It is the time of year when I map out my tournament play for the coming year. Like almost everybody else, constraints in my life prevent me from playing all the events that I want. Ultimately, this turns into a prioritization exercise of resources and time. It is also an opportunity to reflect on how the USTA communicates upcoming tournaments to prospective participants.
There are two sources of USTA-sanctioned tournaments. Level 1-3 tournaments are sanctioned by USTA National. Each individual Section has the authority to Sanction tournaments at Levels 4-7. Sanctions are essentially authorization to have the tournament within the USTA ecosystem. Those matches impact player ratings and also award ranking points. I usually participate in both National and Sectional tournaments and consequently experience the best (and worst) of both worlds.
The first stop for me every year is “Play Tennis: USTA Adult National Tournaments.” That is where the USTA maintains a comprehensive list of all Level 1-3 tournaments. While I want to play as many National Level tournaments as I can, I give priority to those that are close to home. In addition to the practical economic considerations, I regard supporting my local National tournaments as a moral imperative. The tennis ecosystem would be better if everybody had that same attitude.
This brings me to a frustrating disconnect between ownership of National and Sectional level tournaments. The Sections do not have any obvious responsibility for promoting National Sanctioned tournaments within their boundaries. However, the Sectional organization arguably knows how to best reach prospective tournament players in the area. The fact that Sections and the local CTAs don’t carpet bomb their players about the opportunity to compete in National Level tournaments in their own backyard is a lost opportunity on a tragic scale.
Opportunities to “Build and optimize best-in-class digital infrastructure”
I sincerely wish that the “Play Tennis: USTA Adult National Tournaments” page was structured in a format that supported filtering of the events. For example, it would be helpful to me if I could look at a list that only contained tournaments that I was eligible to play. It would also be useful to view only events within specific Sections or locations.
I realize that tournaments populated within Play Tennis support filtered searching. However, at this early point in the year, many of the National tournaments have yet to be entered into Play Tennis. That is actually why the static list is necessary. Additionally, some of the new tournaments have dates that are “TBD” while others are under a headline that says “NEW DATES.” (New dates since when?)
Another really useful feature would be a “follow” button to subscribe to updates in the event that tournament details change. For example, as dates were announced or if dates were moved. In fact, those kinds of notifications are what other “best-in-class” digital systems routinely do. There is a real opportunity to be better here.
Working Through The USTA National Tournament List
The National Women’s Clay Court Championships in Houston each March is always at the top of my priority list. That tournament is extremely well-run with unparalleled player amenities. This year I breathed a sigh of relief, as the tournament dates miraculously did not conflict with two speaking engagements that I am already committed to that month for work. In addition to the Houston Clays, I always make it a point to play the Level 2 Westwood Senior Championships. That tournament is in Austin over Memorial Day weekend.
From there, I scour the list for additional opportunities to play in Texas. The Level 3 Texas Super Senior Sectionals is in San Antonio in October. 2022 was my first year of eligibility to play in that tournament, but I had a scheduling conflict because it wasn’t on my radar at the first of the year. I am hoping that locking it into my calendar now will help prevent that from happening again in 2023.
The National Mother-Daughter Level 1 Grass Court Championships in August at the Longwood Cricket Club is high up on my list this year. I have to admit that I am selfishly attracted to the historic venue. After Forest Hills stepped back from hosting USTA National Championship tournaments, I feel an urgency to visit other historic sites that might soon reach the same decision. To successfully play this event, I have to pull a kid that hates tennis out of retirement. Wish me luck on this one.
I have always wanted to play the Wilson World Tennis Classic in Palm Springs, but it never works out. This year it is because I will be playing Tri-Level Sectionals in Texas that weekend. I cannot play one of the Les Grande Dames tournaments because it overlaps with the USTA Texas Annual meeting. Another attractive tournament from that same series conflicts with NTRP 18+ Doubles Nationals that I am already committed to play.
I would really like to play in the NWTO Championships at Daniel Island this year, but that looks like a terrible week to be out of the office. Similarly, there are quite a few other National tournaments that I cannot “lock in” due to other commitments already on the calendar in close proximity. I need to leave myself room to breathe. (And to write this blog, of course…)
One thing to consider is that the tournaments I have committed to already will each consume a long extended weekend. With a little rounding, those five tournaments are just shy of 10% of the total available weekends in the calendar year. That’s a lot of time to be on the road for tennis.
What About Sectional Sanctioned Tournaments?
With a couple of contingencies and one very big dependency for Mother-Daughter, my National Tournament Schedule is set. As my attention shifted to local tournaments in Texas, I realized that the Section has made some changes for 2023 that will take some time to sort through.
Additionally, there isn’t a comprehensive schedule of tournaments for my Section like there is for Nationals. The full list of tournaments has yet to be populated in Play Tennis. It is simply not possible for me to complete my schedule at this time.
I sincerely hope that no one confuses this lack of advanced planning and communication with flexibility or agility, but I am worried that might be the case. I personally don’t do well making it to “pop-up” tournaments, and I suspect that others are the same.
The annual calendar and schedule may seem like an anachronism, but there are genuine reasons that having everything planned out in advance is useful. For one thing, it supports higher participation. Players can’t plan to be at events that aren’t yet scheduled.
- Play Tennis: USTA Adult National Tournaments, USTA Web Page, viewed 12/31/2022.
- USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, & Sanctioning Regulations, USTA Regulation, December 2020.
- USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, as of February 2022, viewed April 29, 2022.
I didn’t know about the Nationals Tournament page until now. I was excited to take a look at what National Tournaments exist in the Texas Section and was disappointed to see ZERO in the DFW Metroplex and essentially only ONE that I can actually play in… found one in Houston, but I’d have to be 70+ years old to play??? That sounds crazy to me. The only one that has a division for Men under 50 is Westwood in Austin, TX. I think that’s literally the only one.
Teresa, just a quick mention. The National Senior Men’s Tennis Association (www.nsmta.net) and the National Women’s Tennis Association (www.nwto.us) both have websites that are both easier to navigate and acquire events in calendar order rather than the USTA website. In addition, the members of the NSMTA have access to SSI which you can click on a tab and choose your USTA Section and it will list the USTA Sanctioned events Level 1-6 in that Section. Both organizations have web savy volunteers who constantly update our websites from Play Tennis.
Great suggestion and I probably should have mentioned both resources. For everybody else, here is the link to the NWTO Tournament List. The NSMTA Tournament List is also great for people that are members (like me) but it is behind a registration firewall.
I focused on the USTA data because the best solution is for the official site to be so well structured that we don’t have to rely on an army of volunteers to create a cogent presentation of the information. (Also, behind the scenes and getting a little ahead of myself, my weekend was punctuated by sending emails to my Section pointing out content errors on USTA web pages that they maintain. The most serious of which was pointing at an obsolete version of the Adult Ranking System on their tournament resources page.)