Girls Tryout Rules & Process

We will begin tryouts for the 2010 girls season on Monday August 2nd and will go for five consecutive days. Unless we experience rain, tryouts should conclude on Friday August 6th. Tryouts will start at 8:30 AM and last until 11:30 AM on all five days. An end time will depend on the girl's pace of play. Faster players may end sooner & slower players may end later than 11:30.

General Try Out Process:

1) The girls will be placed into groups of 3, 4 or 5 players. The first day, they will be placed in groups based on the players historical team ranking & new players will fill in at the bottom based on age (older starting higher).

2) The girls will play 6 games (no-ad scoring) against each person in their group. A girl can win 6-0, 5-1, 4-2, or 4-3. If 2 girls are tied at 3-3, they will play a 4 point tiebreaker that doesn't have to be won by 2 points (this tiebreak can be won 4-3, 4-2, 4-1, or 4-0). We will play two round robins each day for five straight days.

- No Ad Scoring: http://tennis.about.com/cs/beginners/a/beginnerscore.htm
- Tiebreaker Scoring: http://www.ehow.com/way_5439143_tennis-tiebreaker-rules.html

3) The girl that wins the most games against the other girls in her group will rise up to the next highest group. The girls that wins the fewest games will drop down to the next lowest group. In event of a tie, the head to head winner finishes with a higher rank. In a three way tie, I will look at the margin of victory over the other player(s) in the group.

4) After the first three rotations of players, I will begin marking down where each player finishes in a round. After the first three rotations (2 on day #1 & 1 on day #2) if a player finishes at the top of the top group, they will be given 1 point, 2nd place in the top group gets 2 points, 3rd gets 3 points, etc all the way down to the bottom player in the bottom group. On day 5, I add up all the points that a player was given. The low point earning player is #1, 2nd lowest is #2, etc on down to the lowest rank on the team.

Returning players should remember that this is the same method I used last year except for #2. I have adjusted the scoring method this season to get matches to finish quicker.

Tryout Rules

1) I will use USTA tournament rules to address timeliness. If a player is 5 minutes late, they will forfeit the serve & 1 game to their opponent. 10 minutes late will forfeit serve & 3 games. 15 minutes late will forfeit the first match of the round robin. Be early to avoid being penalized.

2) If a player uses foul language or commits any unsportsmanlike action during tryouts, they will forfeit all their remaining matches that day. If the player comes back the next day and has another incident, she will not be on the team this season.

3) As for CUTS to the team this year, I would like to not have to cut anyone. However, it will depend on the number of players that show up to try out. If we have a large number of players try out I likely will have to make cuts. If that is the case, here is what I would look at:

After tryouts I will ask myself...
- Is a player one of the top 10 players at Northwestern? If yes, they make the team
- If they are not top 10, are they in the top 7 of their class? If yes, they probably make the team, but I will look at what the final try out rankings look like.
- If not top 10 & not top 7 of their class, I will look at the players age & experience. I would favor taking younger players over upper classmen as they have more time to make improvements to their game before they graduate. However, in a situation where a player is #8 in their class and #11 on the team, that player is likely to make the team. Then again if a player is #8 in their class & #20 overall, they would probably not make the team. It will all depend on what the final try out rankings look like.

4) If a new player to the team this year is unable to make tryouts due to a commitment that was made prior to our meeting in May, I will start that player at the bottom of the roster assuming that space exists on the roster. They will play 8 game prosets against the girls at the bottom of the ladder during the first week of practice on August 9th. Based on their results on 8/9 & 8/10 I will make a decision to keep that player on the team or not. I have already been notified by the two players that this impacts & they are aware that this is a more difficult way to earn a high rank on the team than participating in the week of tryouts.

- 8 game Proset: http://www.tenniscoachdave.com/pages/tournaments.aspx

5) It is expected that players will be physically fit to play 3 hours of tennis for 5 consecutive days. If a player is unfit at tryouts, I may ask them to not participate this season. We will spend a lot of time the first 3 weeks of preseason practice on conditioning, but it is important that players have a base level of fitness to avoid heat illness from doing strenuous outdoor exercise.

6) After these initial challenges, a player can only move up or down 1 position at a time. Regular match scoring will be used after tryouts where 2 no-ad sets are played & a 10-point tiebreak is the sets are split. My goal for this season is to have no more than 1 challenge match per week (Fridays) after try outs among our top 10 players. Lower ranking players will likely challenge more often than the top 10 players.

It is important to undestand that I am looking for players who can continue to build a strong foundation of tennis at Northwestern. We have made great strides the past two years that I have coached and I am looking to continue in a positive direction. Tryouts will be a highly competitive environment. However, all players need to keep in mind that high school tennis is a team sport and it will take a team of players for us to be successful this year and into the future.