An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
When the USTA announced the intent to host an individual NTRP National Championship tournament for 2018, I was surprised to see separate divisions for NTRP 18+ and for NTRP 50+. The reason I was puzzled to see that, was because the bifurcation is inconsistent with the USTA assertions about the NTRP system. As I have explored this topic, I am starting to wonder if the USTA is in the midst of an NTRP identity crisis.
I received a question this week about point composition from one of my friends who also happens to be a regular follower of this blog. My first reaction to the inquiry was that I am a curious person to reach out to for strategic or tactical advice. It is widely rumored that the reason I prefer playing singles over doubles is to avoid having to regularly apologize to my partner for my erratic shot selection and inability to maintain focus on the game plan.
We did it! Well… almost. Today marks the final rule documented in Section 27 of the ITF Rules of Tennis as published by the USTA Friend at Court. I feel like this is cause for celebration. For the most part, the “Correcting Errors section has been a mind bending exercise for me. The mental trauma of struggling to understand how some of the errors could even occur, coupled with corrections that did not always seem equitable has taken a toll on me.
There is a new digital platform forthcoming for USTA tennis engagement. This was announced as one of the strategic priorities of the USTA ongoing restructuring initiative. There is also evidence of the forthcoming underlying infrastructure on the USTA web page. At least part of the new initiative will be known as Serve Tennis.
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Over the weekend, the USTA sent out a letter to players who were slated to play in the individual NTRP National Championships in 2020. It was a follow up to a survey sent out to players shortly after the original event in April was cancelled. The survey was sent to explore the possibility that the NTRP Championships would be rescheduled for October of this year. This new communication makes it clear that there will be no tournament in 2020.
Yesterday I wrote about the strengths of the USTA NTRP System. Today we are examining the flip side of that coin, which are the weaknesses. While there are legitimate criticisms that can be made over the fidelity or granularity of the system, the primary issues with the NTRP system are the incentives of the league framework that surrounds it, rather than with the system itself.
The NTRP system was invented by the USTA Education and Research (E&R) office in 1978. The USTA officially created the league system the following year in 1979. The formalization of league play, as enabled by the NTRP system, fueled an explosive boom in USTA membership. Level-based play was the key to drawing increased and widespread participation in the sport.
Before I delve too deeply into this topic, I believe that there is some evidence to suggest that the USTA has either intentionally, or perhaps unconsciously, already slotted the NTRP as a competitive strength. From the outside looking in, it appears that the NTRP system is deeply ingrained within the USTA organization.
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Last week in “Tennis Literary Time Machine: 1980 USTA Publications” I waxed nostalgic about coming across a list of books that one could order from the USTA. I commented at the time that I had several of the titles in that list in my possession. One such example is “Tennis: The Bassett System” by Glenn Bassett.
Tie-breaker in lieu of a full third set has recently become the more common match format at Adult NTRP tournaments. As a result, many of my tournaments singles matches start with the umpire reminding us of that fact. I almost always make the joke that there is very little chance that I will accidentally play a third set of singles.