An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
Rankings points matter for more than just the position where a tennis player’s name appears in a list. Sometimes rankings points translate to selection to play in nationally and internationally significant events. That incentive is most pronounced in the upper echelons, but it has also been replicated at the sectional level for NTRP levels in the USTA Texas Section.
This is the second of a two part series on the draw formats that are available to USTA tennis tournament organizers under the new consolidated framework for 2021. Yesterday I introduced the table and described the Round Robin and Round Robin with Playoff formats. Today I am describing the remaining options that are available to tournament organizers.
For the next two days I will be describing the potential draw formats players might encounter across all levels of USTA tournaments. The first step was to create a matrix that more clearly illustrated the options available at each level. It is easier for me to note the difference between the various levels in that format.
Every year I tell myself that this is the time that I am finally going to play the Cat 1 National Grass Court Championships at Forrest Hills. Playing that tournament is on my surprisingly short — and unsurprisingly tennis-dominated — bucket list. In 2020, I didn’t get to go to Forrest Hills due to the global pandemic. I am going to chalk that one up to fate.
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Yesterday I described some of the factors that brought me to enter many of the Cat 1 tournaments that I have entered. Today I am enumerating the reasons that I don’t play a full state of Cat 1 tournaments every year. In what may be the most shocking revelation of this site to date, I have a life outside of tennis.
2020 was supposed to be a banner year for me in terms of playing Cat 1 Senior Women’s National Championships. I was already entered in two events, and one of my personal goals was to play at one, if not both, of the National Grass Court Championships. Stupid pandemic.
The pinnacle of my return to tennis has been the opportunity to participate in Category 1 National Championships. Competing at that level is an amazing experience. The atmosphere and camaraderie at these events is everything tennis should be.
This weekends Fiend at Court Unplugged series was prompted by an inquiry from the National Women’s Tennis Organization (NWTO). The specific ask was for information and suggestions from former junior players, who stepped away from the sport but returned after an extended absence.
Yesterday I traced through the improbable events that brought me back to the immediate proximity of tennis. The junior tennis career of the umpire I gave birth to brought me into regular contact with tennis and tennis facilities. However, watching tennis is not the same as playing tennis. Today we examine the next leg of the journey.
I am a lifetime member of the National Women’s Tennis Organization (NWTO). Until very recently, that organization was known as the National Women’s Senior Tennis Association. As it turns out the use of the word “Senior” was confusing or possibly off-putting to some of the organization’s prospective members. “Senior” tennis starts at a much younger age than people generally expect.