need to be there for on-court tennis activities (i.e. leave once play is finished)
Don’t share water bottles - bring a full bottle to minimise use of the water cooler
Wash / sterilise your hands before and after play – while we will have a bottle of hand sanitiser please have your own as we have a limited supply
Minimise the number of things that you touch at the club
Use the toilet only in an emergency (the back toilet will be unlocked)
Always be courteous and thoughtful to others

Court Hire information

As part of our phased approach to our re-opening, court hire will be available for both singles and doubles play during the following times. However, please do always check the online court booking system as times may vary:

Monday and Wednesdays: 9am to 1pm and 3pm to 7pm (note that night court hire rates kick in at 6pm)
Tuesday, Thursdays and Friday: 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 6pm
Saturday: 9am to 12pm and 2pm to 6pm
Sunday: 10am to 12pm and 2pm to 4pm

A ‘club official’ (committee member, caretaker or coach) will be present during these times, enabling us to keep the court gates open and remove the need for people to open anything.

To help us keep track of who is using our courts and others to view court availability, all courts bookings must be made online here and players may be asked to show their email confirmation booking on entry. Walk-in court hire will not be accepted - players will be turned away without a booking even if there are courts available.

For those of you who had long-term standing bookings in place prior to our temporary closure, please note that these have all been cancelled so you will need to email us or contact Dwayne on 0422793941 should you wish to discuss possible reinstatement.

Members and coaches will have exclusive online booking access to four courts (Courts 1, 5, 7 and 9) while non-members will have online booking access to only court 3. Members will be required to enter their membership code / number that they’ve been previously provided with during the booking process – members should book Court 3 ONLY if all the other courts have been booked.

For now, we’ve implemented a maximum of one hour per booking although you may continue playing if the court isn’t required by someone else. In addition to that, throughout the month of May, we also ask you to restrict your number of bookings per week (three for members and one for non-members) unless the courts are showing as free on the online booking system five hours prior to when you want to start playing. This is just to enable as many people to have a hit if there’s an overwhelming demand.

It should be noted that we may cancel or modify bookings as required to provide as many players with an opportunity to play (we will inform you if we do) and we reserve the right to suspend the booking privileges of anyone who doesn’t adhere to our guidelines.

If you have any questions about online court bookings, forgotten your membership code or court availability outside these hours, please contact Dwayne Augustin via the club email or on 0422 793 941.

Hit-up wall

While the playground will continue to be closed, we will be opening up the hit-up wall area for people to use. It will be opened from 9am – 5pm everyday except Sunday when it’ll be open from 10am to 4pm.

Coaching activities

The club has been working closely and coordinating our phased re-opening approach with Mike and the team at Tennis Academy Perth. While we will leave them to send out the finer details with regards to their coaching activities, in general, private coaching and small groups (maximum of four students and one coach per court) will be back on at the club.

We do ask that if there are younger children attending coaching that we only have one parent / guardian accompanying them where possible.

At this stage, there will be a maximum of two coaching classes (i.e. two courts) at any one point in time and some coaching sessions (particularly for adults) may take place outside the above stated court hire hours to assist with keeping more courts available for court hire.

While we totally understand that having some of these restrictions can be frustrating, we are regularly reviewing these measures and adjusting them to meet our community’s desire to play tennis while adopting a balanced and phased approach that we believe will serve us well in this situation.

Thank you for all your patience and understanding, particularly during the last few weeks, and while we won’t get to see everyone at once, we look forward to seeing some of your faces down at the club.

Stay safe and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email us at manningtennis@westnet.com.au .

Regards,

MTC Committee