An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
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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A popular joke about project management goes like this: “All projects can be done well, fast, and cheap. Pick two.” That joke is based on the triple constraint theory of project management. It is elegantly conceptualized as a triangle that represents the trade-offs between scope, cost, and time. The idea is that changes to any of those vertices forces adjustment in one or both of the other two. I recently had the revelation that I had been unconsciously using the triple constraint model as I have been ruminating on tournament scheduling, draw formats, and ranking systems.
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The ATP Players association isn’t happy about the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian players from Wimbledon and is threatening punitive action. Did you know that there is a full sized tennis court in Grand Central Station? Neither did I…
It is no secret that Feed in Consolation through the Quarterfinals (FICQ) is my favorite draw format. It is commonly used for Junior Sectional championship tournaments as well as Level 1 tournaments for both Junior and Adult competition. This “double elimination” format is the gold standard for tournament competition when the stakes are high.
Voluntary consolation is a variation of the First Match Loser’s Consolation (FMLC) draw. In that format players that lose their first match have the option of signing up to participate in a back draw. Doing so is not required. When the USTA unveiled the 7 tier unified national tournament system, the voluntary consolation draw was explicitly included as an option at every tier of competition. Today’s post outlines the case for why the format arguably shouldn’t be used.
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The “mullet” hairstyle is a combination of short and long hair colloquially described as “business in the front, party in the back.” With that definition, the First Match Loser’s Consolation (FMLC) draw is the “mullet” of tournament formats. Ranking points are awarded on a “order of finish” basis in the front draw but switches around to a “points per round” system in the back draw. I don’t have the official stats from the USTA, but I would be stunned if FMLC wasn’t the most commonly used format for USTA sanctioned tournaments by a mile. Unfortunately, that draw format directly contributes to player disengagement from tournament play.
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Heading into New Year’s Eve last year, I shared 12 “Gifts” that people can give themselves to improve the quality of their tennis life. Each of these items is a tennis related life hack shamelessly adapted from a career development webinar gave a while back for cybersecurity professionals. In 2022, I am taking an in-depth look at each one of those items on first Friday of each month. The “Gift” for May is to read a new tennis book.
The USTA’s point-per-round philosophy is readily apparent when examining the ranking points tables for single group round robin tournaments. The fact that tables is plural isn’t a typo. Two tables were in effect for different time periods in 2021. Both the original tables and the changes that were made reflects a misguided dedication to a points-per-round philosophy. The USTA is making the problem much harder to solve than it needs to be.
The very last rankings point table in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document is for Team Tennis events. In the Adult context, I am guessing that people generally associate Team Tennis with USTA League play, but that isn’t what we are talking about here. I suspect that most Adult Tournament players are not even aware that Team Tennis is a valid tournament format and that it is actively used.
A couple of years ago, the USTA unveiled a new unified adult tournament framework. One of the breathless exhortations about it touted “ONE nationwide points-per-round ranking system.” It is a perplexing statement because neither the current nor any of the legacy ranking systems are in actuality points-per-round systems. The misnomer may be at the root of misunderstanding on how an effective ranking system should be structured within the USTA.
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