Please find below a brief summary of the most common rules applicable to adult events. 

Membership

A player playing for a Borders club in any Tennis Borders League or Cup event must be a paid up member of that particular tennis club. Country members of the club are allowed to play.

A player playing in other Tennis Borders events such as the Confined Tournaments must be a full member of a Scottish Borders tennis club, not a country member, and must play for a team in any of the Border leagues.

Named Players

Before the start of the season all captains must produce a list of their entire squad in order of merit.  No player can play for a lower team but players can play up whenever a higher team has a missing player.  The player moving up will usually be one from the 1st couple in the next lower team. If this is not possible the match secretary should be made aware of the reason why. In all cases the strength of the couples must always be in descending order right throughout the teams.

Match Cancellations

If a match has to be cancelled or rearranged for any reason other than weather please contact the Match Secretary for approval.

Cancelled matches can be mutually rearranged for another date. If no agreement can be reached the Home team offers the Away team two dates and the Away team must concede if they cannot raise a team for those dates.

Note that where Clubs have multiple teams entered in an event then consideration must be given to which players played in the other teams on the scheduled match night as none of these players can take part in the rearranged match. This is to prevent matches being rearranged to produce stronger team(s) than would have been the case.

If a match needs to rearranged beyond the date of the last match in the event please inform the Match Secretary.

If a team fails to produce a full team four times in any one event then they will be automatically disqualified.

Start Times

Start times are important to ensure any match has a good chance of being completed.

Weekday matches are generally 6pm for a prompt 6.15pm start. Any couple not able to start by 6.30pm will start as soon as they can but when the other matches are completed in round one they must then concede any remaining sets.

Incomplete Matches

In Div One matches, two rounds must be completed to obtain a result*  If two rounds cannot be completed then either captain can concede sets to get a result or the match can be rescheduled, starting from the point it halted.

For leagues with a third round which is unfinished, completed sets count towards the result but games in an incomplete set only count towards final league placings.

* Where events only have two rounds then one round must be completed to get a result.

*Scottish Inter Club Challenge Cup - rules for this event are normally emailed to club contacts and captains before the start.