Summer tennis league shows net gain

Gary Dudgeon
Greensburg Daily News

July 24, 2008 10:10 am

— Greensburg had 24 players playing under the tutelage of Pirates’
varsity coaches Gary Bailey and Al Jones in an instructional tennis
league consisting of two teams from Columbus, Franklin,
Shelbyville, Greensburg and two teams from Batesville.
The teams are composed of players who are younger than 16 years
old and who have never played varsity tennis. They play a
home-and-home schedule with the home team alternating every
year.
Each squad practices two days a week and plays a match each
Wednesday afternoon. Every attempt is made to complete the meet
in two hours. At the end of the season, a tournament is played at one
of the sites.
This year the tournament will be played at Shelbyville. The format of
the tournament is that each coach designates a No. 1 singles, a No.
2 singles, a No. 3 singles, a No. 1 doubles, a No. 2 doubles and
enough additional singles and doubles team so that the entire team
can play.
A blind draw is completed to get the pairings at each level of play
and a single point is given for each win. The most points by any
team establishes the winner.
The same format is used at the local two-way meets.
In the two-way meets this year Greensburg has a 2-2 record with
victories over Franklin and Shelbyville and losses to both Batesville
squads. The match against Columbus was rained out and has not
been rescheduled as of this time.
Rules are greatly relaxed from IHSAA rules. Coaches can go on the
court and conference with their players to instruct them. The intent of the
series is to introduce competitive tennis to as many players as
possible so that young players can learn and hopefully provide the
high schools at the participating cities varsity tennis players
somewhere down the line.

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