Booking a match
The quickest way to get a match on the board is the booking page. It reads my real calendar, so anything you can see there is genuinely free — no need to write to me first and wait.
- Pick a slot. Weekday evenings start at 6pm, weekend mornings at 10am, 90 minutes each.
- Add your details and confirm. Nothing waits on my approval — the slot is yours the moment you take it, and it disappears for everybody else.
- A calendar invite arrives a moment later. That invite is the source of truth. Time, court, any change we agree afterwards — if it is not on the invite, treat it as not agreed.
If nothing on the page suits you at all, reply on the thread we are already on and we will find something.
Where we play
Charleston Tennis Center in West Ashley is my home court, and it is where I default if we do not agree anything else — I can reserve a court there. I am happy to travel — if you would rather host, say so on the invite and I will come to you.
- Charleston Tennis Center, West AshleyMy home court — my default when nothing else is agreed
- Jack Adams Tennis CenterDowntown on Congress St — in the rotation
- Harborview / Fort Johnson ParkFree public courts on James Island
- Maybank Tennis CenterIn the rotation when it is the easier trip for you
- Mt. Pleasant Tennis CenterPay court — we split the court fee down the middle
Whatever we settle on appears against our match on the schedule and on the invite. If it still says the venue is to be confirmed, it means neither of us has booked a court yet — nudge me.
Match format
Sets and scoring are per the league's own rules — I would rather link them than paraphrase them and get one wrong. If we read a rule differently on the day, I will take your reading of it.
The practical part: the slot is 90 minutes, which covers a warm-up and a full match if we start on time. Bring a new can of balls — it is the league's second rule, so I bring one too and we open whichever is newer. If the two of us are not really at the same level, the league has handicap scoring and I am happy to use it. And if you would rather not chase the paperwork, I am glad to submit the score for both of us.
Filming
I record my matches with a SwingVision camera on a tripod behind my baseline. It is how I work on my own game — shot maps, serve percentages, the honest version of how I actually played. Some matches end up on the site's recap pages as an embedded video.
- You can opt out, no questions asked. Say so before warm-up and the match simply is not recorded. It changes nothing else about the afternoon.
- Videos are unlisted on YouTube — not searchable, not on a channel page, only reachable from the recap page. Being honest: unlisted means unindexed, not protected. Anyone with the link can reshare it.
- One message and it comes down. If a published video bothers you afterwards, tell me and it is gone the same day.
- What the footage says about your tennis stays private. Any analysis of an opponent's game is never posted publicly — the public page carries the video and the score, nothing more.
Rescheduling
Life happens. I would far rather move a match than have either of us turn up half-committed, so there is no explanation needed and no hard feelings. Two ways to do it:
- Take a new slot on the booking page and I will cancel the old one.
- Or reply on the calendar invite with what works for you, and I will move it and send a clean invite back.
The one hard line is the league's, not mine: four hours. A match called off inside four hours of the start time is recorded as a 0–0 default win for whoever turned up, and the league counts late cancellations and no-shows toward a three-strike policy — two infractions and a player comes off the roster. It also wants a phone message and an email, not just one of the two. So if the day is going sideways, tell me early rather than politely; nothing about moving a match is awkward until the clock runs out.
Beyond that: the season closes on Sunday 20 September, and Charleston evening storms take a few 6pm slots every summer. The earlier we move something, the more room there is to land it again — weekend mornings are the safest weather bet, and the last fortnight of the season has the least slack in it. And if a match we both enjoyed is the one you want again, the league allows rematches and they count — just book another slot.
Results
Scores go up on the Results tab of this site, usually the same evening, sometimes with a couple of lines on how the match went. Nothing unkind about anybody's tennis — it is a scoreboard, not a report card.
The official record and the division standings live on the league's own site, charlestontennisleague.com. If a score here does not match what you remember, tell me and I will fix it — the league's record wins over mine.
Anything I have not covered here, ask me on the invite. See you out there.