When the USTA unveiled the new Adult tournament framework, the word ONE was emphasized. The USTA information page uses ONE over and over. “ONE nationwide structure of tournaments. ONE nationwide points-per-round ranking system. ONE standing list.” Today’s topic deals with ONE problem with the way Round Robin ranking points are structured in the current regulations.
The following table is the single group Round Robin tournament in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System2 document currently in effect. (Email subscribers may have to view this post directly at fiendatcourt.com to see the image.)
Round Robin Math
For a player to win 4 rounds in a Round Robin tournament, they must be in a pool with 5 total players. The mental aspects about the game aside, a player cannot compete against themselves. In essence the points-per-round/points-per-win (PPR/PPW) table reveals the (bad) assumption that Round Robin brackets will usually have 5 players.
Even when there are 5 players, the PPR/PPW approach overlooks the fact that a 1st place tie is possible. Two players can finish a 5 person Round Robin with 3 wins and 1 loss. According to the PPR/PPW ranking table for a Level 1 tournament, they would each receive 2100 ranking points corresponding to a second place finish if an Order of Finish (OOF) based table was used.
However, one of the players would actually be the Champion per Round Robin tiebreak rules that exist to resolve such deadlocks. In fact, if both players had identical 3-1 records, the winner of the head to head match up should receive the points that the Champion of the tournament would receive. According to the PPR/PPW table they will not.
Five, Six, Pick up Sticks
I stumbled across a six competitor Round Robin in the Women’s 55+ Singles division at the Level 1 NTRP National Championship recently conducted in Pelham that illustrates how the PPR/PPW tables should work in a real life scenario.
| Player | W-L | Pos /OOF | Points (PPR/PPW) | Points (Actual) | Points (OOF) |
| Jeanie MacEachern | 4-1 | 2 | 3000 | 2100 | 2100 |
| Lynne Ruff | 0-5 | 6 | 0 | 1050 | 1050/0* |
| Catherine Harmon- Morgan | 5-0 | 1 | 3000 | 3000 | 3000 |
| Mary Samuel | 1-4 | 5 | 1500 | 1200 | 1200 |
| Diann Bolonchuk | 3-2 | 3 | 2100 | 1800 | 1800 |
| Barbara Friesen | 2-3 | 4 | 1800 | 1500 | 1500 |
If the USTA Ranking System was calculating ranking points in compliance with the current USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System2 points tables, the calculations would result in two players collecting 3000 ranking points for the tournament. That absurdity reveals a problem with the PPR/PPW approach.
However, the USTA is saved from that embarrassment by the fact that the rankings system software is clearly not using the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System table for this draw to calculate the points awarded. The actual point totals for the tournament were culled from the individual player records and recorded in the “Points (Actual)” column. Those points are distinctly different from the PPR/PPW column. The point totals should also be familiar to anyone who has kept up with the recent rankings points analysis on this site.
The final column in the table from Pelham is the points that would have been awarded to each player using an Order of Finish based approach with point values directly pulled from the FICQ point table that also appear in the current USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System2 document. An image of that source is pasted below for convenient reference.
The rankings point calculations from this bracket is the smoking gun that confirms that the ranking calculation software does not calculate single group Round Robins per the table specified in the current USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System2 regulations. Paradoxically, the rankings system software has what most players would consider to be the “correct” calculation.
I am sure the USTA is growing weary of me continuously stumbling on errors and discrepancies in the Adult Tournament Ranking System. The truth of the matter is that I am getting tired of it as well.
Round Robins in Practice
There is actually ONE more issue with the way the PPR/PPW Round Robin Tables are specified. In my experience, tournament directors elect to play a First Match Loser’s Consolation (FMLC) bracket the vast majority of the time when a tournament has 5 players.
That means that the players who compete in 4 person Round Robin tournaments (and 3 for that matter) would be shorted ranking points if the software was correctly calculating that per the specification.
Ultimately this all means we now have uncovered a “problem” with the rankings calculations that I hope the USTA doesn’t fix. I am not quite ready to make the declaration that we have now seen it all, but we are definitely trending in that direction.
Tomorrow’s planned topic is FMLC brackets. They are an interesting combination of OOF in the Front Draw and PPR/PPW in the back draw. Additionally, my views on how the FMLC format has a depressive effect on Adult Tournament participation may surprise some people.
- Adult Tournament Structure: Top Things to Know, USTA Web Page, viewed April 22, 2022.
- USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, as of February 2022, viewed April 22, 2022.
- Level 1: 2022 USTA NTRP National Championships Singles, viewed April 22, 2022.
Today’s banner photo is courtesy of Mary Samuel who was one of the competitors in the example Round Robin bracket from today.
