End-of-season championships are a fun and exciting culmination of a competitive season. In tennis, both the ATP and WTA professional tours conduct an end-of-year Championship tournament. At the recreational level, the USTA Texas “Masters” tournament served that same purpose. In both cases, a large number of players vie for a limited number of spots in a prestigious event. When the USTA created the NTRP National Championships, it was an effort to recreate that same effect for NTRP tournaments. It was intended to work as an incentive to increase grassroots play.
However, the calendar has proved to be an extremely tough constraint that prevents the NTRP National Championships from operating like other prominent examples of end-of-season tournaments. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that three calendars have strongly influenced the current implementation of that event.
For the WTA and the ATP tours, the end-of-season Championships occur —follow me closely on this — at the end of the season. For the professionals, the selected dates are usually in early November. Not coincidently, the Texas Masters is always conducted over the last weekend in October.
That same timeframe would seem to be ideal for the NTRP National Championships. Unfortunately, those dates conflicted with the USTA League calendar. The first two weeks in November are when the Mixed Doubles National Championships occur. Consequently, that was probably quickly dismissed because those spots on the USTA calendar are already “taken.”
This is where the annual calendar likely exerted some influence as well. Conventional wisdom might suggest that conducting the NTRP National Championships later in November or December isn’t great either. That would wedge it into the holiday season when it might be difficult for people to travel due to family obligations and social considerations.
Weather was undoubtedly a factor for why the NTRP National Championships weren’t initially set for early in the next calendar year. Those dates would also conflicts with Tri-Level Sectionals in many Sections. In the inaugural year of the event, a USTA National staffer told me that April was selected to allow the players in colder climates a chance to shake the rust off before competing at Nationals after not being able to play all winter.
The third calendar that has been a challenge to the NTRP National Championships is the ratings cycle itself. According to the USTA, updates are usually released sometime in December. However, the actual date has consistently been at the end of November in recent years. This introduced a lengthy gap between the time when NTRP ratings are adjusted and the NTRP National Championship tournament. That turned out to be a problem.
That time gap and subsequent consternation in the playing community is what ultimately led to some of the rules gyrations in player eligibility, qualification criteria, and the selection into that event. Unfortunately, the reality is that tournament players will be living with the current rules for a long time. At this point, there isn’t a very good way to unwind what has been done.
However, once upon a time, there was a much better solution.
The NTRP National Championships should have been installed on the calendar for the first two weekends after Thanksgiving. That would have constrained the tournament to warm-weather regions, but that is the only place where the tournaments are conducted anyway. If the tournament was placed at that spot on the calendar that aligns with the NTRP ratings cycle, then all the other problems that led to the recent rule gyrations simply fall away.
You don’t see any other sport conducting a playing season and then waiting until the next season has started to hold playoffs and National Championships. If other sports followed that model, the Superbowl would be in October, and the World Series would be in June. It’s absurd, but that is basically what we’re doing with the NTRP National Championships.
What a wonderful world it would be had the end-of-season USTA NTRP National Championships been initially locked into the calendar where they should actually be — at the end of the ratings season.
The tyranny of the calendar is real.
