This page provides details on the responsibilities of team captains and some basic instructions for coordinating with team players during the Williamsburg Pickleball Spring League 2023.
Responsibilities of Team Captains
1. Make sure you have enough players to play each week.
2. Decide who on your team will play in which matches every week.
3. Report the scores and players using a supplied template to the league organizers.
The Details:
Make sure you have enough players to play each week.
Stay in contact with members of your team and know the dates, if any, when individual players will not be able to play. The minimum number of people you need available each week to play all your matches vary depending on the division:
- Advanced Division: Two women and two men.
- Intermediate Division: Two women and two men.
- Emerging Division: Any two players.
What if you don’t have enough people to play all you matches? You’ll need to contact the league at the league email address in order to arrange for any substitutes from the substitute pool. All substitutes must be registered players. We have an extremely limited number of substitutes in the emerging division.
Substitute players will be assigned as soon as needs are known, so it’s first-in, first-out. Let us know as soon as possible of your substitute needs.
Details on how to arrange for substitutes is available here.
If you still don’t have the minimum number of players to play all your match matches, you can contact your opponent and ask if they are willing to reschedule the match outside of the scheduled day and time. If your opponent does not agree to reschedule the match, your team will forfeit.
What if you have enough players to play some of your matches? If, for example, you’re in the intermediate division and you have two women available, your team could still compete in women’s doubles and not forfeit all the matches. If a situation like this arises, please contact your opponent ahead of time and alert them that you will only be competing in specific matches so that your opponent’s team members don’t all show up unnecessarily.
Decide who on your team will play which matches every week.
Advanced and Intermediate teams have a women’s doubles, mixed doubles and men’s doubles match each week. If, for example, you have three women on your team and all are available, it’s up to you to decide who will play which matches.
Keep in mind that people register in the league to play, not to watch their teammates play, so if you have three women available, you could have two play women’s doubles and the third play mixed doubles. However, it’s not required to play all three women. It’s up to you, preferably in agreement with your team members, who to play and when.
Also note that for any given individual match, for example women’s doubles, you cannot switch players during the match. The same two women who start the match must finish the match, best of three games.
Emerging teams have more women than men due to the imbalance in
registered players. The emerging division also has a very limited substitute pool. Therefore, Emerging division teams have different rules about who can play and how many players are needed.
Each week, all emerging teams will play three matches: women’s doubles, mixed doubles and open doubles. Two women from your team must compete in women’s doubles. For mixed doubles, if you have a man on your team who is available, the man must compete in mixed doubles with one woman as his partner. If no man is available, the team captain may have two women compete in mixed doubles. For the open doubles match you may use any two members of your team.
Keep in mind that your team’s players want to play and not sit and watch, so if you have players available, they should all be used in at least one of the three matches. Note that the two players who start any match must be the same two players who finish the match, best of three games.
Report the scores and players using the scoring template.
All team captains will be provided a template at the courts for recording scores. Using the template, captains, or anyone they designate, will enter match scores and the player names competing in each match.
If you are not playing during league hours and recording your own scores, we need all of the information using our template, which is available here.
This is an example of the template and how to fill it in:
