Last week, the USTA Adult Competition Committee (ACC) informed the National Women’s Tennis Organization (NWTO) and the National Senior Men’s Tennis Association (NSMTA) that the National Indoor Championships will be restored to Level 1 status in 2023. This tennis advocacy success story illustrates the power of coming together to ensure that the playing community has a voice.
I previously wrote about the decision to relegate the National Indoor Championships in “Leveling Up: USTA Category 1 Changes.” There has been a nomenclature update in the interim. The tournaments that were previously designated as Category 1 are currently designated as Level 1.
My original post that ran in October of 2020 enumerated the reasons why I thought the change would have a detrimental impact on Senior women’s tennis. At that time, I was a member of the NWTO, but did not have my current degree of engagement with the organization. That post was largely written from my own individual perspective.
I later followed that post up with “The Convenience Factor: National Cat 1 Tournaments” that further enumerated some of my reservations with the change. Specifically, I was concerned that because the indoor tournaments are held primarily in the northern and midwest states, that the the change further exacerbated regional disparities of player accessibility to Level 1 events. The simple fact of the matter is that the majority of USTA national sanctioned tournaments are held in a handful of sections. Eliminating the indoors wasn’t equitable from a geographic perspective.
I also questioned the logic underpinning the idea that eliminating the Level 1 surface with the lowest participation numbers would funnel a large number of players into the other three tournaments. Since Covid disrupted everything in the interim, we will never have good data one way or another to test those assertions. The world will never know.
The very good news is that the USTA listened and responded to player concerns and feedback. In a large bureaucracy change is never swift when framed against our modern internet era warped sense of time. No one should shade the USTA’s responsiveness on the basis of speed.
All in all, this is a very positive sign that the USTA is paying attention and trying to do the right things for the tennis ecosystem. The playing community needs to continue to work together to provide input and feedback to the USTA as our sport continues to maintain and rebuild participation at the highest competitive tier for Adults.
The USTA is listening and responding. It just takes patience and time.
The USTA has also indicated that the 2023 Adult National Schedule for Level 1 events should be out by October 1st.
