How The 2020 Season Could Look

One of the more popular suggestions of things I could write about during our social distancing time is how a high school tennis season could still happen and what that could look like. Now, I am not the smartest person by any means, but I feel the two options I discuss below are the most logical and obvious ways to go about a return or beginning of the 2020 spring season. Always love hearing your ideas and thoughts, so feel free to comment on the twitter posting this is on and/or on the comments at the end of this article! Lets dive in...






Version 1 - Pick it up 

This is probably the easiest version on how this spring season could go. As of now, high school and high school spring sports cannot begin until April 13. If this does happen, and things resume on this date, the tennis season could just pick up right there and we finish everything out with the dates and schedule that we have. Here are the dates that we do have:

Boys
Districts May 13
Prelim Substate May 16
Substate May 23
Singles & Doubles State Tournament May 29 & 30
Team State Tournament (Final 4) June 2

Girls
Regional Singles/Doubles Tournaments May 20
Regional Team Meets May 16, 23 & 26
Singles & Doubles State Tournament June 3 & 4
Team State Tournament (Final 4) June 6

Pros: Do not have to alter scheduling with post-season play or worry about what was already missed

Cons: Miss out on all meets that were scheduled before April 13, virtually 0 practice time as a team before playing a meet

Extra sauce: If this does workout and we pick up when we resume, maybe there is a possibility to try and reschedule some of the meets that had been missed between April 13 and districts/regionals. This would be a potential addition to version 1 of the 2020 season.

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Version 2 - Full send 

In my opinion, I don't know how likely this version is, but here are my thoughts on how the entire season could be played. April 13 is the target date, if that works out, take 2 weeks from there to have teams practice and spend time together before any meets take place. Really this would just be placing the start of practice and the tennis season (originally March 16) and moving it to April 13. Here are what the post-season dates would look like by doing this:

Boys
Districts May 27
Prelim Substate May 30
Substate June 6
Singles & Doubles State Tournament June 12 & 13
Team State Tournament (Final 4) June 16

Girls
Regional Singles/Doubles Tournaments June 3
Regional Team Meets May 30, June 6 & 9
Singles & Doubles State Tournament June 17 & 18
Team State Tournament (Final 4) June 20

Pros: This would allow the full season to be played! Yes it would extend to the middle of June, but it would at least give everyone a chance at a full season.

Cons: Extends into the summer, USTA tournaments would be ongoing during June making locations for state tournaments potentially difficult to secure/host

Just from first glance at the June USTA Iowa tournament schedule, I don't see any location conflicts regarding the state tournaments at Vets and Ankeny for 2A boys. However, there is a jr tournament at Ankeny when the singles & doubles state tournament for the boys would be taking place in CR (based on this new schedule). On the 1A boys side, there is an adult tournament scheduled in Waterloo on those same June 12/13 dates when the singles and doubles tournament would be taking place, so that could be a potential issue there. If the USTA tournament still happens, other options for 1A could be the University of Iowa, Waveland, Bettendorf etc.


On the girls side, I don't see really any location conflicts with the state tournaments. That being said, I also don't know the locations of the state tournaments on the IGHSAU website. What I do know it that it rotates each year between a couple of spots that include the University of Iowa and Bettendorf. I apologize for not being as familiar of the locations on the girls side.

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These are the two versions I think are the more obvious and logical choices. Trying to do anything in between these I think could make things messy and really throw everything off, but what do I know, I don't get paid the big bucks to figure everything out. What I can say is that I do hope things cool down in the next couple weeks, enough to have whatever kind of season we can. That being said, staying healthy and taking care of ourselves goes above tennis and sports and we want to ensure we are doing our part for the greater good. As always, feel free to send me a message on twitter, or email if you want to talk tennis or anything really!