AREAS OF ASSESSMENT
At the January selection trials, candidates will be assessed on the following four areas; fitness, knowledge, skills and court work. Those who are successful, will enter the BBG training programme with an opportunity to be accepted for the 2023 Championships should you complete the course.
It is also important to note that we expect the highest standards of behaviour off as well as on the court in this programme and as such the following must be adhered to:
- Hair must be tied back and away from your face
- Jewellery and make-up are not permitted
- Whilst you are encouraged to bring water with you, you must not be chewing
- Shirts must be tucked in at all times and laces tied in a double bow
- Once any session starts then unless it is part of the activity or you have been encouraged to do so, then we do not expect you to be talking
FITNESS
You are expected to have a good base of cardio-vascular fitness as well as speed endurance. Do not under estimate the importance of this aspect of your preparation, where you are unfit, it will impact on the other areas of assessment as you will not be able to sustain the effort required over a longer period. The trial will also include some speed tests, some examples of which are shown below, so you should ensure you are familiar with these.
SPEED TESTS
ILLINOIS AGILITY RUN - the image above shows the route taken. Candidates must start lying flat on the floor on their front and must go around not over the cones.
STAR RUN - From a standing start, candidates follow the route indicated, exchanging the tennis ball in the middle as required. The ball must be placed down to avoid it rolling away as then would need to be retrieved.
KNOWLEDGE
This is assessed via a timed multiple-choice test paper and is based on modules 1-8. Ensure you have revisited these prior to the selection trials. It is important that you are able to interpret a scoreboard for this section.
SKILLS
Feeding, 'no ball show', rolling and receiving are all key skills that you will be asked to perform over a series of drills. Whilst the outcome of the roll or feed is important, the action is also under scrutiny; so it is not just about what you do but how you do it! Drills are often repeated to ensure you have a good level of consistency across these areas.
COURTWORK
During this section, you will work as a base or centre in a team chosen at random. We are looking for you to know where the balls should be, when they should be transferred to the opposite end and the urgency / neatness with which you carry out your skills. Your underpinning knowledge is therefore important here. You will only be on court for a few games and must listen to the umpire carefully as there will be no scoreboard.
Every year the standards we see at the selection trials get higher and the margins between those who are successful and those who are not can often be very fine. Ensure you prepare as best you can across all four areas of assessment.