An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
The USTA National League Regulations contain some interesting requirements for players who advance to Championships on more than one team. The procedures are spelled out at both the Sectional and National level. Some Sections also allow Districts to create rules intended to encourage and foster league play at the local level.
The post “Ranking Points and Divisional Fragmentation” last Saturday, outlined how NTRP age divisions divides otherwise minimally viable draws completely out of existence. That post observed that ranking point fragmentation is yet another depressive factor in Adult tournament participation. I previously proposed that elimination of the NTRP age divisions could make an immediate positive difference. In the interim, I realized that there is another obvious “easy” way to mitigate the problem. The USTA should award ranking points in both the division entered as well as the division that was actually played for Adult and Family tournaments.
Back in 2018, the USTA decided that it would be a good idea to create a new age-based NTRP division for tournament play. That new division was for 50+ players. Bifurcating by age did not increase participation in NTRP leveled tournaments, at least not in Texas per my analysis. Perhaps the USTA has more complete data at the national level that tells a different story. In any case, it was later decided that what tournament tennis really needed was three age based divisions. Now tournaments can offer 18+, 40+, and 55+ NTRP divisions.
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The USTA Adult and Family Tournaments, Ranking, and Sanctioning Regulations document specifies use of a player’s “best” 6 tournament performances for rankings calculations. I recently observed that competing in 6 tournaments to maximize ranking point opportunities requires players to dedicate approximately 12% of their yearly available weekend time to tournament play. As it turns out, that is actually only the tip of the iceberg.
On the first Friday of each month this year, this site is publishing a deep dive on one of the 12 “Gifts” you can treat yourself with to improve your tennis life. The focus this month enumerates the reasons why tennis players and fans should engage with the organizations that promote our great sport. Advocacy is essential for the future health of the tennis ecosystem. We are stronger together than we are individually.
There is a cap to the number of tournaments that count toward a player’s USTA ranking under the current cumulative tournament performance ranking system. The primary purpose of this post is to correct a misstatement I made about that on this site a couple of weeks ago. Additionally, it is a perfect opportunity to preview my emerging thinking on how to structure tennis tournaments to build the robust participation needed for a healthy competitive ecosystem.
The USTA has been busy filling my inbox with announcements heralding the imminent deployment of the World Tennis Number. The messages are infused with reassurances directing players to not “worry” that the NTRP system might go away. I have been trying to find someone who is actually concerned about that happening. If I could find such a person, I could try to pinpoint the root causes of the fear. So far I have failed in that endeavor.
My 55+ 9.0 NTRP USTA League Team qualified for the National Championships last weekend. In related news, I have a history of asserting that elimination of NTRP “National Championships” would eliminate the majority of unsportsmanlike behavior that plagues the USTA League system. Additionally, I have also railed at the absurdity of conducting NTRP competition with age based restrictions. Will I make the trip with my team? Absolutely.
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USTA tournament directors have the latitude to prohibit divisional crossovers within the tournaments they run. They shouldn’t. Fragmentation of NTRP into age groups combined with an arbitrary “no crossover” restriction, kills participation. Paradoxically, the worst offenders are typically tournaments with tiny draws in the first place.
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The USTA Friend at Court contains a table of guidelines for the maximum number of daily matches for a player within a division in a USTA tennis tournament. Per the tennis triple constraint model that was the subject of yesterday’s post, the various scoring methods in that table are the qualitative aspects of match play that constrains the calendar time and schedule for the tournament.
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