As the 2020-21 season approaches and COVID-19 continues to spread within our communities, the only certain thing about the upcoming season is that it will be a very uncertain one. While 2020 continues to throw us curveballs, we have all learned to adapt, which is why this season entails so much change for us not only on the court but off the court as well.
Change for our upcoming season starts with our new recruiting process. Unfortunately, we will not be able to see and talk to you all in person at Imagine Day, which is why this year we will have to do it virtually, from 2pm PST to 6pm PST on September 8th. The UBC TSC Virtual Booth can be found under “Campus Life” during the main event.
Tryouts
We have also postponed tryouts for the upcoming 2020-21 season. Rather than holding tryouts in September, we have decided to hold official in-person tryouts in JANUARY, barring any unforeseen circumstances. This means that we will not be taking in any new players in the first semester of the 2020-21 season.
As mentioned in our latest Instagram post, we will be introducing a video tryout for the upcoming season which can be submitted to our team email; menstennis.sc@ubc.ca starting September 9th. Please submit the video as either a YouTube or Google Drive link and title it with your first name, last name and UBC Men’s Tennis Video Tryout (ie. John Smith UBC Men’s Tennis Video Tryout). The video tryout should be approximately 5-7 minutes in length. Please start by mentioning some of your most notable tournament results as well as your national, provincial, and/or ITF ranking. Also, tell us a little bit about yourself! Briefly talk about some of your hobbies and things you like to do outside of tennis, as well as your year at UBC and faculty. The rest of the video should cover all fundamental aspects of tennis including baseline groundstrokes, volleys, overheads, serves and returns, and point play (both serving and returning).
Practices/Competition
Our schedule for the upcoming season looks far different than that of previous ones. Unfortunately for the first semester of the 2020-21 season we have had to cancel all external competition, including local competition, and will be unable to travel outside of regular facility use for training. We have also postponed all of our sanctioned in-person meetings and practices until at least October 5th.
Obviously, we hope that we can get back on court and start competing as soon as possible but understand that in our world today, there are more important things than playing tennis. Although we expect the upcoming season to be a challenging one, we are excited for our team to come together to take on these challenges. We can’t wait for you to join us on our journey over the next year as we grow as a team, master zoom and most importantly, embrace change!
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