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Please read this page before creating or editing tennis articles.
When in doubt, ask your questions on the Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tennis page.

While there are many articles within the scope of this WikiProject, they fall into a relatively small number of classes:

• Tournament articles

e.g. Australian Open, Brisbane International. These are listed at List of tennis tournaments and in Category:Tennis tournaments.

• Player articles

e.g. Novak Djokovic, Steffi Graf, Roger Federer, Martina Navratilova. These are collected in Category:Tennis players.

• Use common English spelling as found on ATP and WTA websites. Otherwise use press releases, grand slam websites, other tournament sites, books, etc...
• Use bolding on the player's name only once: in the introduction. Do not apply it on any world rankings (even if it's world number one), opponent's name, scores, generally on nothing. Update world rankings only beginning from Mondays the day the weekly ATP rankings are published (do not pre-calculate).

• Coach Articles

e.g. Richard Williams (tennis), Category:Tennis_coaches, Category:American_tennis_coaches

• Single-year tournament articles

e.g. 2008 Wimbledon Championships or 2008 French Open. Many of these fall under the Grand Slam Project, though there are also non-Slam pages, like 2009 Sony Ericsson Open.

• When updating entry list and seeds, do not rely on gossip, Facebook accounts, fan pages of players, news editor speculations. Generally wait for the official announcements.

• Draws

e.g. 2008 US Open – Men's Singles, 2007 Brasil Open – Singles.

• Only update these pages when the match is finished. When doing so use bolding on the won set gamescore and the winner's name. For tie-break rules see below.
• Do not create standalone articles for the qualifying rounds of smaller tournaments. Just add them below the main draw in the Draw article.

• Davis/Fed Cup articles

e.g. Yugoslavia Davis Cup team, 2008 Fed Cup. These are similar to single-year tournament articles, but probably require different standards.

• Tennis by year

e.g. 2008 in tennis, 1995 in tennis

• These articles should give a concise overview of the year in tennis, without going in too much intricate details. The details can be kept in the articles about players and tournaments.

This list may not be exhaustive, so feel free to add to it. It's well within the scope of this WikiProject to produce guidelines and best practices for each of these article classes.

Please read WP:NOT and more specifically WP:NOTNEWSPAPER and WP:NOTSTATSBOOK.
We are not supposed to add everything found in routine news coverage about the players, that would lead to articles becoming overdetailed.
WP is also against excessive listings of statistics.
Keep that in mind when working on tennis articles.

Before creating a new article please check its notability.

• If it's a player :

Tennis players are notable if:

• 1. The player is a member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, either in the contributor or player category
  2. The player has competed in the Fed Cup, Davis Cup, Hopman Cup or similar international competition
  3. The player has competed in the main draw in one of these higher level professional tournaments:

     • Grand slam tournaments (the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, or the US Open)
     • Men: ATP World Tour tournaments (the ATP World Tour Finals, ATP World Tour Masters 1000, ATP World Tour 500, or ATP World Tour 250)
     • Women: WTA Tour tournaments (the WTA Premier, the WTA International, or the WTA Tour Championships)

  4. The player has won at least one title in any of the ATP Men's Challenger tournaments
  5. The player has won at least one title in any of the 2008–2012 ITF Women's $35,000–$100,000+ tournaments. From 1978–2007 the threshold for notability in the women's ITF circuit is winning a $25,000 event. It should be based on the lowest payout for men's Challenger tournaments in the same year. This will preserve relatively equal notability.
  6. The player holds a tennis record recognized by the International Tennis Federation, ATP or WTA

This guideline applies equally to singles and doubles players. Junior players are presumed to be notable if they have won at least a junior Grand slam title, have been in the top 3 of the junior ITF world rankings or can be shown to meet the wider requirements of WP:GNG.

• If it's a coach :

Since these are very rare article types, the most common case is when a player chose coaching after retirement. In all other cases reveal the coach's background to see if he/she notable. It is important as it could easily happen that a child player is coached by a non-professional or non-tennis-affiliated relative and cotton to him during his career (see Toni Nadal). The minimum requirement that can obviously qualify without doubt for coaches of players are:

• 1. The player has reached the final of or won one of the Grand Slam professional tournaments.
  2. The player has entered to ATP or WTA top 10 for a week at least.
  3. The player was member of a champion team competing in a Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Hopman Cup (reserve players and team captains don't count).
  4. The player has won an ATP Masters 1000 or WTA Premier event and has reached at least one other final in Masters 1000 or WTA Premier.

These also ensure that the notability of one-hit wonders' coaches doesn't automatically granted with his/her coachee's success. (See Roberto Carretero for example) This guideline applies equally to singles and doubles players. Junior players' coaches are to be omitted otherwise it has to be shown to meet the wider requirements of WP:GNG.

• If it's a tournament :

  Men: Any men's tournament is notable if it is part of the ATP World Tour (including qualifications) or the ATP Challenger Tour (excluding qualifications). Men's ITF tournaments are not considered notable. The Futures and and all lower ranked tournaments are not notable at all. Qualification tournaments on the ATP Challenger Tour are not notable. Qualification draws for ATP main tour should be placed near the bottom of the main draw page.

  Women: Notable tournaments include the WTA Premier tournaments (including qualifications) and WTA International tournaments (including qualifications). Some women's ITF tournaments are considered notable because the women's tour has no equivalent to the men's challenger tour. From 2008–2012 the ITF Women's $35,000–$100,000+ tournaments are considered notable. From 1978–2007 the threshold for notability in the women's ITF circuit is a $25,000 event. Qualification tournaments in ITF women's events are not notable. Qualification draws for WTA main tour should be placed near the bottom of the main draw page.

  Exhibition tournaments should also establish their notability on other grounds (e.g. several top 10 players present, notability in history, significant media coverage,...etc).

  When naming the new tournament page try to avoid the indication of sponsorship in the title and focus on commonly accepted/known name of the tournament (which is generally refers to the place, where it's held or a famous person that it is named after, though sometimes it is inevitable).

• If it's a match :

  Matches that deserve their own articles on Wikipedia include: mens and womens finals of the four Major tournaments (singles, doubles and mixed doubles), Olympic finals, and matches of record setting events. Other matches will be handled case-by-case but please consult WP:TENNIS before creating such articles. See Category:Tennis matches

• If it's a national tennis team :

  Every nation's Davis Cup and Fed Cup team are notable. Hopman Cup teams are also notable.

• If it's a rivalry :

  According to WP:NSPORTS, rivalries are not inherently notable. We can only have articles about tennis rivalries if there is significant media coverage about the rivalry. For example, great rivalries like Sampras-Agassi or Federer-Nadal warrant an article, but articles about rivalries like Agassi-Rafter and Federer-Hewitt have been deleted by the community. If in doubt, consult WP:TENNIS before creating a new rivalry article.

• If it is a tennis club or organization :

  Notability for clubs and organizations is established by the criteria set out in WP:ORG. Generally there needs to be in depth coverage in several reliable independent sources before a club or organization can be considered notable.

• If it's an equipment :

  Focus on its significance, usage, development and evolution, historical background and avoid advertisement and commercial purposes.

• For rules, court types, stadiums ...etc :

  For tennis venues, consider WP:NPLACE and WP:LOCAL.

  Though most of the possible articles exist, feel free to improve them. For a complete list see {{tennis box}}

• Wheelchair tennis :

  Wheelchair tennis tournaments: the four Grand Slams and the Wheelchair Tennis Masters are notable.

  Wheelchair tennis at the Summer Paralympics is also notable.

  Players are notable if they have won an ITF Masters Series event (in singles or doubles), or won a medal at the Paralympics. See also WP:NOLYMPICS

  Please do not create standalone draw articles for wheelchair tennis tournaments, include them in the main article.

General format considerations

#1:Infobox

• Players: {{Infobox tennis biography}} which is redirected by Template:Infobox Tennis player
• Coaches: {{Infobox tennis coach}}
• Teams: {{DavisCupinfobox}}
• Grand Slam tournaments: {{Infobox GrandSlamTournaments}}
• Other tournaments: like {{Infobox joint Tennis Tournament}}, {{Infobox Exhibition Tennis Tournament}}, {{Infobox hopman cup}}
• Scores, Matches: {{DavisCupbox}}, {{infobox tennis match}}, {{GrandSlamTournamentsFinals}}

A full list can be found at Category:Tennis infobox templates

Scores

Tennis scores should be given in the following format, observing the use of the ndash separating the set scores, followed by a comma. Both winning and losing tie break scores should be added enclosed in ^{( )} tags, again using an ndash;.

• format: 7–5, 6–7^(6–8), 7–6^(7–5), 3–6, 16–14
• note the using of an ndash instead of a hyphen. Ndashes should always be used, preferably with the ndash symbol "–" rather than the ndash script "&ndash,".
• 2009 Men's Singles final, Wimbledon

1. Scores should not be added to prose unless strictly necessary, in such cases the tiebreak score is omitted. Just report the round and whether the player won or lost the match, and whom they played.
2. In wikitables and infoboxes, the above format is to be used.
3. In tournament draw/bracket-type articles (2009 Wimbledon Championships), both winning and losing tiebreak scores are required in superscript.

What items, headers, infoboxes, navboxes, etc. should exist in certain articles?

#2:The Lead

The Lead should be a brief summary of WHO the person is, WHY they are here (accomplishments), potentially WHAT they are doing now.

#3:History

• History - Childhood, where grew up, college.

• Early years - amateur playing career.

#4:Career

• When they turned pro
• Grand Slam tournament and other important wins
• High point
• Later years - sometimes players are known more for what they did AFTER tennis.

• Results - If the scoreboard is more than {twenty?}; split out into a seperate article named "{personName} career statistics". Such as Novak Djokovic career statistics.

Otherwise the following wikitable is institutionalized (this one is for singles the doubles is the same format completed with an extra Partnering row before the Opponent in final row). Subsections containing this table should be named Titles / Career Finals / ATP Tour and Grand Slam finals or any other that refers to the content. Any other categorization is possible (Tour tpye, court type) only if this general table is also present.

Outcome	Date	Tournament	Surface	Opponent in the final	Score in the final
Winner	July 13, 2008	Stuttgart, Germany	Clay	Richard Gasquet	6–4, 7–5
Winner	July 20, 2008	Kitzbühel, Austria	Clay	Jürgen Melzer	6–2, 6–1
Winner	August 10, 2008	Los Angeles, United States	Hard	Andy Roddick	6–1, 7–6(7–2)
Winner	August 17, 2008	Washington, D.C., United States (1)	Hard	Viktor Troicki	6–3, 6–3
Runner-up	October 5, 2008	Tokyo, Japan	Hard	Tomáš Berdych	1–6, 4–6
Winner	January 17, 2009	Auckland, New Zealand	Hard	Sam Querrey	6–4, 6–4
Winner	August 9, 2009	Washington, D.C., United States (2)	Hard	Andy Roddick	3–6, 7–5, 7–6(8–6)
Runner-up	August 16, 2009	Montreal, Canada	Hard	Andy Murray	7–6(7–4), 6–7(3–7), 1–6
Winner	September 14, 2009	US Open, New York, United States	Hard	Roger Federer	3–6, 7–6(7–5), 4–6, 7–6(7–4), 6–2
Runner-up	November 29, 2009	ATP World Tour Finals, London, United Kingdom	Hard (i)	Nikolay Davydenko	3–6, 4–6

For singles performance timelines, the following tables are acceptable for both ATP Players and WTA Players. There are complex and simplified versions depending on the player.

ATP Players' Performance Timeline

WTA Players' Performance Timeline

For Davis Cup matches of a player please use:

American Group I
Round	Date	Opponents	Final match score	Venue	Surface	Match	Opponent	Rubber score
QF	9–11 February 1996	Chile	3-2	Santiago	Clay	Doubles (with Jaime Oncins)	Rebolledo/Ríos	7–5, 6–3, 4–6, 6–2 (W)
SF	5–7 April 1996	Venezuela	4-1	Santos	Clay	Singles 2	Nicolas Pereira	6–2, 6–7(7–2), 6–1, 6–2 (W)
						Singles 5 (dead)	Jimy Szymanski	6–2, 6–7((8–6), 6–0 (W)
World Group
Round	Date	Opponents	Final match score	Venue	Surface	Match	Opponent	Rubber score
QR	20–22 September 1996	Austria	4-1	São Paulo	Carpet	Singles 2	Markus Hipfl	4–6, 3–6, 7–6(7–0) , 7–6(7–5), 6–1 (W)
						Doubles (with Jaime Oncins)	Muster/Plamberger	7–6(7–2), 4–6, 6–3, 3–6, 2–0 (def.)*

Remember to link all of the opponents even if the link turns red since every player chosen to play in the Davis Cup is notable and add {{Performance key}} to the bottom of the table.

• Awards or Records - Just a summary with links to the awarding organization or a list of records. (The reference should be on the "LINKED TO" article; not the "Person" article).

Such as List of career achievements by Rafael Nadal.

• Retirement - Notable achievements outside of playing; often not related to tennis.

#5:See also

The "See also" section should/could include:

1. {{Portal|Tennis}}
2. Lists (Top Men, or Top Women)
3. [Country] Davis Cup team (if a member of it)
4. Rivalries (if any)
5. Olimpics-related links (if participated)

#6:References

• No standard: either <references/> or {{reflist|2}} (2 for two columns).

#7:External links

Please include the following parameters (usage description is at the template page)

• {{ATP}}
• {{ITF male profile}}
• {{DavisCupplayerlink}}

and consider using {{Commons category}} (if any)

Also called "navboxes". These are located after "External References", but before any category section.

#8:Grand Slam "succession" box

Say you are on an "Australian Open" article...This sequence:

• {{start box}}
• {{succession box|title=[[Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam Tournament]]|before=[[US Open (tennis)|]]|after=[[French Open]]|years='''January'''|}}
• {{end box}}

Produces:

• • previous = US Open (Notice the Help:Pipe trick)
    • Main article is year IN-specific
  • next = French Open (in May/June)
  • Use the "Years" field for the Month the tournament is played: "January"

Year Article

• Year article shows THIS tournament from one year to another: {{succession box | before=[[2008 US Open (tennis)|]]| title=[[US Open (tennis)|]] | years= | after=[[2010 US Open (tennis)|]] }}
• Year article showing one Grand Slam to the next: {{succession box | before=[[2009 Wimbledon Championships|2009 Wimbledon]]| title=[[Grand Slam (tennis)|Grand Slam Tournaments]] | years= | after=[[2010 Australian Open]] }} * Year article showing ''tennis'' sequence: <nowiki>{{succession box | before=[[2009 Pilot Pen Tennis|New Haven]]| title=[[2009 US Open Series]] | years= | after=None}}

#9:Bottom Navboxes

If we stay with the Australian Open...

• Pre-"Open-Era" version of the tournament
  • {{Australian Championships (tennis)}}
• "Open-Era" version of the tournament
  • {{Australian Open tournaments}}
• If newer tournament
  • {{Indian Wells Masters tournaments}}
• Tournament Grouping
  • {{Grand Slam Tournaments}}
  • {{ATP World Tour Masters 1000}} and the previous name {{ATP Masters Series tournaments}}
  • {{WTA Premier tournaments}}
  • {{WTA Tier I tournaments}}
• Other local sporting events; Town, State, or Country
  • {{Melbourne events}}

#10:Categories

• Watch for templates (especially within the footers) that may have already included a category.
• If people constantly add things they should not; place a comment at that spot

<!-- Category:Tennis is within {{TennisPortal}} -->

Teams

#1: Introduction

Small presentation of the team: when they first played in the cup, how many titles they've won, the group/zone they compete in, their national governing body and the current coach.

#2: Current team

List of current squad (it should not be limited to the squad of their last match but the biggest extent of players who are frequently invited to play and available for the coach to draft)

#3: History

It could be a longer chronological description of major breaktrhoughs, titles, finals, big achievements, highest world ranking (of nations).

#4: Players

All the players who played for the team during the years.

#5: Results

Tables could be implemented:

Year	Competition	Date	Location	Opponent	Score	Result
2010	World Group, 1st Round	5–7 March	Bree (BEL)	Czech Republic	1–4	Lost
	World Group Play-offs	17–20 September	Cairns (AUS)	Australia	3-2	Won

#6: See also

Use {{davisfedseealso}} (see template documentation for usage information)

#7: External links

Make sure the following are listed and categories present:

• {{DavisCupteamlink}}
• {{Davis Cup}}
• (country) national teams template if exists
• Category:Davis Cup teams
• National sports teams of (country) category
• Tennis in (country) category

Draws

See 2010 Davis Cup for sections, links, arrangement; ordering of draws, matches, teams.

It is obvious that we need some Tennis specific guidelines with regard to wiki-linking. Please see this page's discussion thread. When consensus is reached, they should be placed here.

General Linking

Guidelines for linking general text.

• the word tennis should only be linked the FIRST time it is used and only when reference to the Tennis article would enhance the reader's understanding.

Dates

• Do not link dates unless linked in a tennis context, as in: [[yyyy in tennis]].
• Only link dates as above once on an article.

People

• Players - should not be referenced every single time they are mentioned, but it is usually appropriate to link them the FIRST time they are referenced with a specific context.
• Tournaments - Only if the player was in the Final, it was their highest achievement, or it was recently played (within the current year).

Lists

When links to lists are appropriate, which lists are appropriate.

• Current Top Players - Navbox, Category
• Player records
• Current Top tournaments

Categories

What categories should be linked and where.

• Add the most specific category possible.

Categories that are in templates and should NOT be added directly:

• Born in 'year'
• Died in 'year'
• Retired Tennis players

Photos

When adding photos to the articles the easiest way to have a clear copyright status is to use photos that you made yourself. Otherwise you can upload free pictures but in most of the cases pictures found on internet are not free or in the public domain. Try to use Flickr but be careful and follow the steps written here and don't forget to make it reviewed. Also try to browse Tennis on Commons for possibly free images. The basic concepts of uploading and further reading can be found here:

• Wikipedia:Media copyright questions
• Wikipedia:Image use policy
• Wikipedia:Uploading images