NTRP National Championships: You Want That Supersized?

Fiend At Court Unplugged

Conducting National Championships is woven into the very fiber of the USTA’s existence. When the organization was confronted with the problem of declining participation in tournaments and focused on increasing play at NTRP events, the most natural “solution” was creation of a National Championship. As soon as a tournament is designated as a “National Championship,” it is also almost a foregone conclusion that it will be Level 1 in the USTA framework. Unfortunately, that sequence of completely logical thought breaks the rankings pyramid and hurts the overall tournament ecosystem.

The USTA “unified” Adult and Junior tournament framework consists of 7 tiers. Level 1 is the pinnacle of competition with the very best players and the most ranking points at stake. When constructed properly, the 7 tier system is a pyramid. There should be a lot of tournaments at the local level and significantly fewer events from tier to tier at the upper levels. At the same time, the rankings points available at each level rises.

The USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, and Sanctioning Regulations reflects a vague understanding of that principle. It is evidenced by “guidelines” for how many tournaments should generally be sanctioned at each level. For the NTRP tournaments, there is a gap in the pyramid in addition to the issues created by a nonbinding guideline rather than a hard limit.

The following table is a summary of the number of Adult NTRP tournaments conducted in 2021 where the gap is apparent.

Tournament Level	Total Number of Events
1	1
2	0
3	0
4	45
5	188
6	364
7	86

Represented graphically, that table does not resemble a pyramid in the least bit. In fact, it conceptually looks like is a pear with a flag stuck into the top. It is emblematic of a broken system.

The gap between the NTRP National Championships and the rest of the tournaments is a rankings and competitive equity problem for the USTA. A player who performs well at the NTRP National Championship is not guaranteed to get bumped up an NTRP level the following year. In fact, examining the records of players from my local Section shows low correlation between performance at that tournament and a rise in NTRP computer rating.

The winner of the NTRP National Championship receives 3000 ranking points for the performance. Since there are no tournaments at Level 2 and 3, performing well at the Level 1 tournament creates an oversized points advantage that is virtually insurmountable for players who may not have even had a chance to play in the event.

Speaking strictly in terms of rankings points, in the current USTA tournament point tables winning a Level 1 tournament is equivalent to winning two Level 4 tournaments. The net result is that players who perform well at the NTRP National Championships enjoy a significant rankings advantage.

While more rankings points is an inherent part of the 7 tier mechanism, when there is a gap in the tiers, the points that advantage is super-sized.

When high performing NTRP National Championship players do not get bumped up the next year, it exposes the flaws in the system. Many Sections use year-end USTA rankings to determine who will receive the NTRP National Championship endorsement(s) allocated to their section for the subsequent year. In other words, a player who performs well at the NTRP National Championships is almost guaranteed to receive an endorsement the following year when rankings are the criteria.

That practice can essentially shut new players out of the process and it won’t be long before people put pencil to paper and realize that they don’t have a realistic chance at overcoming a player who has an oversized points advantage from NTRP Nationals. That creates the player perception that the system isn’t fair and can disincentivize players from competing at all.

Who Cares?

Players that walk away from the tennis ecosystem may never return. “Better luck next year” is not an appropriate response. It is fundamental to any competitive pathway that players have an opportunity to play their way into the top tier of competition. Anything else is simply not equitable.

USTA Texas understood that when the elite “Masters” championships was implemented in that Section. Prior to the implementation of the “unified” USTA National Framework, selection to the Texas Masters was based on a selection list that excluded performance at the Masters. That effectively made the Masters the culmination of a year well played. Qualifying for the next years event started the weekend after the Masters was conducted.

USTA National Rankings matter greatly because some sections base selection to the NTRP National Championships strictly off the rankings list. The Sections are also prohibited from creating their own rankings lists which some have interpreted as an inability to create a “Selection List” that omits NTRP National Championship performance from the calculation.

The USTA can fix the problem with a stroke of a pen. The NTRP National Championships should not have any rankings points assigned or awarded. Qualifying for Nationals and playing the event is enough reward to incentivize players to play. The system should not favor those players for selection in subsequent years.

A way to summarize my own well documented personal outlook on the NTRP National Championships is that it is absurd to crown a National Champion at any NTRP level. Players who are outperforming their peers at one level simply should move up to the next. That is how the NTRP system was designed to work.

This blog has many posts where I have essentially outlined why I personally believe that the NTRP National Championship is metaphorically pointless. To solve the problem it creates in the tennis ecosystem, the USTA should make the NTRP National Championship literally pointless.

People will still pursue the endorsements and play the event. I promise.

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1. USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking & Sanctioning Regulations, Adopted May 14, 2020 and Amended December 2020.
2. 2021 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System,