An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
If the request to the impacted tournament community is to continue to be patient, then open and honest information on the actual status and decisions that are being made should be extended to those people.
Tournaments are an essential and vital part of the tennis ecosystem. They are an effective engagement mechanism for both first time and returning players. Tournaments are also a vital outlet for players that have achieved a level of mastery above competitive players in their local area. This post outlines how tournaments are essential for building and sustaining tennis participation across the board.
Alice Marble claimed that she wrote her first book in response to requests from her friends and fans to share her secrets of success. The more likely reality is that the motivation for the effort was rooted in the financial realities of the pre-open era in tennis. Writing books was one way that tennis players could monetize their tennis achievements without jeopardizing their amateur status.
I have a complicated relationship with the Fast4 scoring system. I like it when playing UTR tournaments as the shortened format enables completion of a three match tournament in a single day. I don’t like it for competitions where a significant number of the competitors had to get on a plane to get there. This week how the tiebreak format is handled at the #NextGenATP Finals was added to the mix.
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The Billie Jean King Cup (formerly the Federation Cup) Finals was conducted in Prague a couple of weeks ago. One of the first time innovations was near real-time data analytics provided to each team. The technology was a collaboration between Microsoft, the Billie Jean King Cup Finals, the International Tennis Federation (ITF), and other coaching experts including Billie Jean King herself.
World Team Tennis is underway at Indian Wells but is flying under the radar due to all the Tour Finals events. Tennis Australia announces that the women’s semis will be played in prime time in 2022.
This post is my thought exercise on what a single source rankings table would look like in practice. It turned out to be easier than I expected.
When the NTRP National Championships were unveiled, players in the Texas Section were already well versed and primed for the rankings chase. For players competing for the 8 spots in each division at the Texas Masters, the fact that 3 spots were open for NTRP Nationals simply created a new tier of achievement.
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Whatever you call it, there is a foundational philosophy that encapsulates the criteria used to separate right from wrong. There is a currently a raging debate within the USTA Texas Section over points allocated and awarded at a recent closed Level 4 tournament. Understanding the player frustration requires a conceptual understanding of a fundamental truth that most experienced tournament players hold to be self-evident: The draw format of a tournament should not materially alter the rankings point allocation for the players.
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To steal a lyric from Elton John, Alice Marble was a like candle in the wind. Her light was bright, but she was buffeted by the forces around her. Her life is a monument to a continuous struggle to achieve more. Marble desperately wanted her light to shine just a little bit brighter. Courting Danger: My Adventures in World Class Tennis, Golden Age Hollywood and High-Stakes Spying is the inevitable culmination of those desires.