After my examination of the rankings points issues from the Men’s 3.0 brackets at the USTA National 18+ NTRP Singles Championships, I had planned to dig around other brackets to see if previously reported issues with the rankings points awarded had been resolved. I kind of already knew the answer and it didn’t take long to find more illuminating examples.
More Points, Less Tennis
I pleasantly surprised to find that four people entered Women’s 5.0 in the tournament and that the division was conducted. The competitors were placed into a single round robin pool to decide the Championship. Jessica Widmark of Los Angeles California went 3-0 in her matches and was awarded 3000 rankings points and 30 participation points for that achievement.
That is precisely the number of rankings points she should have received. It is also 783 more points than Rene Dipus was awarded for winning the Men’s 3.0 Championship in the same tournament as detailed yesterday. To make matters worse, Rene won two more matches than Jessica did in winning his title. Again that somehow is worth fewer rankings points.
The draw format should not materially alter the number of rankings points that players earn for winning the Championship in a tournament, but it does. This is another case where the rankings software performed the calculations correctly, but the points tables in the USTA regulations document are flawed.
Lots of Points for Losing
Another player in the Women’s 5.0 Round Robin Pool was Farrah Northcott from Yorba Linda, California. She went 0-3 in the round robin. She received 1500 rankings points and 30 participation points without winning a match. That isn’t supposed to happen. However, the USTA Regulations are not crystal clear on that point. It is kind of hard to hang this one on the software as well.
My post “How to Change USTA Regulations” describe this issue along with proposed updates I submitted to the USTA Adult Competition committee (ACC) that would eliminate the ambiguity. I have heard nothing back from that submission. Perhaps I missed the cutoff for 2022.
As a point of contrast, Gary Peterson from Phoenix Arizona went winless in both the preliminary round robin bracket as well as the consolation draw in the Men’s 3.0 division. He only received 30 participation points while playing (and losing) more matches than Farrah lost for in route to her winless 1500. That’s quite a discrepancy and a competitive inequity.
The Curious Case of Men’s 5.0
9 players competed in the men’s 5.0 division in the tournament. I would have expected there to be 3 preliminary round robin pools each with three players. However, Pool #1 had 4, Pool #2 had 3, and Pool #3 had 2 players.
My best guess is that there was a tenth player that withdrew from Pool #3. Probably it would have been better to leave that player in the draw or to redraw the pools. I wish there was a mechanism for the referee to post public notes on these draws to communicate what precipitated this and other similar unusual circumstances.
Rob Knight from Los Angeles California was the winner of the Men’s 5.0 division. Interestingly, his rankings point totals took me on an unexpected detour through the bizarre. Rob only played two matches in the preliminary round robin pool, each worth 231 points. He won them both and should have had a total of 462 points from that phase.
Rob Knight also won the two matches he played in the Championship bracket. Each of those wins were worth 762 points for a total of 1524. I had expected to see 1985 total rankings points for his performance and was gearing up to compare it with the point totals for some of the other Champions discussed yesterday and today. However, my calculations of his point totals do not reflect what he was awarded for the tournament.
Rob Knight received 2629 rankings points for his performance at the tournament. One interesting discrepancy apparent on further inspection of his rankings history is that he played an “extra” Championship finals match that does not appear on the tournament page. That match was against another player who was not in the championship bracket at all.
The extra match in the Championship draw put him against the maximum point cap for that phase of 2307 points. That makes the math work out on the points that he was awarded.
I can only speculate on this one. It appears that there was a manual override to create an extra match. I have no idea why that would be allowed under any circumstances. I also do not understand how it shows up in the rankings data but not on the tournament page. The phantom match is a mystery to me.
Finishing Shots
I am convinced that I could dig through the results from the tournament to come up with an example of a player winning the Championship and receiving less points than the player they vanquished in the finals. That would be belabor a point that I think is already well made.
There is an issue with the points tables that create inequities in the rankings point tables for some tournament formats. The USTA needs to update the USTA Adult Tournaments Rankings Systems to correct those problems. Tournament organizers would be wise to avoid those draw formats until that occurs.
- USTA National 18+ NTRP Singles Championships, April 1-3 2022, Surprise, AZ.
- 2021 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, USTA Resource, effective January 1, 2022, viewed April 8, 2022.
Today’s banner photo was provided courtesy of Caleb Canter who shared this photo from NTRP Nationals on the Traveling Circus Facebook page after I mentioned that I needed photos from that event on my site.
In the third paragraph, in the phrase, “783 more points that Rene Dipus was awarded”, I think “that” should be “than”.
In the third paragraph of the Men’s 5.0 section, I think the math is wrong in this section, “Rob only played two matches in the preliminary round robin pool, each worth 231 points. He won them both and should have had a total of 461 points from that phase.” The total points should be 462 not 461.
Thanks for pointing out these problems with the points. I hope the USTA will begin paying attention.
Thanks! I have made those corrections.