An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
The NCAA Division I Championships gets underway in May with free live and on-demand streaming opportunities. Boris Becker is in jail after being convicted of hiding assets to avoid paying debts. The Citi-Open gets a shocking new sponsor.
The USTA’s point-per-round philosophy is readily apparent when examining the ranking points tables for single group round robin tournaments. The fact that tables is plural isn’t a typo. Two tables were in effect for different time periods in 2021. Both the original tables and the changes that were made reflects a misguided dedication to a points-per-round philosophy. The USTA is making the problem much harder to solve than it needs to be.
The very last rankings point table in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document is for Team Tennis events. In the Adult context, I am guessing that people generally associate Team Tennis with USTA League play, but that isn’t what we are talking about here. I suspect that most Adult Tournament players are not even aware that Team Tennis is a valid tournament format and that it is actively used.
A couple of years ago, the USTA unveiled a new unified adult tournament framework. One of the breathless exhortations about it touted “ONE nationwide points-per-round ranking system.” It is a perplexing statement because neither the current nor any of the legacy ranking systems are in actuality points-per-round systems. The misnomer may be at the root of misunderstanding on how an effective ranking system should be structured within the USTA.
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Paul Fein is a USPTA teaching professional with an Elite rating. He is also an accomplished tennis writer with a litany of award winning tennis articles and best-selling books. In addition, Fein is an excellent Senior tennis player with a history of high national rankings. Fein recently published hit latest book filled with his copious wisdom on how to elevate a player’s competitive level. The book is also packed with first person perspectives from other renowned tennis coaches and pros.
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Sometimes two players disagree on the current score during a tennis match played without an on-court official. The correct procedure to resolve the dispute is to roll back the score until they reach agreement on the score at a previous point in the match. Play is resumed from there. In fact, if a roving official is summoned to the court that is usually how resolution is achieved. If the score was previously announced by one player without objection from the other, that is generally regarded as a point of agreement.
The ATP and WTA tours have partnered to create a new app that provides tennis schedules, scores, and news. I loaded it to my phone over the weekend for a test drive and instantly fell in love. All serious tennis fans should load have this app loaded on their mobile devices. It make it so much easier to watch and follow professional tennis on both tours.
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Wimbledon takes a hard line stance on Russian and Belarusian players as the US-Ukraine Billie Jean King Cup qualifier generates dramatic tennis and heart warming story lines.
Against my better judgement, I decided to don my “Peril Sensitive Sunglasses” and create a points calculation table for the back draw participants in a recent tournament division. In retrospect, a helmet would have been a good idea as well.
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.