Rainy Spring Fling Tennis - No Indoor Courts in the 'Boro

Rainy Tennis at Spring Fling – A Commentary

MURFREESBORO – It’s Day One of BlueCross Spring Fling XX … and it’s 5 p.m. EST time at the Old Fort Tennis Complex and it’s rained twice in Murfreesboro delaying matches for more than three hours.

With 24 of the 32 teams waiting to either complete or start their semifinal matches and no indoor courts available in the city, the question is why not send some matches to Chattanooga or Nashville.?

No indoor courts had been reserved for the week.

Players from Baylor and Harpeth Hall and GPS and Hutchison are back on the courts after stoppage of play at 1:20 p.m. EST.

Baylor and GPS won the doubles point at the time of the delay and lead their respective matches 1-0 heading into singles.

And, again, there are no indoor courts in the city limits… and there are several indoor courts available two hours South … where Spring Fling was born … in Chattanooga ... and several indoor courts less than hours North in the Nashville area.

But none of those courts have been reserved for today.

And the chances that the TSSAA officials will move any of the matches to the Scenic City to get them finished in a reasonable amount of time are about as good as Spring Fling XXI returning to Chattanooga in 2014. Zippo.

Notre Dame boys and Chattanooga Christian girls both play Christian School of Knoxville today – sometime today – and an option could have been to move to indoor courts in Chattanooga. Or if dry, to outdoor courts at Baylor or McCallie and finish in a reasonable amount of time.

Hopefully for BlueCross Spring Fling XXI (2014), indoor courts in the Nashville area will be reserved for the entire week to make sure the tournament is played on schedule with a minimum amount of delays.

Asked what was the possibility of moving some matches to Chattanooga (or Nashville area), TSSAA tennis official Trina Melton emphatically said “we have a contract with Rutherford County and we will do our best to play the matches here.â€

Yet the TSSAA does have five indoor courts at Vanderbilt reserved for Wednesday and Thursday. And the last time I checked, Vandy is not located in Rutherford County.

I Wonder why Chattanooga indoor courts have not been reserved? Or even more indoor courts in the Nashville area.?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Stay Tuned … contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net

Edited May 21, 201313 yr by bbb