An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
Happy Father’s Day! To commemorate the annual celebration of fatherhood this year, I am sharing the story of the Trophy Husband. I hope that the Trophy Husband and all the other tennis playing dads out there enjoy their special day. By that I mean, please grill something for us before you head to the courts today.
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Yesterday I took a cut at creating a survey to collect data on player sentiment and preferences associated with the USTA tournament ranking system. The questions were designed in an attempt to collect useful data that might help as the USTA considers potential updates to the regulations. This post introduces that survey and shares my thought process. If you follow this site for the tennis related musings of an overthinking engineer… this content will resonate with you.
The email from the USTA contains a link and the following text: “Thank you for playing in the USTA National Women’s 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85 & 90 Clay Court Championships in March. Would you please take a moment and share your experience?” I didn’t complete my survey until this week because I actually got tripped up by one of the questions.
Before reading this book, if I had been asked to write a wikipedia-style biography of John Lloyd, it would start out something like this: “John Lloyd is a former professional tennis player who is best known for once being married to Chris Evert.” When Lloyd recently released this autobiography, my first thought was concern that it might be filled with sordid and salacious assertions about Chrissie in an attempt to cash in and sell more copies. As it turns out, those worries were completely unfounded.
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Ball mark inspection by the chair umpire only applies to tennis matches played on clay courts. Additionally, the rules stipulate the times when ball mark inspection is allowed to occur. The clay court inspection procedures also provide the foundational philosophy underpinning modern electronic line challenge systems.
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Tennis players are conditioned to think of tennis competition and practice in even numbers. Singles and doubles matches, and consequently drills, are typically designed for two or four players. One of the best practice session formats is actually three players on a court engaged in continuous rally using two on one court positions. All players should seriously consider adding two on one play to their training toolbox.
The tennis channel sets a new viewership record at the French Open and the “ombeleebable” revelation that this is the first time in history that Nadal has won the first two Majors of the year. Emma Raducanu releases a cute commercial with Dua Lipa.
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From my perspective, it is a pretty shortsighted argument that preventing a subset of players from participating creates opportunities for others. Fostering and encouraging participation should maximize the number of players that are engaged in tennis. Period.
The USTA National League Regulations contain some interesting requirements for players who advance to Championships on more than one team. The procedures are spelled out at both the Sectional and National level. Some Sections also allow Districts to create rules intended to encourage and foster league play at the local level.
The post “Ranking Points and Divisional Fragmentation” last Saturday, outlined how NTRP age divisions divides otherwise minimally viable draws completely out of existence. That post observed that ranking point fragmentation is yet another depressive factor in Adult tournament participation. I previously proposed that elimination of the NTRP age divisions could make an immediate positive difference. In the interim, I realized that there is another obvious “easy” way to mitigate the problem. The USTA should award ranking points in both the division entered as well as the division that was actually played for Adult and Family tournaments.