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A Case Against NTRP Ratings Expiration Putting It All Together: My Daily Plantar Fasciitis Prevention Routine Tennis Beyond the Headlines: March 31, 2025 A Mother’s Day and Father’s Day Gift Idea A Great Gift for Grads… and Tennis Players Basket Case: The Gift of Tennis for Easter Improve Your Tennis IQ: The off-court workout for on-court skills

Movin’ On Up: What USTA Tournaments Can Learn from League Play

On By Teresa Merklin

The USTA League Move-Up/Split-Up rule was put into place to keep the same teams from advancing to the National Championships in consecutive years. Usually I perceive that league play and the associated regulations are depressive influences on tournament culture. Today is a rare exception. It is quite possible that tournaments can appropriate a thing or two from league regulations to improve the overall ecosystem.

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USTA League: A Move-Up/Split-Up Loophole

On By Teresa Merklin

USTA League teams that advance to the National Championships are subject to a provision known as “Move-Up/Split-Up.” In fact that is the exact title of section 2.06 in the USTA League Regulations. Teams that qualify for Nationals are prohibited from competing together at the same level the following year. Last weekend, someone pointed out an insane loophole in where the spirit and intent of those rules can be violated. In fact, there is at least one team in my local area who has apparently made the same discovery.

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Thank You!

On By Teresa Merklin

Today marks the 770th consecutive daily post to appear on Fiend at Court. This site was launched on New Year’s Eve in 2019 as a personal goal accountability mechanism to write a page a day about tennis the following year. At the end of the first year, it was an easy decision to keep on going. The people who read this blog on a regular basis were a significant factor. Thank you for joining me on this journey of discovery.

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Thank Your Team Captains

On By Teresa Merklin

The theme for this weekend is “The Gift of Gratitude for Tennis.” If you participate in league play, you should consider writing a thank you note to the team captain or league organizer at the end of every season. If you think your captain has an easy job, then your captain is doing a terrific job. Chance are a lot is going on behind the scenes to build that perception. If captaining looks hard from your perspective… it is.

The Gift of Gratitude for Tennis

On By Teresa Merklin

Heading into New Year’s Eve in 2021, I shared twelve “Gifts” that people can give to themselves to jumpstart their tennis life. Each item on that list is essentially a tennis related life hack shamelessly adapted from a cybersecurity career development webinar that I gave back in 2019. I am taking a more in depth look at each one of those items first Friday of each month this year. In February we are focusing on the “Gift” of Gratitude.

Making NTRP Tournaments Work

On By Teresa Merklin

NTRP tournaments are an important part of the adult tennis ecosystem. Implemented correctly, it is a developmental pipeline for players to improve their competitive level and potentially even advance to a level of performance that leads to participation in age-group Open events. At the same time, NTRP tournaments are a participation drain on Senior age group Open tournament play. This post outlines how NTRP tennis should be integrated into the USTA “unified” tournament framework to maximize the benefits while minimizing the downside. Spoiler alert: There is no perfect solution.

NTRP National Championships: You Want That Supersized?

On By Teresa Merklin

Conducting National Championships is woven into the very fiber of the USTA’s existence. When the organization was confronted with the problem of declining participation in tournaments and focused on increasing play at NTRP events, the most natural “solution” was creation of a National Championship. As soon as a tournament is designated as a “National Championship,” it is also almost a foregone conclusion that it will be Level 1 in the USTA framework. Unfortunately, that sequence of completely logical thought breaks the rankings pyramid and hurts the overall tournament ecosystem.

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NTRP vs Competitive Pathway

On By Teresa Merklin

USTA tennis tournaments are played under a 7 tier unified framework. As previously discussed on this site, unification between the Adult and Junior system pretty much stops past the description that the framework has 7 tiers. The USTA tournament regulations that govern Adult and Junior play are separate and distinctly different documents. There is also divergence between Adult age group tennis and the Adult NTRP tournament system even though they co-exist within the same regulations. When NTRP tournaments were layered in to the existing Adult age group open system, it created a square peg and round hole situation.

Tennis on Campus is not the Solution

On By Teresa Merklin

Tennis on Campus was started by the USTA in 2000 as a way to capture the thousands of former Junior tennis players who had moved onto college, but not onto one of the limited spots on their collegiate tennis team. The program is managed by the USTA in cooperation with the National Intramural-Recreational Sports Association. It was supposed to be an important mechanism to bridge former Junior players into Adult tennis.