Less Tennis… Less Points

I have spent my entire professional career architecting, designing, developing, and (most recently) breaking into systems. That experience has galvanized my belief that good designs are guided by an accepted set of principles. That practice helps people working on a project consistently distinguish good solutions from genuinely bad ideas.

The design of a tennis tournament rankings system should similarly be guided by overarching principles that are used as a basis for all decisions. I have written about two particular design principles that I hold to be self-evident foundations of an effective rankings point system for tennis.

1. The format of the draw selected by tournament organizers should not materially alter the rankings points earned for relative performance in the event.
2. Players should not be penalized for receiving byes when rankings points are calculated for tournament performance.

These principles should be accepted as the foundational guiding ideas underpinning the design of a good ranking system. Any calculation that violates those principles should be automatically flagged as problematic and rejected. That isn’t happening, which leads me to wonder what foundational guiding principles are actually being used, if any.

Revealing Inconsistencies

The rankings points awarded following the 18+ Women’s 4.5 Doubles division following the 2023 USTA NTRP National Championships illustrate the violation of both of these principles as outlined above.

The table at the bottom of this post lists the performance of each team in the tournament expressed in the Order of Finish (OOF) position. The middle column of that table contains the rankings points that each team was officially awarded. The “FIC OOF Pts” column reflects the number of points that would have been awarded for the equivalent performance had a Feed In Consolation (FIC) bracket been used. The final column is the difference between the points expected versus the points received.

I should also note that participation points are excluded from that table for the sake of simplicity.

With the exception of the winning team, every single player in this division of the tournament received fewer points than logically should have been awarded for a Level 1 Tournament. In fact, there is a precipitous drop off starting with the second place position. That is a violation of principle #1 identified above.

I believe the software performs the rankings calculations consistently with what is documented in the 2023 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System. The fundamental problem is a series of philosophical errors embedded in the rankings system document itself.

Breaking down the 18+ Women’s 4.5 Doubles division reveals the mathematical gyrations that the designer of the “Round Robin Preliminary Rounds & SE Draw of 4 Playoff” rankings point table performed in an attempt to have the numbers make sense. It also reveals another potential “guiding principle” that is leading the overall effort astray.

The value of each match won in a preliminary Round Robin pool at a Level 1 tournament is worth 231 points. The maximum number of points that can be won at this initial stage is capped at 693. That means that there is an underlying assumption that four teams will be in each of these preliminary groups.

However, one of the pools at this event had only three teams. Each one of those teams was penalized for receiving that “bye” during the Round Robin stage. This is a violation of principle #2 above. One team also received a “bye” in the bracket stage and was similarly penalized.

Examining the point calculations for the Champions (Elliott and Fain) is illuminating. They went undefeated in the preliminary Round Robin stage and earned the maximum points of 693. That slotted them into the Champions bracket, where each win is worth 1154 points. Since they won both rounds, 693 + 1154 + 1154 yields a total of 3001 points. A little more math reveals that this is one more point than they should have received for winning a Level 1 tournament which is worth 3000 points.

“Fudge factor” is the engineering term for the “fix” the USTA has used to address that obvious problem. The “Max Points” in the USTA’s rankings table for this situation caps the points earned in the secondary stage at 2307 rather than 1154 + 1154. Everyone should agree that a team should not earn more than the maximum number of rankings points for winning the tournament.

Reverse engineering the Round Robin Ranking point tables in the 2023 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System reveals another guiding principle that is probably in place. It is a “points per round” philosophy, where every match in each stage is worth the same number of points. It is readily apparent in the implementation of these tables.

Unfortunately, that makes it impossible for the rankings points totals to align with the much more mature and well-established tables for bracketed tournaments. Using a “points per round” approach is like trying to use algebra to solve a calculus problem. The “Max Points” fudge factor can make it appear that the calculations are somewhat working, but it is an illusion.

I don’t know why someone apparently decided that points per round is a good approach in the first place. It is even more befuddling that the gyrations to “fix” the issues that have emerged, have yet to lead the organization to the obvious conclusion that another approach should be considered.

There is a better way.

I have previously written about these problems, and I do see some progress. “Excuse Me- Your Points-Per-Round is Showing” outlined why a strict OOF approach is needed for single pool Round Robin tournaments. Indeed, that is the solution currently implemented in the 2023 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System document for that draw format.

An even earlier take from “The Fix is In: Repairing the USTA Tournament Points Allocation Tables” outlined a very simple and elegant approach for using a single master table that defines rankings points based on the Order of Finish. That approach makes it impossible for ranking points inconsistencies between draw formats to occur. In fact, the minimization of inconsistencies is another potential overarching design principle to consider adopting.

The USTA has revised the values of the rankings points for each tournament Level since those original posts. However, those changes reinforce rather than negate the validity of the approach. It illustrates how much easier it would be to make consistent adjustments to the point tables without perturbing the entire system.

Why It Matters

Due to the steep discount in ranking points, people will quickly come to the realization that there is potentially more value in playing lower Level tournaments close to home. For example, I earned 351 ranking points for finishing 5th in that Level 1 National Tournament. Had I stayed home and won a local Level 6 tournament, I would have earned 450 points.

Additionally, a few players in the draw effectively earned no rankings points at this Level 1 tournament because their point total was below their top 5 tournaments over the past 12 months. That includes at least two players who finished quite high in the final tournament standings.

Players might consider ranking points when deciding whether to buy a plane ticket and travel to a Level 1 tournament. For me, the amount of potential matchplay and the quality of the competition are both primary considerations. Cost and time also factor in. I assume that other players make similar calculations as they decide if they are going to enter a tournament or not.

Getting the rankings points wrong potentially creates a negative perception that might impact future playing decisions. It also undermines the credibility and prestige of the NTRP National Championships. If this tournament is truly a marquee event that every player should be striving to play in, then excellence across the board is required.

I have historically been a proponent of the two-stage tournament with a preliminary Round Robin followed by a Championship bracket. My support was driven primarily because Texas used that format with success in the highly prestigious “Masters” Championships for many years.

Due to continuous issues with the USTA Rankings Tables applied to that format, USTA Texas went to a Compass draw last year. Coincidently, that Section has a highly sophisticated tournament culture. Consequently, I think that the decision to move away from the very popular traditional format for that event is telling.

I fundamentally believe that it is possible to fix the ranking point tables associated with the two-stage tournament format. However, if the USTA doesn’t have the fortitude to do that, then perhaps the best alternative is to discard it altogether.

One idea to consider for the 2024 USTA NTRP National Championships is to conduct the event as a FICQ draw. To provide teams with a third match, a voluntary second chance consolation bracket could be conducted for teams that lose their first two matches. I wouldn’t even mind Fast4 (with Coman) under those conditions.

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OOF	Team	Pts	FIC OOF Pts	Dif
1	ELLIOTT FAIN	3000	3000	0
2	KIRSCHENBAUM SMITH	1616	2100	-484
3 (Bye)	FLOWERS ROGHAIR	924	1800	-876
4	REMEZA LOMBARDO	693	1500	-576
5 (Bye)	MERKLIN VUTAM	351	1200	-849
6	PEDERSEN MATHIESEN	522	1050	-528
7/8	FORTNER FULLUM-CAMPBELL	462	900	-438
7/8	DAVIS BLAIR	462	900	-438
9 (Bye)	BERRY FRISZ	321	750	-429
10	STEPHENS WIDJAJA	276	750	-474
11/12	CAMPBELL WAWRZYNIAK	231	750	-519
11/12	WANG SCHULER	231	750	-519
13 (Bye)	CHAU TRAN	30	600	-570
14	CHANG BECKER	261	600	-339
15	HOLLOWAY HART	0	600	(WD-PC)

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• 2023 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, USTA hosted document, last viewed April 28, 2023.