The USTA recently announced changes to the NTRP National Championships for 2024. Buried in the email blast announcement and information pages is something that I have been lobbying for ever since I launched this site. In fact, I posted about the topic on the predecessor of this blog, bleepingtennis.com, even before that.
So forgive me for cueing the drum roll and looking up in anticipation of a confetti drop and the “ta-da” trumpet sound effect.
The USTA has announced that starting in 2024, NTRP Nationals will use a standard tie-break game, first to seven, and win by two. However, there is still room for confusion. Perhaps I am overthinking the USTA’s announcement, but it seems significant that the word “standard” is used rather than Coman.
USTA League exclusively uses the Coman tie-break game. In Texas, NTRP tournaments also use that format. I am unsure what the other Sections do, but I suspect that playing the event using the standard tie-break game will be a first for some competitors. At least the USTA umpires will have an unambiguous procedure for the format outlined in the Friend at Court when questions arise.
One of the other changes for 2024 is the addition of 18+ mixed doubles at all NTRP levels. That could get interesting because the tie-break game will be played at 3-3. Assuming that the guys both serve first in each set and hold, that makes the single service game by each of the women supercritical.
Additionally, on a sunny day, a righty-lefty combination could be forced to decide between both players serving into the sun or rolling the dice and having the woman serve first. That decision has always been on the table in same-gendered doubles. However, in my experience, the difference between the stronger and weaker server isn’t typically as pronounced as it can be in mixed.
Still, I am so happy about the standard tiebreak decision that I won’t start lobbying for it to be played at 4-4 rather than 3-3… yet.
- About NTRP National Championships, USTA Informational Page, viewed August 16, 2023.
- Friend at Court: The Handbook of Tennis Rules and Regulations, USTA, 2023
Can you confirm if they changed the rule so players who are bumped up at the end of the year cannot compete in the nationals the following January at their previous NTRP level? I believe this has caused some contention in the past.
That’s exactly the change. Say the top-ranked player in a Section or a winner of an AQ tournament at 3.5 gets bumped up to 4.0 at the end of the year. They cannot play 3.5 the NTRP Nationals the following spring they qualified for the previous year.
The weirdness is that the USTA WILL still honor their qualification for the 4.0 division. So a player could win a 3.5 AQ and then go to NTRP Nationals at 4.0. The USTA doesn’t want to deny National endorsements to the players that “earned” them. However, this seems whacked to me.