Last week, I received an email from the USTA packed with information for Adult tennis players. The headlined content was the release of the 2025 USTA League National Regulations. We now know how USTA Leagues will be conducted in the coming year, which is pretty much the same as it was in 2024. However, one new regulation has been added for 2025 that addresses an edge-case scenario that could have serious consequences.
While the USTA League Regulations authors always provide an excellent up-front summary of the changes each year, this particular update is best examined within the document’s full context. Additionally, the front matter summary only includes part of the wording, which is odd. The underlined text is all that is included at the document’s beginning. It is almost like the implications for grievances and suspension points are all that matters.
2.01C(4)a Scoring of Retirements Below Championship Play. A retirement occurs when an individual match has started and a player/doubles team is unable to continue due to injury, loss of condition, emergency, or refusal to play. If a full team retirement or combination of defaults and retirements occurs, a grievance may be filed. If the grievance is upheld, the match may be declared invalid and shall be scored following the local/sectional regulations. The Section and below may impose further penalties on the defaulting and/or retiring team. Such penalties must follow the League Suspension System (See Regulation 3.03A(7) and 3.03D(4)).
2025 USTA League National Regulations, Regulation 2.01C(4)a
I always suspect that new USTA rules and regulations don’t spontaneously emerge from a vacuum. Rather, I believe something happened to someone influential that inflamed passions, prompting this eventual update. Speculation on the through line is fairly straightforward in this instance.
As the season winds down, teams that have been mathematically eliminated from advancement to the playoffs sometimes lack enthusiasm. That is when this situation would most likely occur. A team that didn’t want to play it out could default some lines and supplement that with matches that take the court for a few points only to retire quickly. That would be done to skirt the whole team default disqualification rule that could lead to a one-year suspension for the entire roster.
One team essentially awarding another a walkover result could significantly enhance the strength of the tie-break criteria for the winning team. That could negatively impact a third team that was likely to advance if the matches had actually been played out. In fact, the team that conspired to create the walkover might intentionally curate that result specifically to dictate which team advanced. Alternatively, some may have suspected that was the case, even if the intentions were otherwise innocuous.
Starting in 2025, a team that feels it was impacted by a slew of defaulted matches and early retirements can file a grievance. If that grievance is upheld, the team match could be invalidated. That precipitates the need for two new definitions in the USTA League Regulations.
Valid Match: In a team match, a majority of the individual matches must be actually played by the two teams to constitute a valid team match, per 2.03E. For a League using Points Per Position, please refer to your Section/Local Regulations.
Invalid Match: In a team match where a majority of individual matches aren’t played due to defaults and/or retirements given by one or both teams. In this case, neither team will be awarded the match result for advancement purposes.
2025 USTA League National Regulations, Glossary
The critical aspect of this new regulation is that additional penalties could be levied if a grievance is filed and upheld. It would be logical that the penalty for creating a walkover through defaults and retirements to skirt the whole team default rule would be a whole team default. However, that is not how this new regulation is worded. Instead, it invokes the USTA League Suspension Point System for the punitive stage of the grievance process.
Glancing through the USTA Suspension Point System reveals that the likely violation would be “Failing to comply with a USTA League Regulation or Guideline or Championship Procedure,” which could range from 2-24 suspension points. That’s a pretty wide range, especially given that the document doesn’t provide any additional guidance text. Ten points is a one-year suspension from all USTA League play, so this kind of walkover could potentially result in very severe penalties.
On the good side, the USTA League Regulations should encourage more tennis to be played, which is what this new rule does. Unfortunately, in the process of doing that, it veers into territory that can suck the joy out of USTA League play. This is yet another case where there is no perfect solution other than my fantasy of eliminating the punitive grievance culture of USTA League tennis. Short of that, I maybe would have preferred that the penalty be aligned with the whole team default rule rather than sliding over into the suspension point system.
If anyone knows of a controversy where a USTA League walkover was created through a combination of defaults and retirements, I would love to examine an actual situation. In the meantime, let’s just play all the matches, kids.
- 2025 USTA League National Regulations, USTA Resource Document, April 14, 2024.
- 2024 USTA League National Regulations, USTA Resource Document, March 14, 2024.
- USTA League Suspension Point System 2024, USTA Resource Document, February 6, 2024.
- USTA League Suspension Point System Calculation Tables, USTA Resource Document, February 6, 2024.
So, if Team A beats Team B and Team B is mad, and so Team B does a lot of defaults and retirement to the other teams in the division so that the other teams might knock Team A out of the top place, is that what you are considering?