Team Captain’s Duties
Here is a guide to what you should need to know as a team captain.
- Once the fixtures Secretary has passed the match dates to you, add them to your diary to make sure you’re familiar with them.
- Make sure you’re aware which members are eligible to play. Remember they must be current club members for at least 14 days, be at least 14 years old, and they will also need to have an LTA Advantage account which should ideally be linked to our club. They must also not have played for another club in the league in the same season in the same category (men’s, ladies or mixed).
- Arrange a team in good time for each match.
- Make sure all players are aware that match fees are charged, £2 per match, home or away. These should be collected by the treasurer at the end of each season.
- At some point in the week before a match contact the opposing captain to confirm the match is going ahead. You’ll need to be logged in to the LTA website to see the captain’s contact details.
- For home matches agree with the players what refreshments each of them will bring for after match tea. Drinks will be provided by the café, which the club pay for from match fees.
- For away matches arrange for one player to drive the team to the other club, if necessary.
- For home matches make sure you have 2 new tubes of balls. You will usually get these from the fixtures secretary.
- Make sure you also have a score sheet, you can print one from the link below.
- On the day of the match, in case of bad weather, injury or other problems, keep in contact with the players and the opposition captain.
- Before the match starts, drop into the café and let them know the team is here. Also let them know if the match is cancelled.
- If possible check the net height before play starts.
- Decide which pair will be your number 1’s and which your number 2’s. Away players should stay on the same court for the second match, and home teams should swap courts.
- After the match the home team should fill out a scoresheet, and the away captain should check that it’s all correct. To save filling out one each, the away team usually take a photo.
- Afterwards the home team should enter the scores on the LTA Dorset league website (See below). Once they’re entered the away captain should check that they agree, and if any players are listed as “Unknown Player”, their captain should find out their LTA Advantage number and update the listing.
- At the AGM team captains should give a brief report on their team’s progress over the last year.
How to enter scores
You’ll need to log in to your own LTA Advantage account, and not the admin login as used to be the case. From there you should have access to the league site as you’ll be registered as a captain.
Find the list of matches on the league site. Click on the required match to display the match details, then click “Change Results”.
For each match there will be 4 sections for Rubbers, and in each of these you’ll see 4 boxes showing “Home Player 1”, “Home Player 2”, “Away Player 1” and “Away Player 2”. Click each of these and select the correct player from the dropdown list.
If the name doesn’t appear, click “Add new player” and start to type their name in the box, then click on their name if it comes up. If it still doesn’t appear, try typing in the player’s full LTA Advantage number if you have it. Otherwise you can select “Unknown player” for the time being and leave a comment to identify who it relates to so it can be added at a later date.
The first rubber should be for the number 1’s v 1’s, the second for 2’s v 2’s, the third for home 1’s v away 2’s, and the last for home 2’s v away 1’s.
To the right of the teams you’ll see 6 boxes for the scores in games, top for home team and bottom for away, and the left pair for set 1, middle for set 2 and right for the third set 10 point tiebreak if needed.
Once the scores are entered, the winning team of each rubber should be automatically highlighted. Then if a team has won 3-1 or 4-0, they’ll show as winners of the fixture, and be awarded 6 points.
But if the score is 2-2 it will initially show as a draw, with the points showing 3-3. To fix this, click the “Shootout winner” box and select the team that won the most sets, or most games if sets were equal, and they’ll be shown as winners with 4 points to 3.
When everything’s correct, press save.
If you need any help contact the fixtures secretary.
