The Junior calendar has a wide range of different tournaments taking place throughout the year.
Tournaments are grouped by age groups:
- Under 10
- Under 12
- Under 14
- Under 16
- Under 18
All age groups are based on age on the 1st January of the current year e.g. Under 14 in 2019 means you are aged less than 14 (and not 14) on the 1st January 2019.
Also Under 8 (Red ball) and Under 9 (Orange ball) events may be run at tournaments.
The latest Tennis Ireland tournament calendar is available here.
Tournament times
The main tournament season is July/August but other tournaments are held outside of that. The main tournament times are:
- Winter – Matchplays
- Spring – Matchplays
- Easter – Hilden, Omagh
- Halloween – David Lloyd
- Summer – Enniskillen, Portadown, Ballycastle, CIYMS, Cavehill, Belfast Boat Club, Irvinestown, Bangor, Windsor.
Tournaments are open to players of all standards, but many tournaments offer “novice” events specifically for players who are new to tournament play.
Draws and Schedules
- All tournament draws are all published online on ti.tournamentsoftware.com
- Open tournaments are generally elimination or knockout draws, with plate events for players who lose their first match. Other types of draws may be used though, e.g. “Compass” draw where players get more than one match regardless of whether they win or lose, or round-robins for smaller draws, where each player plays all the other players in the event once.
- The schedule for each day in the tournament is usually published at the end of the previous day’s play
Seedings
Elimination or Compass draws are all seeded to ensure that the top players do not play each other early in the event.
Ulster Junior tournaments are seeded by the Ulster Junior Seeding Committee, and not by the committee or referee for the tournament itself. Other tournaments in Ireland are usually seeded directly from the Irish National rankings.
