The Tennis Docket: December 20, 2021
A great article by Jon Wertheim on how the WTA has responded to the Peng Shuai situation is the lead story from the weekly roundup. A collection of eclectic stories round out the week.
Adult and Junior Tournaments: Distant Cousins in the USTA Family Tree
USTA is a massive non-profit organization with a certain number of full time paid staff. However, most of the the work is largely performed by a cadre of volunteers grouped into numerous committees. Yesterday I wrote about differences between the Adult and Junior tennis tournament Regulations and Ranking procedures. The origins for that divergence can be traced directly to the USTA organization structure for the committees that own those documents.
Surprising? Differences in a “Unified” System
There are striking differences between USTA Adult and Junior tournament regulations. The same can be said about the respective ranking systems. Over the past couple of months, I have written a lot about errors and inconsistencies in the USTA Adult regulations and ranking system. In the background, I frequently reference the equivalent documentation that governs Junior competition for additional insight and perspective. The fact that the Adult and Junior documents are vastly different is immediately apparent even on casual review. The fundamental question is this: Should those differences exist?
Updating USTA Regulations, Schoolhouse Rock Style
Last Sunday I described a request I made to the USTA Adult Competition Committee to update the glossary in the USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, and Sanctioning Regulations. Today I want to step through the process for how that actually occurs. To keep this topic from being as boring as it… Well, actually is… I am going to unapologetically leverage the linguistic style of the Schoolhouse Rock classic, “I’m just a Bill.”
How to Change USTA Regulations
Yesterday I described an ambiguity in the USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking & Sanctioning Regulations document that impacts how ranking points are awarded at tournaments. This has prompted me to explore the process for proposing updates to that document. The specific change will be a clarification of how rankings points are assigned for players/teams that do not win a match in Round Robin pool play. Like any good bureaucracy, the USTA has a process for updating their regulations.
2 responsesPoints Per Round and Rankings
Last weekend the post “Points Illustrated: An Example of Rankings Inequities,” contained an example where a winless team was awarded 615 ranking points in a Level 4 round robin bracket. In the USTA legacy digital platform, players had to win a match in a tournament to receive anything more than participation points for the event. The fact that the new digital platform awarded those points is a great backdrop for exploring what the USTA regulations actually say.
1 responseTennis Champions: The Gift of Tennis
The December challenge for the USTA Champions Program is to donate two tennis “Quick Start” kits to promote tennis in the local community. After exploring my options in the Wichita Falls area, I decided to donate the sets to the Angel Tree operated by the Salvation Army.
2 responsesErrors in Order of Finish
There is an error in how the new USTA Digital Platform calculates order of finish in Round Robin pools. I stumbled across it when building the comparison data set used in yesterday’s post. I deferred talking about it until today because it is an issue that merits dedicated attention.
1 responsePoints Illustrated: An Example of Rankings Inequities
In “When a USTA Level 4 Tournament… Isn’t” three weeks ago, I repeatedly emphasized the phrase: “The draw format of a tournament should not materially alter the rankings point allocation for the players.” The reason for belaboring that foundational truth is that it is key to understanding the ongoing player frustration over the USTA tournament rankings points allocations. In the intervening time, I continue to wonder if the policy makers have fully accepted or internalized that feedback. Perhaps an example will help.
My Most Epic Point Donation
In the spirit of the holiday season, my mind inevitably turns to all the gifts I have bestowed on my opponents this year on the court. Nobody likes to give away free points, but almost all of us do from time to time. Usually those donated points are mundane affairs, double faults, missed sitters, and poor shot selection based on nothing other than absence of concentration. All of those dot my personal competitive landscape. However, across the myriad of points I have donated over the years, one stand out above all others. I remember it like it was yesterday.