Team Tennis is a competitive format for tennis based on co-ed teams competing in singles and doubles matches to win a dual match. To add excitement and teamwork, the rules governing matches and the roles of players have been modified. The recreational format governed by the U.S. Tennis Association is referred to as Team Tennis, while the professional version of the game is called TeamTennis.
Match Rules
In a Team Tennis match, the match winner is the team with the most games won during a six-match competition. A match consists of one men's singles and one women's singles match, a men's and a women's doubles match and two mixed doubles matches. Because of the total-game format, even a player who loses his set can help the team by winning games during the loss.
Each match consists of a single set, with a tie-break played at five games all. At any point during a set, a team may substitute a player or players. Once a player has left a singles or doubles match, she may not return. Game scoring uses the no-ad format, with a sudden death point played at three points all. The seventh point is played gender to gender in the mixed matches, meaning that if a female is serving the sudden-death point, she must serve it to the opposing female.
Gender Respect
When Billie Jean King created the concept for Team Tennis, her goal was to bring men and women and boys and girls together through tennis. The team format gets boys cheering for their girl teammates and vice versa, and men learning to work with their female doubles partners to help win matches.
Rule Variations
Unlike most tennis matches, Team Tennis encourages coaching, with paid coaches at the professional level. Another unique feature of Team Tennis is that there are no service lets. When a serve hits the net and lands in the correct service box, the ball is live and the receiving team must play the ball. In doubles, the receiver's partner may play a ball that hits the net and lands in the correct service box.
Teamwork
Because every game counts in a Team Tennis match, players must respect the concept of teamwork by not tanking, or throwing, a set if they feel they can't come back and win. Players should also ask a teammate to substitute in for them if they feel they are overmatched and a teammate might win more games.
USTA Expectations
According to the USTA website, adult league participants are expected to participate in a majority of the team's practices during the season, with the aim of the practice and play sessions to "improve playing skills and require an application of basic tennis strategy."
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