Tennis Etiquette for Social Play in Australia

Tennis etiquette is one of those subjects nobody teaches you. You absorb it by watching the people who have been at the club for 20 years, and you find out you have broken a rule when someone gives you a look you do not understand. This is the short version, written for social tennis on Australian public and club courts. Follow these and you will be the person everyone wants to hit with.

Before you arrive

Be on time

Aussie tennis runs on the loose convention of "five minutes early is on time". If you are booked for a court at 6pm, get there at 5:55. If you are running late, send a message. People will wait 10 minutes for a stranger they are about to meet for the first time. They will not wait 20.

Bring your share

Bring balls every second visit (or every visit if you are the one who organised the hit). Bring water. Bring a hat if it is sunny. Do not show up empty-handed and expect the other person to have spares.

Sharing the court

At a public council court

If there is a queue, the standard convention is one hour per group when others are waiting. Write your name on the sign-up board if there is one. If a group has been waiting visibly for 20 minutes and you have been playing for 90, wrap up the next game and rotate off.

If there are multiple courts and one frees up next to you, do not jump to it. The next group in the queue gets it.

At a club

Member etiquette varies wildly between clubs, but a few universals hold:

Wear appropriate shoes. Court shoes only on a synthetic or carpet surface. Running shoes destroy the lines.
If the club has a "predominantly white clothing" rule (mostly older clubs), check the sign on the gate before you turn up in a black t-shirt.
Sign in if there is a visitor's book or guest fee.
Do not walk behind a court while a point is being played. Wait at the gate.

During the hit

Ball etiquette

The default rule across Australian social tennis: keep three balls in play when possible, and roll the third ball to your partner instead of hitting it across. When a ball rolls onto the next court, wait for their point to end before retrieving it, and apologise with a wave.

If a ball from another court rolls onto yours mid-point, stop the point immediately and replay it. Nobody plays through a stray ball. If you do not stop, you risk an injury and you look like you do not know what you are doing.

Line calls

Call your own side. Call them honestly. If you cannot tell, the ball is in. Do not call from the other side of the net unless your partner explicitly asks for help. If your opponent calls a ball out and you genuinely believe it was in, you can say "are you sure?" politely once. After that you accept the call and move on.

Bad-tempered line calling is the fastest way to lose a regular hit partner. The five minutes of an argument are never worth the five years of awkwardness afterwards.

Scoring honesty

In social play, agree on the score before you serve each game. Call the score loud enough for your opponent to hear. If you forget, ask. Better to spend ten seconds clarifying than play a point at the wrong score and have to replay it.

If you make a mistake in scoring and notice partway through a point, finish the point, then concede if you were the one who got it wrong. Errors in your favour you should call against yourself. This is the social convention.

Language and body language

Australian social tennis sits somewhere between American politeness and European competitive seriousness. The rules of thumb:

No swearing audible from the next court.
No racket throwing. The Aussie tolerance for this is approximately zero in social play.
Compliment good shots from your opponent ("good get", "nice serve"). It costs nothing and it changes the entire feel of the match.
If you are losing, do not sulk. If you are winning, do not gloat.
Take losses with a smile. The person who can play a tough match and still be cheerful afterwards is the person who gets invited back.

Doubles-specific etiquette

Doubles has its own layer of rules because you have a partner whose feelings you also need to look after:

Never criticise your partner mid-match. The most you should say is "no worries" after their error.
Apologise quickly for your own errors. "My bad" is universal and forgiven.
Quick high-five or fist bump between most points keeps the energy up.
Communicate before the point, not during. "I will take the middle" before serving is great. "Yours" mid-rally is fine. Loud strategy debates between points are not.
If you are clearly the stronger player on your side, do not poach every ball. Let your partner play their share.

Finishing up

At the end of the match

Shake hands at the net or fist-bump. Look them in the eye. Say "good hit, thanks". Walk off together if you can. Even after a bad-tempered set, the handshake resets it. The handshake is the most important shot of any tennis match.

Cleaning up

Take all your rubbish (bottles, banana peels, ball tubes). Sweep clay courts if it is the rule there. Brush your footprints off the baseline on a clay surface. Tuck the bench cushion back if you moved it. Leave the court better than you found it.

Saying thanks and following up

Send a short message later that day or the next:

"Good hit today, thanks. Same time next week?"

Three sentences. Done. That message has a higher hit rate than any feature of any tennis app.

The summary version

Be on time. Bring balls. Call your own lines fairly. Do not swear loudly. Do not coach unsolicited. Shake hands. Send the follow-up. If you do those seven things, you will be in the top 10% of social tennis players to play with, regardless of your actual tennis ability.

For more on social tennis in Australia, browse the rest of the RallyHub blog or check our directory of every tennis club in Australia.