Davisville Ladder Rules - 2011
The Ladder gives players the opportunity to play singles matches with a variety of players in a competitive, but friendly environment. There is both a Men's and a Ladies Ladder.
Duration of the Season
The Ladder season runs from May 1st to September 17th, 2011.
Joining the Ladder:
In order to join the Ladder, you must have a rating or your approximate level of play must be known to those that are organizing the Ladder. This makes it possible to put you into the proper Ladder box, ensuring the best possible matches.
The Ladder costs $10.00 for the season. Please get a receipt for your payment! Payments can be made to the Court Steward on duty, who will contact the Player Development Director to inform them that there will be a new player starting play.
You can join the Ladder at any time, but new entrants will only begin play at the beginning of the following month, so be sure to sign up before the end of the previous month to ensure that you will be included. If you join after the new Ladder Boxes are published (on the 1st of May, June, July, August), you will have to wait until the next month to begin play. When you do begin play, you will be placed on the Ladder in a box with other players of similar skill level. You will not be placed at the bottom of the Ladder. The point of a Tennis Ladder is to give everyone competitive matches and placing new players according to playing level will ensure this.
Note: If you join the Ladder after June 1st and do not begin Ladder play until July 1st, you will be unable to win the Ladder (either Most Points or Top of the Ladder), regardless of your standing at the end of the season.
Booking Matches
The type of Ladder that we are playing is called a Box Ladder. There will be 7 people in a Box. You will have 6 people to play against, in a month's time. You will play each person once.
Anyone can call anyone else that is in your current Box, to arrange a match. A list of all Boxes will be made available to download at anytime (details will be emailed to all participants). All boxes will also appear on the Ladder whiteboard, in the clubhouse. You will use the information contained in your Club Directory to contact each player to arrange matches.
Once you have arranged a match with someone, either call the Court Steward (during club hours) or see them in person and ask them to write the match into the Ladder binder, in the clubhouse. Once you become familiar with the location of this binder, you may write in your matches yourselves, if you wish. Leaving a voice mail message with that information is not recommended. Please note that match booking requests will not be taken by email. Matches should be booked at least a full day in advance. If both players are at the Club and just decide that they want to play their Ladder match that day, that request may be refused based on court availability.
Note: When contacting players, please use both email and phone, as using just one method of contact has sometimes proven to be unreliable.
The clubhouse telephone number is (416) 481-6569.
All Ladder matches are to be played at the Davisville Tennis Club, during Club hours.
Keep in mind that although we try very hard to arrange the Ladder binder schedule around other events, sometimes your matches will be cancelled due to circumstances. This should be rare and every effort will be made to keep this to a bare minimum. The Court Steward may call you in advance to let you know of the cancellation, but may not be able to. Please call ahead if you think that your match might be cancelled for any reason.
Note: You can only book Ladder matches for the dates & times that are available in the Ladder binder. Also, you are NOT able to play a ladder match during a tournament week, during times booked for House League or other DTC events (Davisville Cup, OTA Clinics etc.)
Please respond to match requests as soon as possible. If a player fails to respond to a match request or declines to play, they will lose by Default. The player that loses by Default will NOT be awarded any points. The other player, or "Winner", of the match will receive 8 points, but no bonus points.
Before any Default win will be assigned, an email must be sent to the Player Development Director at pd@davisvilletennisclub.com, so that they can arbitrate any dispute.
If a match has been set up and a player does not show up or cancels within 24 hours before the match was to have taken place, the offending player loses by Default. The player who defaults is awarded ZERO points. The "Winner" of the match is awarded 8 points.
A player can book all of their matches for the month whenever he/she wishes (provided that Ladder play is allowed on those days AND that someone else hasn't previously booked the date/time). So unlike our previous ladder, go ahead and book all 6 of your matches and write them in the Ladder binder!! Remember that you are only to play a maximum of 6 Ladder matches each month. You play each person in your box once . Note that only 1 Ladder match can be played at a time and all Ladder matches are to be played on Court 4.
Note: If you play less than 3 matches per month, for whatever reason (vacation, injury etc.), you will be moved down 2 boxes, after the first month of doing so. If there is a second consecutive month where you play less than 3 matches, your name will be removed from the Ladder for the remainder of the season. The $10 fee will not be refunded, so please be sure to play your matches, for the good of everyone on the Ladder!! To have an active and vibrant Ladder, everyone's participation is required!
Warm-Up
You can warm up as long as you like. Remember though that you only have 40 minutes to play your match. The longer you warm up, the shorter your match is and the less points you will score!
Scoring
All Ladder matches are to be played on Court 4 & are to be 40 minutes in duration (regardless of whether or not there is someone coming on the court after you) . The Ladder match is played as a Pro Set. A Pro Set is a set where the winner is the first to win 8 games, by a margin of 2 (for example, 8-6), playing sudden death points in games that reach Deuce. If a match is tied at 7-7, a 12 point tie breaker is played to determine the winner of the match. If you have not reached the end of the set in the allotted time, whoever is winning after the 40 minute time period has expired is declared the winner. The score after the tiebreaker will always be 8-7.
Note: Games that go to Deuce are decided on the next point, with the receiver's choice of side to return serve from (Deuce or Ad side). There are no Ad (advantage) points played after Deuce. Only one point is played after Deuce to determine the winner of the current game - sudden death!
If you play out your Deuces, you will receive less points after your match, as you will play less games!
If the score of the match is tied (5-5, 30-30, for example) after 40 minutes, the players must play one more point to determine the winner (5-5, 30-40, for example). The winner of that last point gets a game added to his/her total. So, in our example above, one player's score would be 6 and the other player's score would be 5.
If you do not break the tie, no bonus points will be awarded to either player!!
You will be awarded one point for every game that you win. For example, Player A beats Player B by a score of 8-5. Player A receives 8 points and Player B receives 5.
The winner of the match receives 3 bonus points. The loser of the match receives 1 bonus point. So by our previous example, Player A would receive 8 points for games won & 3 points for winning the match; 11 points total. Player B would receive 5 points for games won & 1 point for playing the match; 6 points total.
Reporting the Score
After the match, the winner is responsible for recording the final score of games only, not bonus points . Bonus points are calculated by the Player Development Director, at the end of the month. The match score gets recorded directly onto the scoresheet posted on the Ladder whiteboard in the clubhouse (NOT IN THE LADDER BINDER, as we did in previous years). If available to do so, you may ask the Court Steward to write the final score onto the scoresheet for you. Please CIRCLE the score of the WINNER of the match.
Movement on the Ladder
At the end of each month, the Ladder will be adjusted (by the Player Development Director) with new boxes being created. The 2 top point getters in each box will go UP to the next highest box. The 2 low point getters in each box will go DOWN to the next lowest box. The players who finish in the middle 3 will stay in their box. The exceptions will be the top 2 players in the highest box. They will stay in that highest box. Also, the bottom 2 players in the lowest box will stay in that lowest box.
The top 2 ladies in the highest box on the Ladies Ladder will have the option (they will be asked in advance of the end of the month) of moving to the Men's Ladder. They are not required to go to the Men's Ladder; it is optional. They will be placed into a box on the Men's ladder with players of similar skill level. They will not have to start at the bottom of the Men's Ladder. If someone chooses to cross over to the Men's Ladder, they do so with the following caveats. They are moving to the Men's Ladder for the remainder of the Ladder season. Their name will no longer appear anywhere on the Ladies ladder. They are not able to win the Ladies Ladder, either for Most Points or Top Of The Ladder. The only way that they can play against another lady on the Ladder is if both ladies are on the Men's Ladder. However, they do qualify to have a chance of winning the Men's Ladder, either for Most Points or Top Of The Ladder.
Remember that the point of the Tennis Ladder is to play competitively against people are of your own playing level. It is not about winning trophies. It is about fun, competition & meeting new people of similar playing level.
Point totals, as of the end of the previous month, will be posted on the Ladder whiteboard so you can keep an eye on where your competitors are ranked!
Year End Winners
There are 2 ways to win the Ladder:
- Be the player who is at the top of the Ladder at the end of the season.
- Be the player who has accumulated the most total points on the Ladder, at the end of the season.
Prizes are awarded separately for the Men's & Ladies Ladders.
If you have any questions or comments, please contact the Player Development Director via email at pd@davisvilletennisclub.com