The Texas Section is structured differently than most of the other USTA Sections. Rather than dividing its territory into Areas and Districts, the organization uses a unique “Qualified CTA” concept to determine which teams advance to the Sectional Championship. In 2020, the post “The @USTATexas Qualified CTAs” explained the structure and enumerated the 18 (or 19, depending on how it is counted) local leagues authorized to certify teams for its Sectional Championships.
The qualified CTA structure makes the stakes incredibly high for local league playoffs in Texas. Unlike other USTA Sections with a few layers of competition, these local playoffs are the only hurdle separating teams from advancing to the Sectional Championships. Every match in the playoffs is critical.
As the readership of this blog has grown, people sidling up to me with complaints, requests for advice, and sometimes pleas for help to fix perceived problems in the USTA competitive ecosystem have increased dramatically. Those inquiries don’t usually have a compelling enough story or interesting angle to justify a blog post. Quite frankly, I spend a lot of time pointing people at existing well-documented regulations or telling them why their bright ideas for fixing the competitive tennis ecosystem aren’t practical.
As a very real recurring example, every time a Sectional Championship is significantly impacted by rain, someone inevitably tells me that USTA Texas shouldn’t conduct the Sectional Championships in cities that don’t have enough indoor courts to cover that contingency. The simple fact is that no place in Texas has enough indoor courts for that. Additionally, even if that place existed, the members of the private clubs where most indoor courts are located are unwilling to turn those courts over to outsiders. Another hurdle to overcome is the cost of that court time, which isn’t cheap.
A somewhat related complaint arises every year when Texas conducts the 18+ League Sectional Championships, which is always in early August. While outdoor tennis in Texas is a year-round activity, August is one of the more challenging months. Temperatures frequently soar into triple digits regardless of where you are in the state. Last year, I broke down some of those complaints in “Hot Takes from 18+ USTA League Sectionals,” followed by “A Hot Take of My Own.”
The hot take I shared in that latter post was that the teams that performed best in the brutally hot conditions last year had recently completed their league season and playoffs during the summer heat. They were acclimated physiologically. Those teams also came to the Sectional Championships armed with recent experience and knowledge of how to equip themselves for the heat. It was a competitive advantage.
The Dallas Tennis Association (DTA) is a qualified CTA in Texas that conducts its 18+ Local League starting in mid-April and running through the end of June. The playoffs follow a couple of weeks later in mid-July. In the event of rain during the last scheduled matches of the regular season, some calendar space is required for teams to coordinate and conduct any make-up matches. By the time the DTA City Championships are held, the organization is already right against the deadline to certify which teams advanced to Sectionals which is played in early August in Texas.
Consequently, when rain impacts the DTA City Championships, rescheduling for an alternative weekend isn’t an option, as is sometimes done in other areas. Additionally, for divisions with a lot of teams and multiple flights, it isn’t always clear who the best team is since the teams in the playoffs didn’t compete head-to-head before that weekend. Advancing the regular season champion isn’t an option in multiple flighted divisions.
Fortunately, it doesn’t rain very frequently in Dallas in July. However, this year, it did. That created one very interesting contingency scenario that illustrates the need to anticipate unexpected events and to create detailed contingency plans well in advance. This episode also highlights the need for transparency to build confidence that decisions were made equitably and fair when unexpected circumstances arise.
