York Singles Tennis Network

Having participated in various club ladders over at least 10 years, I’ve concluded that no one club in York is big enough to sustain a reasonably vigorous singles tennis ladder; it is something that needs to be organised across clubs rather than within clubs. This, then, is the motivation for the York Singles Tennis Network.

All players are welcome. The only condition is that you are happy to share your email address and mobile phone number with all other players on YSTN.

You are also asked to sign-up to a mailing list via the form at: http://eepurl.com/hrMlx5

The Mixed Singles Ladder has now been running on GTN since the easing of lockdown on 29 March 2021. A year on I think we can conclude that YSTN has been a qualified success (323 matches having been played since the launch of the ladder).

One issue seems to stem from the way GTN attempts to communicate with players via email. Too many of the GTN emails end up unread in spam/junk folders. This failing means that the GTN Challenge mechanism cannot be relied on.

Our coping strategy is instead to use WhatsApp to set up any challenge (still following the GTN ladder rules) but then to use GTN to record the result.

(You can find out the mobile number of any player to use with WhatsApp via the “More Info” link on the GTN ladder page.)

Another issue, probably common to all ladders on the planet, is the accumulation of less active players at the bottom of the ladder. This represents a barrier to any new player joining at the bottom of the ladder.

To counter this problem the ladder admin will move any new player (or, on request, a player stuck in the non-playing bottom of the ladder) to a position within the ladder that is below those players who are playing regularly.

The "Tournaments" function of GTN got used as a way of hosting the winter Round Robin (RR) leagues. From the outset I encouraged results from the RR leagues to also be added to the Mixed Singles Ladder so that (a) the ladder didn't atrophy over the winter and (b) the ladder remained the definitive YSTN guide to form.

The idea of continuing (and extending if more players want to join) the RR leagues into summer is to give those players who want to play at least once a week a "low activation energy match" (i.e. one that requires a minimum effort to organise because no challenge is involved).

To be in the RR leagues you have also to be on the ladder.

Please also send me any questions or suggestions you have. If any FAQs emerge then I will share answers more widely.

Paul Browning
April 2022