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Crimes Against Tennis: The Slow Destruction of Public Tennis Courts Stop Losing Points: 50 Mistakes Recreational Tennis Players Make — and How to Fix Them The Code, Principle 12: Why the Point Is Not Replayed Can Five-Minute Exercise Breaks Improve Your Tennis? Tennis Beyond the Headlines: June 13, 2026 Sleep Is a Tennis Training Session The Match Begins Before the Warm-Up

Errata and Running the Numbers

On By Teresa Merklin

There is a cap to the number of tournaments that count toward a player’s USTA ranking under the current cumulative tournament performance ranking system. The primary purpose of this post is to correct a misstatement I made about that on this site a couple of weeks ago. Additionally, it is a perfect opportunity to preview my emerging thinking on how to structure tennis tournaments to build the robust participation needed for a healthy competitive ecosystem.

What, me worry? (NTRP and the World Tennis Number)

On By Teresa Merklin

The USTA has been busy filling my inbox with announcements heralding the imminent deployment of the World Tennis Number. The messages are infused with reassurances directing players to not “worry” that the NTRP system might go away. I have been trying to find someone who is actually concerned about that happening. If I could find such a person, I could try to pinpoint the root causes of the fear. So far I have failed in that endeavor.

Yes I Am! (Going to League Nationals)

On By Teresa Merklin

My 55+ 9.0 NTRP USTA League Team qualified for the National Championships last weekend. In related news, I have a history of asserting that elimination of NTRP “National Championships” would eliminate the majority of unsportsmanlike behavior that plagues the USTA League system. Additionally, I have also railed at the absurdity of conducting NTRP competition with age based restrictions. Will I make the trip with my team? Absolutely.

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Hindrance from Corrections

On By Teresa Merklin

Tennis played with a full cadre of line officials is a privilege typically reserved for tour level professional matches. With electronic line calling becoming more and more prevalent, even that may soon be a relic of the past. Sometimes people make mistakes, and there are provisions in the ITF Rules of Tennis for handling the situation when a call is made, but immediately corrected.

USTA Scheduling Guidelines

On By Teresa Merklin

The USTA Friend at Court contains a table of guidelines for the maximum number of daily matches for a player within a division in a USTA tennis tournament. Per the tennis triple constraint model that was the subject of yesterday’s post, the various scoring methods in that table are the qualitative aspects of match play that constrains the calendar time and schedule for the tournament.

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Tournament Triple Constraint Model

On By Teresa Merklin

A popular joke about project management goes like this: “All projects can be done well, fast, and cheap. Pick two.” That joke is based on the triple constraint theory of project management. It is elegantly conceptualized as a triangle that represents the trade-offs between scope, cost, and time. The idea is that changes to any of those vertices forces adjustment in one or both of the other two. I recently had the revelation that I had been unconsciously using the triple constraint model as I have been ruminating on tournament scheduling, draw formats, and ranking systems.

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