I have recently been brainstorming things that could be done within my home Section to better promote Adult age-group open tennis. One of my better ideas is a team based Sectional Championship between various regions of Texas. Team based competition inspires players to recruit others in their orbit who can play age-group competitive tennis but aren’t currently engaged in that part of the USTA tennis ecosystem.
“The Texas Cup” isn’t exactly an original idea. The USTA Southern Section holds a similar event that used to be known as the “Southern Senior Cup” but was recently renamed to the “Callen Cup.” In that tournament, each state in the Section forms teams for both men and women at 35s, 45s, 55s, 65s, and 75s. Southern uses two lines of singles and one line of doubles in that competition, but I think the format is negotiable.
One obvious challenge for Texas is how to determine the regions for each team. The Section doesn’t have the convenient state boundaries that Southern enjoys. In fact, the “Texas” Section doesn’t even include all players in the state. El Paso residents live in the Southwest Section, and Texarkana residents are in the Southern Section.
As a thought exercise on how to construct equitable regional teams, the following is a first cut of groupings including the larger cities. If this idea was ever to be advanced forward, someone would eventually have to draw a map with some hard boundaries.
- Panhandle: Amarillo, Lubbock, Wichita Falls.
- West Texas: Abilene, San Angelo, Big Spring, Midland, Odessa.
- Capital Area: Austin, San Marcos, Waco
- Alamo Area: San Antonio, New Braunfels
- South Texas: Corpus Christi, McAllen, Brownsville
- North Houston: Houston north of I-10
- South Houston: Houston south of I-10, Galveston
- East Texas: Tyler, Longview, College Station, Beaumont
- Dallas Area: Dallas and surrounding suburbs.
- Cowtown: Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs.
- Arkansas (+Texarkana)
- New Mexico (+El Paso)
There are a lot of other challenges that would have to be solved to implement this idea. That would include a host venue and where to insert such an event into the already overcrowded tennis calendar. It would take a lot of work.
I continue to contemplate mechanisms that might help revitalize age group tennis within the Texas Section. A team based competition would probably pull some players back into that ecosystem. I am wide open to any and all ideas for accomplishing that effect.
