Once upon a time, USTA League captains were supposed to set their lineups according to the “order of strength” of the singles players and the doubles teams. The intent of that rule was to maximize the number of competitive matches that occurred when two teams met head to head. Unfortunately, that rule had gone by the wayside by the time I engaged with USTA League play almost a decade ago.
It is a great illustration of how players and captains respond to incentives that are placed before them. It is also a sad saga of how sometimes people are induced to behave in ways that are not consistent with the overall objectives of conducting USTA League in the first place. In fact, the inconsistencies are codified right into the USTA League Regulations.
The USTA League is a team competition for men, women and mixed genders at specified National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) levels of play. The purpose of the USTA League Program is to provide organized recreational play, emphasizing local competition, with advancement for winning teams from local competition to District/Area, Sectional and National Championships to determine annually USTA League National Championship teams in each approved level of competition
2024 USTA League Regulations, 1.04A
One of the purposes of USTA League is to provide organized recreational play. In the USTA’s own words, there is supposed to be an emphasis on local competition. People associated with USTA League, from the National level all the way down to the local coordinators, continuously extoll players to remember that USTA League is supposed to be fun. However, it is interesting to note that the word “fun” does not appear anywhere in the current USTA League Regulations. (Editorial note: I just made that discovery while writing this post. I am flabbergasted.)
If everyone were engaged in USTA League for organized recreational play with an emphasis on local competition, players and captains would insist on lineups that are arranged in the order of strength. Tennis is the most fun for everybody when the players are evenly matched. However, the USTA regulations immediately follow those two objectives by outlining advancement for winning.
Unfortunately, both players and the organization itself have gravitated to regard winning as the ultimate purpose of USTA League. In fact, when you visit the USTA League’s official informational pages, advancement to Sectionals and Nationals is front and center of the marketing to prospective players. Organized recreational play at the local level simply isn’t emphasized.
It is really no wonder that the order of strength rule went away. It was impossible to enforce. Additionally, team captains that arranged their lineups by order of strength were at a disadvantage against teams that flipped or stacked their lineups. In fact, playing “straight up” is something that is universally regarded as bad captaining.
A “good” USTA League captain should arrange their lineup to maximize their chances of winning the maximum number of lines. Frequently that results in a majority of matches that are not as competitive or close as the matches would have been had both teams played straight up. Of course, sometimes captains inadvertently stack directly into each other’s strengths, but the chances of that are not as high as when both teams are playing it straight.
It’s probably just another of my crazy ideas, but the tennis ecosystem would be better off if USTA League truly emphasized local recreational play and competition. It’s supposed to be fun. Unfortunately, the overemphasis and distraction of post-season advancement has caused everybody to take their eye off the ball.
- 2023 USTA League National Regulations, USTA Resource Document, May 31, 2023.
Is there a reason why you picked this photo for this article?
Yes, but not related to the topic. It is my only photo of Sarah who is moving away. For the most part, the photos I use for each post are decorations intended to complement the writing. They usually have little direct relevance. (BUT… it occurs to me that I may have the wrong Sarah who is moving away, in which case that is totally on brand for me.)
Many leagues are now set up with a scoring system that supports captains putting their best players in the #1 position with different point levels given — for a local 40 league the singles and #1 doubles are worth 5 points, the #2 position is worth 4 points and the #3 position worth 3 points. Also looking at some other teams looks like those are set for 3 points for line 1, 2 points for line 2, and 1 point for line 3.
I like that. The argument I have heard against that is (paradoxically) that the team with the best players will almost always win in that format. (Seriously!) This has been added to my future post list.
A couple of comments:
1) In my area there is a captain who season after season puts together “super-teams” comprised of alleged self-rated ringers and players who make the effort to keep themselves at a lower NTRP so they can go to sectionals season after season. If the other teams play the super-team straight-up, the outcome is a fait accompli. As in chess, sacraficing lines in hopes of winning the overall matchup is one tactic available to the other captains. Game theory will likely be applied to any contest once humans start keeping score.
2) Two of my recent doubles matches were quite lopsided in my team’s favor as the opponents were clearly only in the league to lose badly in hopes of getting bumped down to a lower level where they previously played on a team that would regularly go to sectionals. Incentives, perverse or otherwise, drive behavior.