Delta Tennis Social Sessions on Monday’s – Background and Guiding Principles

Delta Social Monday Session

Note; This document is available to download as a PDF here...

The aims and objectives for trialling a change in how matches are organised is to get closer to a session where people have more fun. Get in the zone! And to maintain the social side of these sessions.

As it stands with the way games/partners are chosen, we may get lucky or we may not. No one wants to have an easy game, and I don’t think anyone enjoys getting too easily beaten. I can’t work out the exact percentage as I don’t have the data. But I suspect that we can expect a like for like game (similar ability) around 30% of the time. My hope in having a couple of guided sessions is to move the percentage up to 45% or so for everyone.

Delta’s social tennis pages state the following.

"Our social sessions are designed to help you get the most out of your time with us. A friendly member of our team will guide the session, making sure you feel confident with the rules, stay involved and most importantly have fun. You'll be grouped with others of a similar ability, so you can enjoy a positive experience. All equipment is included, so you can simply turn up and play."

In addition to Delta Tennis stated aims, there is something else which I think is worth bearing in mind.

“Flow state in tennis is a mental zone where focus is razor-sharp, movements feel automatic, and performance peaks, often described as being "in the zone." It occurs when your skill level matches the challenge, distractions fade, and you stay fully present in each point rather than focusing on the bigger match outcome.”

I believe there is a better way for people to stand a better chance of having fun at an appropriate level.

In the past Delta provided sessions which were managed to ensure people played at their level. The problem with this approach is that we could miss out on the social interaction we enjoy.

Here is what I propose as the guiding principle.

Session 1 - Mixed ability. A’s play with B’s (people go on court as we do now)

Session 2 - Like for like. A’s play A’s and B’s play B’s

Session 3 - Mixed ability. A’s play with B’s

Session 4 – Like for like. A’s play A’s and B’s play B’s

We don’t live in a perfect world, and we need to maintain a degree of flexibility. Please turn over for other points…

These are guiding principles only and are not hard rules. There are bound to be situations when the people who attend don’t fit into neat categories. In these situations, we could just do our best to accommodate which may mean A’s playing with B’s for session 1 and 3

I’d suggest that any new players to the social session simply join in with whatever slot is available, until we have a feel for their likely standard. I gather Roger Federer is no longer on the tour so won’t take too long to work out where he will go!

If you’d like to know how we graded people, it was based on the following criteria;

Movement – Tactical Understanding – Competitiveness – Temperament – Forehand – Backhand – Serve – Volley – Overhead and Consistency.

The people who run Delta may have their own ideas around these sessions. I just don’t think the way it’s done now provides for the optimum outcome and enjoyment for any of us.

I propose that we run this as a trial for a month starting in November to see how it pans out. It may need tweaking a bit here and there. If it fails in its aims and objectives, we can always take a vote and move it back to the way it’s done now.

Feedback Please

The good, the bad and the ugly…

The best laid plans can and do go wrong so, whilst I/we have worked out what we think is a simple process to organise this, we need feedback. This will ensure we take differing views, experiences and ideas into account.Please let us know, what works, what doesn’t work and any problems during the trial phase.

Your points of contact for feedback are yours truly + Jim and Frances.

if you are using WhatsApp for feedback could you please message people directly as it will save this WhatsApp group getting clogged up.

We will be collating questions/ideas etc and will create a frequently asked questions reply which will be shared to all.