An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
The USTA sent an email out to a subset of adult members this week announcing the publication of Adult and Senior “Shadow Rankings” for 2020. These rankings lists are being used to give players a feel for how the new system will work. At the same time the USTA is using these rankings to evaluate whether there should be any changes to the rankings tables across the 7 Levels tournament framework.
Earlier this week, a player posted an image of a flyer that was included in the tournament packets at the Texas Master’s Championships. That one sheet of paper illuminates what is likely to be imminently forthcoming once the full tournament calendar for the Texas Section is announced. The flyer reveals the apparent plan for continuation of NTRP Mixed Doubles in Texas. It also provides an early look at how the existing tournament structure will be slotted into the USTA consolidated framework in 2021.
I have to confess that Late to the Ball: A Journey into Tennis and Aging was undoubtedly an influence on my conscious thought when this site was launched. I first read this book back in 2017, shortly after it was initially published. My initial journey through Late to the Ball at that time invoked a mixture of awe, annoyance, and jealously.
For the most part, coaching is not allowed during a tennis match. This is one of the things that makes the sport so compelling to me. When two players are engaged in a tennis match, it is up to them to figure out a solution to every problem their opponent throws at them. A tennis player has to figure everything out for themselves when competing. I like that.
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I recently purchased and started using a pulse oximeter as a part of my tennis training. If you have been in a medical setting recently, chances are that you have already had one of these devices slipped onto your finger. However, the availability of pulse oximeters in the consumer market is a fairly recent development. Most people probably don’t have one at home.
Last Wednesday the USTA sent out an email to Adult tournament participants entitled “Upcoming Shadow Rankings: What You Need to Know.” That email contained what is believed to be an error in the first sentence, indicating that the communication was to inform the recipient about “2020 USTA Junior Tournaments Shadow Rankings.” The first paragraph also included verbiage about “players and parents.”
Throughout my musing on the new USTA tournament structure coming in 2021, people keep whispering to me that the changes are going to be really good for driving increased participation in Senior tennis. I have been struggling to understand the logic behind that expectation. Until yesterday. When I started bouncing the new 7 tier National points schedule across various playing scenarios, I had an epiphany. There is a chance the new system will be fabulous for Senior tennis.
Yesterday my post included a map of all the currently confirmed USTA National Level Adult tournaments for 2021. Under the consolidated Adult Tournament Framework rolling out in January these tournaments are designated at Levels 1, 2, and 3. Today I am zooming in on the tournaments specifically in Texas. For anyone who is new here, Texas is my home section.
To stick a pin in this moment in time, the general population of the United States has spent the last 3 days obsessively staring at maps because the presidential race from the general election last Tuesday has yet to be decided. It may seem like an inopportune time to throw another map into the mix, but this site is nothing if not inopportune.
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The fact that I am writing about Loving the Battle by Mark Tjia this week is an unanticipated side effect of the review I posted last week. Last week’s selection remains a mystery, and I continue to decline to name either the book or the author since my comments were less than flattering. That omission triggered a couple of guesses as to the identity of the book. One of the guesses started “Surely you don’t mean Loving the Battle…”
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