Before I go any further on this topic, I think a little clarity is needed. The NTRP National Championships as an event is a separate topic from the Fast4 scoring system. These should be regarded as completely independent initiatives of the USTA. The fact that the NTRP National Championship was unveiled with Fast4 as the scoring system and has not wavered from that format sometimes gives the impression that these two topics are intertwined. Today I will try to separate the two topics and focus exclusively on the NTRP National Championship.
This brings me back to the problem-solution paradigm demanded by my engineer brain. What problem is the USTA attempting to solve with the NTRP National Championship? A more positive way to frame the problem-solution paradigm is in terms of opportunity, which is a kissing cousin of problems. So I alternately could have stated the question as what opportunity is the USTA attempting to create or leverage with the NTRP National Championship.
I am leaning more toward the “problem” oriented approach on this one because I think that I perceive the problem that is in play that may be prompting the initiative. Participation in adult tennis tournaments is in decline. At least that is the case in the little bubble that is my USTA section. At some point in the near future, perhaps as soon as this weekend, I will pull participation data from the USTA event registration portal, Tennislink, to check my perception. For now, I will assume that my assertion is correct.
I want to believe that the USTA is aware that tournament participation is in decline. At the same time, there would be no good method for me to determine if this is the case or if the USTA has performed the root cause analysis required to understand why participation is waning. The “why” really matters when developing a solution. For example, if the predominant reason people are not playing tournaments is because they don’t want to travel, creating another tournament even further away is probably not the solution.
I am working with the assumption that the problem that the USTA is trying to solve with the USTA National Championships is to mitigate the issue of declining participation in adult tournaments. For league play, the opportunity for teams to advance to Nationals has proven to be an incentive that drives participation. People respond to the incentives placed before them. I can see the through line on the logic, if all my assumptions are correct.
In order to reach the NTRP Nationals, a player has to be “endorsed” by their USTA section to play the event. Each section office has a limited number of endorsements which are allocated on the basis of the number of active players in that section. In my section, I can attest that players are aware of and actively pursuing the opportunities to earn those endorsements.
The photo featured with this post underscores what tournament tennis is like in my section. It is a screen clip from the USTA “About Adult Tournaments” informational page. I came across it yesterday when I was writing about Category I tournaments and gold balls. Nothing could be more illustrative of what tennis is like in the Texas section.
The picture that the USTA national office features on the adult tournament informational page is from the NTRP National Championships in 2018 which was held in Surprise, Arizona. The player in the foreground is someone that I recognize and know from playing tournaments in Texas. What is most striking about the photo is that the players lounging in the lawn adjacent to the match are all also from Texas. This is what tournament tennis is like for us. It is a vibrant community. Players in all sections should have the opportunity to experience the same thing.
The sad reality is that many players from most of the other sections do not have the same opportunity to play the types of events that we take for granted in Texas. Examining the tournament records of players from other sections often reveals that the only tournament played to reach the National Championships was a single “qualifying” event in their local section. I think that is really sad.
As an avid tournament player, I am very invested in this topic. I want for there to be more participation in tournaments. It bothers me that participation is declining. I am “all in” on supporting the USTA with initiatives designed to increase tournament play.
As I return my attention to (hopefully) close out Fast4 tomorrow, it is important to underscore that the NTRP National Championships is a separate topic for me from Fast4 and my views on each should not be conflated with each other. Because, ya know, I really hate Fast4.
- About Adult Tournaments, USTA.com, viewed February 25, 2020.
