For NTRP tournament play in Texas, First Match Losers Consolation (FMLC) is the most common draw format used. It was also the most frequently used draw type when the (former) umpire I gave birth to played her Junior tournaments in the Section. FMLC ranking points are awarded on an Order of Finish (OOF) basis in the front draw. The back draw awards ranking points using a Points-Per-Round/Points-Per-Win (PPR/PPW) system.
The fact that the L in FMLC stands for “Loser” is a vestige of a bygone era. Back in the day, tournaments that used this format had a “Winners” bracket and a “Losers” bracket. Somewhere in our cultural journey toward “every kid gets a trophy,” the term “Loser” became unfashionable and was eventually replaced with the word “Back” or more properly “Consolation.” The usage of “Front” or sometimes “Main” rather than “Winner” followed a short time later.
I selected the Men’s NTRP 4.0 division from the 2022 Mabry Adult Senior Level 5 Open to illustrate FMLC format. There were 13 competitors so tournament play for that division started in the Round of 16 (R16). The following image is the main draw pieced together from screen captures. There isn’t a good way to get an image or print a draw in the native system. (Email readers who don’t see the pictures should view this post directly on fiendatcourt.com. This is one of those times when you really needs the pictures to follow along.)
The FMLC points schedule from the USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System is also included below for convenient reference. The sloppy highlighting of the relevant column for a Level 5 tournament was added by me.
This table is an example of an “Order of Finish” (OOF) approach to assigning ranking points for tournament performance. The first two columns in the table contain the finishing position of each player in both descriptive and numerical format.
It might be tempting to assume that since the tournament started in R16 all players in the draw would receive that number of points at a minimum. However, a player has to win a match in the front draw to earn those points. Consequently, only the players who win those first round matches will accrue “Reached QF” (Quarterfinal) points.
The Order of Finish is pretty straight forward to see in the completed draw. Edgar Zambrano won the tournament by defeating Ben Garza in the finals. The two losing Semifinalists (SF) received “4th place/SF points.” A 3rd-4th playoff is typically not conducted in this format.
Bye, Bye, Bye and Walkovers
One of the three players who received a Bye in the R16, Art Tontiplaphol, failed to win his next match. That means he should not receive any ranking points for his performance in the main draw. He played his remaining tournament matches in the back draw.
The other two players who received Byes in the R16 won their QF matches. Blair Landon went on to lose his SF match, making him the perfect example for illustrating that he received the full points for advancing to that round.
In other words, he was not penalized with fewer ranking points for receiving that R16 Bye. That is a sharp contrast with the tournament formats with a preliminary Round Robin followed with a bracketed playoff. Each Bye in that particular format penalizes the player who received it.
These should be fundamental guiding principles of designing an equitable tournament ranking point system.
- Players should not be awarded free points for receiving a Bye.
- Players should not be penalized for receiving a Bye.
There were a couple of walkovers in the draw created when two players determined that they were unable to compete after the draw was made. In one of those instances the player who received the walkover lost his subsequent match. In that case the player should receive front draw points for advancing to the QFs.
Front Draw Order of Finish and Ranking Points
The following table translates the draw performance into Order of Finish (OOF) and maps the rankings points that were assigned to each player. Everybody put on your shocked face. While the rankings calculation are mostly correct (Yay!) we have stumbled across yet another error here. (Boo!)
| Position | Player | Points |
| 1st/Champion | Zambrano, Edgar | 1050 |
| 2nd/Finalist | Garza, Ben | 735 |
| 4th/SFs no playoff | Ozaki, Kyle | 525 |
| 4th/SFs no playoff | Blair, Landon | 525 |
| Reached QFs | morales, mario | 368 |
| Reached QFs | WARD, JOHN | 368 |
| Reached QFs | Pruneda, Pete (via Walkover) | 368 |
| Reached QFs | Tontiplaphol, Art (via Bye) | 494 (?!) |
Pete Pruneda should have received points for advancing via the Walkover and he did. Art Tontiplaphol, should not have received points for advancing via the Bye but(unfortunately) he did. That violates a rule straight out of the USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, and Sanctioning Regulations.
Regulation IF.X.3. Treatment of byes, withdrawals, walkovers, disqualifications, defaults, retirements, and abandonments or cancellations.
USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, & Sanctioning Regulations
a. Byes. A player who advances because of a bye does not receive ranking points for advancing.
b. Withdrawals, walkovers, disqualifications, defaults, and retirements. A player who advances because of a withdrawal, walkover, disqualification, default, or retirement receives ranking points for advancing.
To fully explain the error in the ranking points for Tontiplaphol, we have to visit the back draw. That’s OK because we were heading there anyway to describe the PPR/PPW approach used for those players.
Back to the Back Draw
The points earned back draw of a FMLC tournament, are awarded via a “Points-Per-Round/Points-Per-Win” (PPR/PPW) approach. Advancing via a walkover counts as a Win, just as it does in the main draw. Players who advance via a Bye are not supposed to receive back draw ranking points.
Tontiplaphol was the consolation winner. He “Won” three matches in the process, each worth 42 points. He should have received 126 ranking points for the entire tournament. Tontiplaphol actually received 494 total points which means he received both front and back draw points for the tournament on the basis of that R16 Bye.
From the dim recesses of my memory, there used to be a rule that players could not earn both front and back draw points in a FMLC bracket. However, that restriction is not currently in the national USTA tournament regulations. In any case, Tontiplaphol should not have received any front draw points since he advanced to the QFs via a Bye.
Against my better judgement, I decided to don my “Peril Sensitive Sunglasses” and create a points calculation table for all the back draw participants in this division. In retrospect, a helmet would have been a good idea as well.
| Player | Wins | Points (Earned) | Points (Actual) |
| Tontiplaphol, Art | 3 | 126 | 494 |
| Rojas, Christopher | 1 (W/O) | 42 | 410 |
| Ochoa, Juan | 1 (W/O) | 42 | 305 |
| Johnson, Andrew | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Strickland, Robin | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Canter, Caleb | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Christopher Rojas received 368 extra points. Had he advanced in any way to the QFs I could maybe come up with a plausible scenario for that total, because that is the number of points for reaching that round. However, Rojas lost the match he played in the R16 and failed to reached the QF. Juan Ochoa had an identical tournament performance as Rojas. Both players lost in the R16 and received a win via a Walkover in the back draw.
Reaching the R16 is worth 263 points… but only if there was a win in the Round of 32 (R32) to advance to that point which there clearly did not happen. Ochoa was (maybe?) awarded his points for being placed into the draw in the Round of 16 and then not playing a single back draw match.
None of the players receiving points for back draw performance received the correct number per the USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System specification. Those players received significantly more points than they actually earned. In fact, two of those competitors earned more ranking points than the players who advanced to the QFs.
Of all the errors that I have stumbled across recently, this is arguably the worst yet.
Participation Points
There is also an anomaly with participation points. Recently, I have been omitting them from my calculations because I think they are an unnecessary distraction from larger issues with the performance points. However I noticed something strange with the participation points from this event that warrants comment.
Caleb Canter and Robin Strickland both withdrew before the event began. The only difference between the two players was that Canter withdrew with a “Player Choice/PC” designation while Strickland withdrew with the injury designation.
Here is what the USTA regulations say about participation points:
IX.F.B. Participation Points. Participation Points are those points earned for participating in an Adult and Family Ranking Tournament. A player is considered a participant in a tournament when at least one point has been played or the player wins all matches by reason of withdrawal, walkover, disqualification, or default.
USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, & Sanctioning Regulations
Canter received participation points and Strickland did not. I have no idea why Canter would receive participation points. He plays a lot of tournaments and the 11 points are negligible, but that doesn’t make it less wrong. Canter did play in the tournament in other divisions, but that should not earn him participation points for this bracket. I am at a complete loss on why this might have occurred.
Finishing Shots
This is where I should be starting in on my explanation of how FMLC has a depressive effect on Adult Tournament participation. You know what else has a depressive effect? Not calculating the rankings points correctly and consistently.
I am considerably past my “one page” daily writing objective at this point. The depressive effect of FMLC on participation has to be deferred to another day.
To wrap up today’s post, the USTA tournament rankings calculations still have very significant issues. I thought it was getting better, but the fact that I keep discovering problems in every draw I examine suggests that it is not.
These issues are exhausting and demoralizing to write about. I am assuming that it is just as bad on the USTA side where the responsibility for fixing this mess resides.
- USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, as of February 2022, viewed April 22, 2022.
- 2022 Mabry Adult Senior/Super Sr Level 5, viewed April 22, 2022.
- USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, & Sanctioning Regulations, Amended December 2020, viewed April 22, 2022.
