Why are so few players entering tournaments?
Why are so few players entering tournaments?
This year (and last) our CA advertised tournaments have struggled to recruit players. We reduced the number of competitions from last season, but still several were poorly attended and one has been cancelled. The AC Annual Tournament, which when this writer first joined the Club was a complete week of singles, doubles, handicap and class play, has this year been reduced to a small entry for a single class event. Sad indeed!
By contrast, our one-day competitions are flourishing. So far this year we have had over 600 confirmed entries to one day competitions plus 168 withdrawals; so a total of about 750 applications processed.
In reality this is a success story - but only for GC. Of those 750 entries, only 90 were for AC and only the AC competitions run in the off-season were reasonably well attended. I don't have comparable figures for previous years to hand but I would suspect this year would show a further trend towards GC. At this rate the future of AC at Sussex is greatly in doubt.
But to return to the main point - why the contrast between our CA advertised and our one-day competitions? I have my own views to do with ease of entry and withdrawal (as the number of withdrawals show). I shall be interested to hear any other views and will publish them.
(Article is not an official expression of the Club's position but a personal one)