Finding Value in a Local Tournament

Yesterday when writing about tournament entry fees, I mentioned that the Trophy Husband played in a local tournament at the Las Colinas Country Club last weekend. It was a “Level 6” USTA-sanctioned tournament which is targeted at players in the immediate area. Something very interesting happened at this tournament that landed it on my topic list for this weekend. The men’s 3.5 doubles division attracted 16 teams. That is a shockingly high level of participation for an L6 tournament.

As a point of comparison, the largest tournament each year should be the Level 4 (Closed) Texas Adult Sectionals. If the tournament ecosystem were healthy, the best players in the Section would flock to this tournament for a chance to be crowned as the individual Sectional Champion. In 2022, the Men’s 18+ division had 7 teams, 40+ garnered 5 teams, and 55+ included 8 teams. That is only 4 more than the local tournament in Las Colinas attracted last weekend.

It is an anomaly that the teams in this recent L6 played more matches than those who won the L4 Sectionals last year, but that is exactly what happened. The teams who reached the finals at Las Colinas last weekend received 4 matches in exchange for their entry fee. In contrast, the winners of the 18+ and 40+ draws at Sectionals only played 2 total matches en route to their Championship. The 55+ winners played 3 total matches.

This underscores a recurring theme on this site that artificial trifurcation of NTRP levels into age divisions decreases the value of playing in tournaments. Each player only received 2-3 matches in exchange for their travel and time. In fact, an examination of the playing field at the L4 Sectionals reveals that the vast majority of the entries came from players living within a 100-mile radius of the tournament site.

The 16 teams that entered the L6 Las Colinas tournament was an anomaly. That sparks the question as to why the tournament attracted so many entries. I asked the Trophy Husband, who is a widely acknowledged authority on Men’s 3.5 tennis in the metroplex area. (In addition to his tournament play, his name appears on 14 USTA League rosters for 2023. He is the captain of 9 of those teams, which isn’t even close to his personal record.)

The Trophy Husband’s theory on why so many teams rolled out for the L6 tournament is revealing. Last weekend was a rare event when there was almost no USTA League for 3.5 men in the DFW area. The exceptions were the players on the handful of teams who made the playoffs in Dallas and those that are playing on Mixed teams. Everyone else had absolutely nothing else on their tennis calendars.

Many of those free players sought out a tournament to play in the void. In fact, the L6 tournament placed 127 players into various draws.

Anyone who studies this particular tournament in an attempt to discover what they did to generate that level of participation won’t find an innovative marketing strategy. It is tempting to chalk up participation to the luxury of indoor courts. Certainly, that is a factor.

However, the Las Colinas Country Club conducts several L6 tournaments a year. The event they had between last Christmas and New Year’s attracted a similar number of entries to this recent July tournament. However, one that was held just last March attracted significantly fewer players.

The thing that the LCCC tournament organizers are doing “right” is scheduling their tournaments during weekends that are not dominated by local USTA League Play. This illustrates the potential impact of freeing up a little bit of space on the tennis calendar.