The LTA recognises the impact of COVID-19 on everyone in Great Britain, however, tennis is a naturally socially distanced sport that involves participants stood a significant distance away from each other with a net in between. As such the LTA believes that tennis is a safe sport for participants to engage in as long as they follow the correct procedures. Tennis provides significant physical and mental health benefits to participants, and so can play a role in helping to safely maintain the health and wellbeing of the nation.

We understand and share the disappointment and frustration amongst the tennis community, that our sport has once again been suspended under the Government’s national lockdown restrictions in England.

The LTA will continue to push for tennis to resume as soon as restrictions can be relaxed. Players up and down the country want to get back on court, whilst coaches, venues, and officials will again be affected by this latest lockdown.

To help bring to life the importance of tennis to the nation, and help the campaign for courts to be re-opened as soon as possible, we encourage the tennis community to:

Sign This Petition calling on the Government to allow outdoor courts to open as soon as possible
Write to their local MP, outlining the positive impact that tennis has on them and their local community. You can find your local MP here.

Following the Prime Minister’s announcement on 4 January of new national lockdown restrictions to be introduced across England, the LTA can confirm that regrettably all indoor and outdoor tennis facilities will need to close.

The LTA believes tennis is a naturally socially distanced sport that is safe to play and gives people of all ages the opportunity to exercise with friends or relatives. Tennis is important for people’s physical and mental health and we will continue to liaise with the Government to ask them to allow players back on court as soon as possible.

We know that this is incredibly disappointing and frustrating news for all those players, coaches, venues and officials involved with the sport, as well as presenting further significant financial challenges. Further information on current financial support available from Government is available below, and the LTA will also continue to engage with Government to help ensure that the tennis community is supported through the coming weeks and months.

The Government has confirmed that elite sport is able to continue in line with the strict protocols and measures that are in place for it.

Organised outdoor sport for disabled people is also allowed to continue, and we will provide further detail here on this once we have information from Government.

The Government has advised that this guidance should be followed immediately, and will be updating the law to reflect the new rules.
Tennis as a socially distant sport
As a naturally socially distant sport that involves participants stood a significant distance away from each other with a net in between, the LTA does not believe that playing tennis contributes to the spread of COVID-19 in any significant way, and so it can play a role in helping to safely maintain the health and wellbeing of the nation under coronavirus restrictions.

We thank everyone from the tennis community who has made this case to their local MP in recent weeks and months.

The LTA will continue to strongly make this case in our discussions with national Government, to ensure that tennis is able to resume as soon as possible, supporting coaches, venues and officials and helping more people enjoy the mental and physical health benefits of being active.

The Government announced on 19 December that new Tier 4 restrictions were to be introduced in parts of England from that evening. Based on the LTA’s discussions with DCMS to get confirmation of exactly what this means for tennis we can confirm the following for Tier 4 areas:

Indoor courts, gyms and sports facilities will need to close
Outdoor tennis courts can remain open for individual exercise, and for people to use with others within your household, support bubble, or with one person from another household. One-to-one coaching outdoors is therefore also permitted
Organised outdoor sport for under 18s and disabled people will be allowed to continue in larger numbers
In, terms of elite tennis, the Government has confirmed that elite sport can continue in line with the strict protocols and measures that are in place for it, as it did during the previous lockdown. Events such as the scheduled ‘Battle of the Brits Premier League of Tennis’ are therefore able to continue as previously announced.

Following the confirmation by the Prime Minister today (23 November) that England will return to a three-tier system of regional restrictions once the current lockdown period ends at 00:01 on 2 December, the LTA is working with DCMS and Sport England on the full details of what means for tennis.

However, we can confirm that:

Outdoor tennis will be able to resume across all tiers
In Tier 2 areas, indoor sport can take place within households as before, but people will also now be able to play certain sports which do not involve close proximity or physical contact against one person from another household, such as a singles tennis match
In Tier 3 areas, indoor sport (including tennis) as we as exercise classes will be restricted to within your household only. Outdoor sport will be able to continue
Organised activities for U18s and disabled people will be able to continue indoors across all tiers
As soon as we have full confirmed guidance we will publish an updated summary grid for tennis activity by tier that can take place from Wednesday 2 December onwards, together with updated full guidance documents for players, venues, coaches and officials.

The Government will be confirming which areas of the country will be under which tier on Thursday (26 November).

As a naturally socially distant sport that involves participants stood a significant distance away from each other with a net in between, the LTA does not believe that playing tennis contributes to the spread of COVID-19 in any significant way, and so it can play a role in helping to safely maintain the health and wellbeing of the nation under coronavirus restrictions. We thank everyone from the tennis community who has made this case to their local MP in recent weeks – we know this has had an impact in ensure that outdoor tennis is able to resume post-lockdown and that more indoor tennis will now be permitted.

The LTA has remained in discussion with Government over the past few weeks, requesting that outdoor tennis activity should continue to be permitted across all tiers, as per the previous tiered system, and that more indoor adult tennis activity should also be permitted in tiers 2 and 3.

As part of this, the LTA worked with other indoor sports to put forward a joint proposal to Government so that as much indoor sporting activity as it is possible to do safely is permitted across the tiered system, given its essential role in the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the nation.

We are therefore pleased that the Government has listened to the arguments put forward on the socially distant nature of tennis in making its decision to allow singles tennis for adults indoors in Tier 2 areas, and this will help more people enjoy the mental and physical health benefits of being active over the winter. .

The Government have today indicated that they won’t be allowing outdoor tennis courts to open in England during the period of the new national restrictions that come into force from Thursday. This is hugely disappointing for all those who love tennis up and down the country. We will continue to put our case to them ahead of the formal legislation detailing the restrictions during lockdown, which is yet to be published and is due to be voted on in Parliament on Wednesday. We will then provide an update on the definitive position of what is and isn’t allowed.

As the government has implemented stricter guidelines on our everyday life. I have put the below buttons here to help tennis players understand how this affects their ability to get a game of tennis, in these challenging times.
Please select the relevant button to the Latest LTA guidelines.

Guidelines for playersLTA further information Guidelines for VenuesLTA further information Guidelines for CoachesLTA further information