[tennisbiz] Tournament situation

I'm interested in finding out how those of you who operate
tournaments would have handled something that came up in a
recent tournament sponsored by our CTA. A player on a doubles
team submitted his unavailability and was told he could play
matches at 9 and 11 am to satisfy his schedule. When he
finished his first match, he was told his second match would
be at 12, at which point he reminded the desk that he could't
play at 12 and was told he could play at 11. The desk attempted
to reach his 12 o'clock opponents but they couldn't be reached.
They arrived at 12 for the match. There was no discussion at
that point about rescheduling the match for a later time
agreeable for all players. The player with the scheduling
problems was told that when he had to leave someone would step
in and finish his match for him. At the end of the first set,
the fella that had to leave notified the desk. When he asked
about who he would play in the third round he and his partner
were informed that they were defaulting the match "because
you're leaving," as opposed to "because the desk made a mistake."
The match was defaulted, but it was a round robin and the team
had lost in the first match, so it didn't cost them the
championship. As a member of the tournament team I felt like we
all dodged a bullet because the guy took it really well and left
as opposed to blowing a gasket over being defaulted because of a
mistake at the desk. We didn't offer this guy any concession
except for an apology. I'm just wondering what you tournament
organizers out there would have done in this case. Is there a
standard policy at your club or in your organization for the way
a player will be treated or concessions made when the tournament
organizers make a mistake that results in a player default?

 
Received on Tue Apr 22 2003 - 07:35:03 CDT