British Tennis - Lawn Tennis Association

Fair Play in tennis has always been an important value and the LTA and Tennis Foundation are committed to ensuring that the tennis environment is fair, open and inclusive at every level in the sport.

Fair Play Values

Enjoy

• Tennis is your sport so enjoy it. Love the game.
• Be a good sport when you win, lose and watch matches.
• Be a role model and set a good example of the behaviour you expect from others.
• Let’s create a safe, fun and fair tennis environment.

Respect

• Tennis is a game for everyone. Respect other players, parents and officials.
• Take responsibility for your actions.
• Call the score and lines loudly and fairly and leave it to the official to resolve problems.

These values apply equally to players, parents, coaches, officials and volunteers and cover all tennis activities, whether it is a competition, a friendly hit at a local court or a match you’re watching.

Supporting the values are individual Fair Play pledges for each group of people in the sport. 

Make you pledge:

• Mini Players
• Junior Players       
• Adult Players
• Parents                     
• Coaches                 
• Officials and Competition Organisers

We will continue to promote the Fair Play values through our Places to Play, tennis workforce, volunteers and at competitions.

Why Fair Play?

We created the Fair Play values as a 2010 Competition survey demonstrated that player/parental behaviour and cheating were areas of concern that needed to be addressed.  Tennis people also identified Fair Play as the most important attitude/value people involved in British tennis should follow.

The following improvements have been put in place to improve the competition experience:

• A competition toolkit which provided more resources and support to existing and new organisers and officials has been provided.
• An an automatic discipline process has been produced. A players’ late withdrawals and code violations are recorded against their record and they are e-mailed on each occasion.
• There has been a greater use of young organisers, tennis leaders and volunteers to act as ‘court helpers’ at competitions.
• Referees and Organisers are being reminded to display the key notices at the tournament venue.
• Training has been provided for ‘active’ referees and organisers, covering Fair Play and how they can support this area.

Next Steps

These proactive steps have started to address the broad area of improving Fair Play in tennis and at competitions. The next phase of the Fair Play project is to communicate the Fair Play values to British Tennis Members and embed them within every tennis environment. This approach will complement the continuing improvements made in the discipline processes and promote a positive set of values under which competition and the sport should be enjoyed. 

LTA Competition Regulations

From 1 September 2011, the LTA Tournament Regulations were replaced by the new LTA Competition Regulations.

There have been a number of additions and changes with most aspects of the Regulations being updated and amended to some extent.

Read a document summarising the major changes

We would like to draw your attention to some of the key changes below:

• Withdrawals and Code Violations are now dealt with separately.
• Withdrawals result in Withdrawal Points.
• Code Violations result in Code Violation points.

Implementation of an Automatic Discipline Process which includes:

• Developments to the software used by referees to run competitions to make it easier to record code violations and withdrawals.
• Automatic upload of all code violations and withdrawals to the LTA’s player database.
• Automatic emails to players to inform them when they reach certain thresholds in relation to code violations and withdrawals.
• Ability for players to review their behaviour in their members section.
• A list of players who are suspended will be shown on the LTA website.