Playing and Competing Guide
For a complete and rewarding tennis experience there are three key elements which we consider to be:
- Club
- Coaching
- Competition
Appropriate competition can help players to gauge their progress, support goal-setting, implement new skills and tactics, face different game styles, meet new people and ultimately stay in the sport for longer. If you don’t enjoy competing, it may be worth considering if you are entering the right type of event!
Competition can be broadly split between:
- Team events, run by your County LTA and entered by your tennis club.
- Singles/Doubles events which are 'Closed' (run internally within a club for its own members)
- Singles/Doubles events which are 'Open' (Players from any club can take part).
A guide to Open Tournaments
Tournaments are graded from 1(international) to 7 (local level) - Read the LTA Guide to Appropriate Competition.
Most competitions accept entries via the LTA Website. You can use their Competition Search tool to find local events within your desired age-group and guide. Please note that you will need (British Tenis Membership LINK) (BTM), which is free for all affiliated club members.
Not sure what age-group you fall into? Just type your date of birth into the Age-group calculator which will tell you your competition age-group for the next four seasons.
Tennis parents - The Start Competing Parents Guide is a very informative read concerning competition and how best to support your child when they begin to compete. More information about how you can support your child in their tennis development an be found here.