An engineer overthinks tennis in a daily journal.
I am currently on the process of examining point composition in tennis viewed through the lens of books about tennis tactics and strategy. Last week in part one of this series, I started building the theme that the best tennis players will have the ability to develop strategy and tactics independently of magic playbooks and coaching input.
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Last week I promised that we had concluded coverage of the “Correcting Errors” section of the ITF Rules of Tennis as printed in the USTA Friend at Court. However, in the interim, I observed an umpire failing to change the balls during a match during the Western and Southern Open. This is the first time I have ever witnessed this kind of error in a match. It made me ridiculously happy.
One of the recommendations from the classic tennis book “The Inner Game of Tennis,” is is for the player to imagine that they are observing their own match from an external perspective. It is a valuable technique for alleviating tension and stress while a match is in progress. It is also a valuable perspective to take for understanding what is happening strategically and tactically during the course of a match.
Today I am taking a somewhat broader view of participation in NTRP Tennis tournaments. For reasons that I explained yesterday, I am focused on data from my home section of Texas. Additionally, due to the workload required to sanitize and scrub data scraped off the USTA TennisLink site, I am continuing to focus only on the women’s divisions.
The USTA has announced that starting in 2021, NTRP Adult tournaments will be divided into three age tiers. The stated reason for NTRP age divisions is that it will increase participation at tournaments. In fact, the planned elimination of Mixed Doubles from NTRP tournaments was justified by projecting that the additional age tiers will create so much participation that there will no longer be courts available to accommodate Mixed.
When the USTA announced the intent to host an individual NTRP National Championship tournament for 2018, I was surprised to see separate divisions for NTRP 18+ and for NTRP 50+. The reason I was puzzled to see that, was because the bifurcation is inconsistent with the USTA assertions about the NTRP system. As I have explored this topic, I am starting to wonder if the USTA is in the midst of an NTRP identity crisis.
I received a question this week about point composition from one of my friends who also happens to be a regular follower of this blog. My first reaction to the inquiry was that I am a curious person to reach out to for strategic or tactical advice. It is widely rumored that the reason I prefer playing singles over doubles is to avoid having to regularly apologize to my partner for my erratic shot selection and inability to maintain focus on the game plan.
We did it! Well… almost. Today marks the final rule documented in Section 27 of the ITF Rules of Tennis as published by the USTA Friend at Court. I feel like this is cause for celebration. For the most part, the “Correcting Errors section has been a mind bending exercise for me. The mental trauma of struggling to understand how some of the errors could even occur, coupled with corrections that did not always seem equitable has taken a toll on me.
Yesterday I wrote about the strengths of the USTA NTRP System. Today we are examining the flip side of that coin, which are the weaknesses. While there are legitimate criticisms that can be made over the fidelity or granularity of the system, the primary issues with the NTRP system are the incentives of the league framework that surrounds it, rather than with the system itself.
The NTRP system was invented by the USTA Education and Research (E&R) office in 1978. The USTA officially created the league system the following year in 1979. The formalization of league play, as enabled by the NTRP system, fueled an explosive boom in USTA membership. Level-based play was the key to drawing increased and widespread participation in the sport.