An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
The USTA Adult Tournament structure outlines a 7 tier system for conducting tournaments. USTA “National Championships” are competed at Level 1. Today we are exploring what the tournament trophies for Level 1 events reveal about the nature of Adult competitive tennis.
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I had expected to start off this weekend talking about the distribution of USTA National NTRP Level 5 tournaments. In the interim, I discovered that I was completely misreading something in the tournament regulations that is infinitely more impactful. Today we are examining the number of Level 4 events that each section can sanction and taking a look at how NTRP tournaments at that level were scheduled for 2021. Depending on how you look at it, there is either an insane error or a loophole within the USTA Adult and Family Tournament Sanctioning Regulations.
Long time readers of this site will be aware that I generally shy away from books about tennis players who are still actively competing. Such books tend to be public relations efforts to polish an athletes image or to take control of the narrative. I was willing to take a flyer on this particular book because Ashleigh Barty may be the last athlete to publicly and effectively deal with mental health issues before it was regarded as an act of bravery. With the “Australian Summer of Tennis” in full swing I was willing to take a chance on the most compelling Aussie player.
In certain pockets of the tennis ecosystem, there is a general awareness that a new “World Tennis Number” system is coming soon. The same people that whisper that bit of tennis insider information inevitably follow it up with breathless exhortations that it’s going to be amazing. No one can ever claim that tennis organizational insiders have a lack of enthusiasm for vague forthcoming changes that will revolutionize the administrative side of the sport. By the same token, no one can claim that there is any semblance of a track record of success in such initiatives. In any case, the World Tennis Number is apparently coming soon.
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Are you spending time during tennis practice sessions, or are you investing that time? The benefits of maintaining a personal player development journal.
Novak Djokovic get his day in Australian court as his immigration status dominates tennis news heading into the Australian Open.
Yesterday I wrote about disparities in how each USTA Sectional awards sanctions Level 5 tennis tournaments under the new framework unveiled by the USTA in 2021. Some sections have a lot of Level 5 tournaments and the differences cannot be chalked up to higher levels of participation. In fact, Texas has one of the highest tournament participation levels yet relatively few Level 5 tournaments.
One of the benefits of the new USTA National Tennis Tournament framework unveiled for 2021 is that the majority of local tournaments are now open to USTA members regardless of residency. Additionally, those events award ranking points toward the player’s USTA National ranking that impacts tournament seeding and selection into exclusive events. After the first full year of competitive play under the new system, disparities in how each USTA Section is awarding sanctions for tournaments in accordance with the new framework has become apparent.
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Heading into New Year’s Eve last week, I shared twelve “Gifts” that you can give to yourself to jumpstart your tennis life. Each item on that list is essentially a tennis related life hack shamelessly adapted from a cybersecurity career development webinar that I gave in 2019. I will be revisiting one of those items in more depth on the first Friday of each month this year. In January, I am focusing on the “Gift” of Time.
As the “Australian Summer of Tennis” gets underway, it is the perfect time to shift our attention to books about the rich tennis heritage from “Down Under.” There is no better place to start than with the most recent biography of the man whose name adorns the side of the stadium where the culmination of the Australian Open is contested.