The change of use will have an impact long term on the international tournaments staged at the venue but the next tournaments in November and in March next year will go ahead on the centre’s current eight courts as planned.
Four courts will be replaced by artificial football pitches measuring 34 metres by 21 metres. The change will start in early April with the intention of them being operational the following month.
Tennis will continue at Les Ormes when the football pitches are operational. The four remaining tennis courts will enable the normal programme of club nights, tennis mornings and coaching to continue – along with smaller international tournaments as was the case before the second tennis centre at Les Ormes was built.
Channel Islands LTA development officer Hugh Raymond said: ‘Naturally I’m disappointed to be losing courts and there is little I can do about it because Les Ormes is a commercial organisation. Obviously I don’t agree with it but they own the centre so I can’t argue with them about it either.’
