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High school tennis in 2021 to look very different

For likely the first time in the history of high school tennis there will be a new format for the upcoming season.

The boys and the girls teams will play a coed season in the spring.

"For the one year that this is happening, it's really pretty much changed everything," Fallbrook Union High School boys and girls varsity tennis coach Bill Lenaway said. "We're actually going to play a coed season in the spring. We're not even having separate boys and girls teams.

"We're going to be playing a coed model where we're still going to have three rounds of using the tennis courts, but the first round will be three sets of boys singles and three sets of girls singles. Second round will be the same only with doubles. And then our final round is going to be five sets of mixed doubles."

Lenaway said it is probably the only time it's ever happened in the history of high school tennis in San Diego.

He said there are two very good reasons why the San Diego section coaches decided to merge the two seasons into one.

"Our problem is most schools don't have enough courts to practice the boys and the girls at the same time," Lenaway said. "Secondly, we have probably, I don't know the exact number, but I'm just winging it off of what I know, 75% of the teams have the same boys coach that they do girls.

"We don't know if we're going to even be allowed to take buses. So, we were hoping that putting the teams together might create more parent volunteers that would be willing to drive kids places.

"There were a lot of different things that went into it. But the facilities, I think was one of the biggest things, and the coaching. How do I coach both teams at the same time if they're playing at the same time?"

Lenaway said because the seasons were moved to the spring and there will be only two seasons instead of the usual three, he had to drop out as a basketball coach at the school, which is usually played in the winter season, but now will be played in the spring.

Tennis is generally played in the fall and the spring.

"All three of the sports I coach were going to be at the exact same time," Lenaway said. "I gave up basketball to focus on tennis."

Lenaway talked a little about athletes having to choose between sports due to all the changes.

"I don't know how any of this can help kids that are multi-sport athletes, unless they get lucky and happen to play sports that are now going to be at different times," he said. "We're going to have an unprecedented time of sharing athletes, not that that's a bad thing in any way."

Lenaway serves on the advisory council for high school sports in the county.

"Our whole attitude was, 'let's not worry about how we get this done, who wins, how we keep score so much as let's get these kids a season.'" he said. "We just want the kids on the court and everybody kind of was together in that thought, so everything we did kind of led towards that."

He said he has his tennis players in a class every other day and they try to improve while being socially distanced.

"I'm making sure that they're exercising, they're filling out exercise logs," Lenaway said. "We're doing a lot of video research on different topics each week. As part of their work for the class, I have them looking up videos on forehands, second serve, serve returns. So, we're doing a lot of video research and looking and that kind of stuff. That's something we don't normally have time to do. I think some of the kids will get some good out of that. I don't know how many, but we're just having to try everything we can just to keep them immersed in tennis.

"The nice thing about tennis is that you can play tennis and never be within 40 feet of another person. Most of my players are playing tennis with friends, getting lessons, doing whatever. It's not like I have to have all 20 of them together. My more motivated ones are out there playing, I go play myself, and I see them at a tennis club in public all the time."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].

 

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