10 September 2021 | Tennis NSW

Dear Regional NSW tennis community,

The NSW Government announced last week that a number of freedoms will be provided to individuals in areas of regional NSW from 12:01am Saturday 11 September.

You can access the Public Health Order here , noting that at the time of the writing it has not been updated to reflect the easing of restrictions. To find out which regions are subject to the easing of restrictions from Saturday 11 September please click here.

On the basis of the Deputy Premier’s Media Release dated 9 September 2021, Tennis NSW understands that local tennis can resume with the following conditions in Regional NSW who are no longer in lockdown:

• 2sqm per person in outdoor settings; 4sqm per person in indoor settings
• Doubles play is permitted
• Local club competition can resume within the restrictions outlined in the Public Health Order 

Stay at home orders remain in place in a number of regional NSW LGAs, so we encourage you to check your local restrictions here.

Tennis NSW has been overwhelmed with requests from our community around the impact of this on tennis activities. Our advice has always been guided by the requirements of the NSW Public Health Orders, made under the Public Health Act 2010 (NSW), particularly the restrictions around outdoor public gatherings. Until these provisions appear in the PHO or amending legislation for the PHO, we are unable to provide any further guidance as to the impact on how this affects outdoor public gatherings and tennis activities.

However, our preliminary view is that it will be a matter for each venue and/or operator to decide whether it has the sufficient compliance framework to support monitoring of fully vaccinated individuals who wish to take up the additional freedoms in our sport. We are committed to ensuring that our community remains safe and that our operators feel comfortable with the activities that take place at their venues. We encourage our community to be patient with our sport while we navigate through these difficult times, acknowledging that this easing of restrictions may be onerous for tennis venues to feel comfortable implementing. 

We are delighted that our sport has largely been able to continue, albeit in a reduced capacity, where others have not in these challenging times. However, we must ensure that we all play our part in ensuring that we minimise the spread of COVID-19 to ensure that our community can open up as soon as possible.

We will update our community on this issue as and when the amended Public Health Orders become available.

Thank you,
Tennis NSW