USTA tennis tournaments usually (but not always) list a phone number and an email address for contacting the director. Unfortunately, those two methods are a bit antiquated per modern digital communication standards. The organization is apparently aware of this as an outgoing text message function was recently added to the tournament platform. Perhaps now is the time to go “all in” to improve things that frequently occur during tournaments.
As a case study, consider what currently happens when a player needs to withdraw from a USTA tournament. The player must email or call to inform the director of their intent. This creates opportunities for communication breakdowns. In fact, the Cotton Bowl Tournament in Dallas last December had numerous examples that illustrate what can go wrong.
We had first-hand experience with this as the Trophy Husband was forced to withdraw from the tournament the day before it began due to illness. He selected the email option because it creates an electronic “paper trail” should there be any later discrepancy. The Trophy Husband’s withdrawal email received a prompt reply from the tournament director confirming that his withdrawal was received. Or so we thought.
The following afternoon, shortly after his match was originally scheduled, the Trophy Husband received a text from a friend onsite that the tournament desk was looking for him. As it turns out, neither the site director nor his opponent was informed of his withdrawal. It wasn’t reflected on the online draw sheets either. His first-round opponents were on site and ready to play.
To compound matters, even after the Trophy Husband called the tournament director to remind him that he would not be playing, his subsequent matches in the Round Robin were not marked as withdrawn either. Fortunately his opponents the following day noted the first-round withdrawal and reached out through a mutual friend to see if he was intending to play the second match the following day. He was not.
His scheduled opponents for that second-round match were from out of town and did not have another match until the following afternoon. Had they failed to notice the withdrawal and not followed up, they would have traveled a day earlier and spent an extra night in a hotel unnecessarily. That is kind of a big deal.
Additionally, this was not an isolated incident during this tournament. One of my friends in the Women’s Open draw took a day of vacation to sit around her site waiting for another player that withdrew earlier in the week. This was a chronic communication issue for this particular tournament.
One way to look at this specific instance is that there is a need for the USTA to better train tournament directors to quickly and efficiently process player withdrawals as they are received. However, this is a perfect opportunity to take a step back to examine how digital technology can be used to prevent this problem entirely. There is a solution that solves this kind of communication issue and reduces the workload on tournament organizers, as a bonus.
The USTA digital platform should have a mechanism for players to directly withdraw from tournaments.
Players shouldn’t have to send an email or make a phone call to a tournament director that may or may not efficiently follow up. There should be a button on the tournament page for players to automatically withdraw.
One possible implementation would be a two-stage process with a menu or dialog button for a player to initiate the process of dropping out. For security and to thwart “fat finger” errors, the first step should generate a secondary confirmation stage. The withdrawing player could select if they want a confirmation link sent via text or email to finalize their withdrawal.
This is where the power of leveraging digital technology kicks in. The USTA’s tournament system should immediately and automatically send confirmation texts and emails. The tournament director and the player’s next scheduled opponents should also be automatically notified. Additionally, the withdrawal should be instantly reflected on the online draws.
There are scenarios in which a player withdraws in the first round yet wants to continue with subsequent matches. In fact, that very thing recently occurred at the Texas Masters. In recognition of that, this system would have to have a way for the player to designate if a withdrawal was for a single match, a complete draw, or the entire tournament.
Had this mechanism been in place during the 2022 Dallas Cotton Bowl tournament, numerous communications issues processing withdrawals would have been completely eliminated. As a reminder, one of the USTA’s strategic objectives is to “Build and optimize best-in-class digital infrastructure.”
There is an opportunity to do better.
