COVID-19 Community Tennis Guidelines for
Continued Play
Before you play
Stay at home if you:
• Have been in contact with someone with COVID-19 in the
last 14 days
• Have been overseas or exposed to someone with COVID-19
in the last 14 days
• Have flu-like symptoms
• Or are in a high risk health category, for example
elderly or have a pre-existing medical condition.
Attending tennis activities
• Only people core to playing should attend tennis
activities
• Arrive and leave as close as possible to when you need
to be there
• Only one parent/guardian should accompany younger
children where possible.
Social distancing
Tennis holds a unique advantage as a sport which requires
no direct contact between players. You can also:
• Touch racquets instead of the regular pre or post match
handshakes
• Keep 1.5 metres away from other people while watching
or attending an outdoors tennis activity.
Behaviour expectations
To protect against infection, you should:
• Wash/sterilise your hands before and after you play and
avoid touching your face while playing
• Not share water bottles and bring your own full bottle
• Wash your hands frequently with soap and water or
hand-sanitiser when available, before and after eating, after going to the
toilet, sneezing and coughing
• Cover your coughs and sneezes and dispose of any used
tissue immediately
• Avoid touching your face
• Keep your distance from people who are obviously sick
• Be aware of what surfaces you touch.
Organising tennis activities
• Limit community tennis activities to casual court hire,
one-on-one coaching and small group coaching
• Shorten programs, booking times to create a buffer
between sessions
• Limit the number of players per court to a maximum of 4
people
• Where practical use every second court
• Promote prevention techniques and lead by example
• Postpone any social gatherings
• Payments to be made online or via EFTPOS – avoid
handling cash
• Leave gates ajar during any planned opening hours so
players don’t need to use handles to enter.
Tennis equipment
There is no specific evidence that balls can spread
COVID-19. We do know that on hard surfaces contamination by respiratory
droplets from an infected person can potentially survive up to three days.
Therefore, you should:
• Make sure you clean your hands before and after coming
off the court
• Not touch your face after touching a ball, racquet or
other tennis equipment
• Use new balls and racquet grips where possible
• Use fewer balls per session
• Replace all balls if someone with/suspected to have
COVID-19 comes in contact with them
• Restrict balls to a particular group, court or day of
the week. One idea is to label them with a permanent marker
• Clean all tennis gear with alcohol-based disinfectant
including racquets, towels,
SOURCE - Tennis Australia Community Tennis Guidelines
