When it comes to amateur sport in the UAE the options are vast. But narrowing it down to tennis, there’s not nearly enough events to cater for enthusiasts who would love to get a taste of friendly competition. Even less so, for women.
So when Gwen Sproule, the business development director of Tennis 360, came up with the idea of the Inter-Clubs Ladies Doubles League (ILDL), it was no surprise women from around Dubai jumped at the opportunity to take part.
The league’s second season kicks off on Tuesday, September 30, and will see the return of the four clubs who took part in the inaugural edition – Tennis 360 at Meydan, Madinat Jumeirah, Jumeirah Beach Hotel (JBH) and Clark Francis Tennis. The first season, which was held over three separate series and concluded last May, featured 49 players representing nine squads, coming from no less than 12 different countries.
The teams belong to one of two divisions, A or B, which reflect the level of the players, and the matches follow a home and away best-of-three format (with super tiebreak third set) and combine the scores from both divisions to determine the winner of a tie. Matches take place early mornings on Tuesday at the different venues and the first term of the new season is set to conclude in December.
The teams often wrap up matches and then spend hours hanging out with their on-court rivals. And chatting to some of the players, you can easily recognise the positive impact the league has had on them.
“It’s really good for us ladies, not working. To keep ourselves busy. Especially those of us who hate the gym,” explains Viola Skroban, a Polish player representing Clark Francis Tennis.
For some, it gave them a chance to compete in a sport for the very first time, others valued the social aspect of it, while everyone agreed they were happy to be improving their tennis skills against players from outside their own club.
“It’s friendly but it is competitive,” adds Lisa O’Sullivan, who plays for the JBH B squad.
“Everybody wants to win. And that’s what you want, you want people to take it seriously. Internally, there’s competition to get on the A squad and also when you go representing outside you also want to be competitive and give a good account of yourself.
“I really hope it continues. I’m loving it. It adds a new dimension to things, to be able to play externally. You don’t want to play the same faces all the time.”
O’Sullivan’s team-mate Joyce de Vries – a native of the island of Curaçao – says she started off not being as fiery as the other ladies involved, but her first victory evoked a competitive spirit in her.
“I think it’s a very good thing we’re doing because we’re meeting more ladies in Dubai. It’s giving us something to work for. You go to tennis practice all the time, it’s fun, it’s nice, but you don’t get to put it in work, what you practice, and that’s what we’re doing now,” says de Vries. “I can feel myself improving and I’m getting a different mindset of the game. I really appreciate Gwen (Sproule) organising this.”
Sproule started the league to give her own Meydan players a platform to compete and improve. She also believes the league is helping these women – many of whom are housewives – stay fit and active.
“Ultimately, the only two goals for me is first, I want each girl to say they’ve improved, in whatever way, whether in your tennis or as a person. And the second thing is that they know how to compete, that there is a reason why they’re improving,” says Sproule, who also plays for one of the Meydan teams.
The first series included six teams, but three of them were from Meydan, in an attempt to boost the field. Now, nine teams from the four clubs are participating in the league. The players hail from every corner of the Earth, from Lebanon to Mexico, to Malaysia and the Netherlands.
Helping Sproule in setting the league up is Rene Zondag of PBI Tennis, who operate the tennis facilities at Madinat Jumeirah and JBH. Zondag says the idea is to establish a similar concept of the league for juniors in the future as well as adding more divisions.
“You see a momentum, we started with five teams now we have nine,” explains Zondag. “You see the ladies are starting to get more active, they’re taking more courts, they’re practising more, because they have a goal now. If you transmit this to juniors, you’ll get that excitement. And that will help tennis. The natural progress is to add more divisions. To keep the league exciting you have to have some kind of promotion and relegation.
“I would love to see every Emirate have its own ladies league and in the end we could have inter-Emirates finals.”
