COVID Causes Court Cohabitation
Tennis teams sharing the courts and coaches as both are now playing in the same season.
By Katherine Rowe
Tennis teams sharing the courts and coaches as both are now playing in the same season.
By Katherine Rowe
As seasons were shuffled by the compression of the athletic year by COVID-19, both tennis teams were placed into the same season, sharing their coaches and the courts.
With games taking up the court on certain days and the coaches having to manage games that fall on the same day as well, the teams are having to navigate the shortened season differently than usual. Head coach for both boys and girls tennis, Seth Hein has been holding practices for the two teams at the same time in order to work with both teams around the game schedules. “We have eight courts at Pioneer so girls will have four courts to themselves, boys will have their own four and we have a pretty small team this year for both teams so it isn’t really that hard to coordinate,” Hein said. “When one team has a match, the other team just has a day off or voluntary practice day. When they both have practices they pretty much know what to do, they warm up, they drill.” |
Boys tennis captain Kellen Neff, 12, has found that the combination of shared courts and the coronavirus shortening the season gave the team less time and made it more difficult to prepare for games.
“We have less practices than we normally would in a season, and we had less time to practice before the games started,” Neff said. “The coaches’ attention is divided at practices so we just play each other a lot of the time.”
The small window of time also proved difficult from a coaching perspective as the players weren’t able to acclimate to the sport after almost a year of school sports being postponed or cancelled.
“Just from the first day of tryouts to conditioning to practices, honestly just not enough time to really get through everything throughout the season, so everything’s been kind of cut short. Luckily no one has been injured because of that, but everything has been kind of rushed, and some things were left out that should have been there, such as conditioning and technique,” Hein said. “I wish they had a full season or at least a full practice before the first game but what can you do?”
Even though the seasons were compressed and courts split as both girls and boys were playing simultaneously, Nayanika Bhattacharya, 10, feels grateful to her coaches and for a season this year.
“Sometimes it can be a bit difficult sharing the coach with the other team, but the majority of the time he gives us something to work on when he has to go supervise the other team, or he actually drills both teams together. He's very good at making it work,” Bhattacharya said. “Throughout all this difficulty I'm really glad I got to be a part of this team, it's really fun and everybody's supportive.”
“We have less practices than we normally would in a season, and we had less time to practice before the games started,” Neff said. “The coaches’ attention is divided at practices so we just play each other a lot of the time.”
The small window of time also proved difficult from a coaching perspective as the players weren’t able to acclimate to the sport after almost a year of school sports being postponed or cancelled.
“Just from the first day of tryouts to conditioning to practices, honestly just not enough time to really get through everything throughout the season, so everything’s been kind of cut short. Luckily no one has been injured because of that, but everything has been kind of rushed, and some things were left out that should have been there, such as conditioning and technique,” Hein said. “I wish they had a full season or at least a full practice before the first game but what can you do?”
Even though the seasons were compressed and courts split as both girls and boys were playing simultaneously, Nayanika Bhattacharya, 10, feels grateful to her coaches and for a season this year.
“Sometimes it can be a bit difficult sharing the coach with the other team, but the majority of the time he gives us something to work on when he has to go supervise the other team, or he actually drills both teams together. He's very good at making it work,” Bhattacharya said. “Throughout all this difficulty I'm really glad I got to be a part of this team, it's really fun and everybody's supportive.”