USTA tournament directors have the latitude to prohibit divisional crossovers within the tournaments they run. They shouldn’t. Fragmentation of NTRP into age groups combined with an arbitrary “no crossover” restriction, kills participation. Paradoxically, the worst offenders are typically tournaments with tiny draws in the first place.
Show me a tournament that prohibits divisional crossovers and I will show you a tournament organizer that isn’t very good at scheduling events. In fact, I pretty much regard that declaration as a confession of that fact by the tournament director.
Just to make sure we are all on the same page, recall the USTA definition of a division.
Division. Division refers to one or two events in a tournament in which the eligibility criteria are identical. For example, the Girls’ 16 Singles and Girls’ 16 Doubles are two events but only one division because their eligibility criteria are identical.
USTA Friend at Court, Glossary
When the USTA made the decision to divide NTRP tournaments by age, it created fragmentation within the divisions. The eligibility criteria for those divisions is a specific NTRP rating AND the age of the competitor. The effects are insidious in practice.
The Trophy Husband is NTRP 3.5 and I am currently NTRP 4.5. If he enters NTRP 3.5 at any age level (singles or doubles) then we cannot play mixed doubles together in a tournament. Paradoxically we also technically cannot play Husband-Wife as that is an Open division with a fairly significant additional criteria of wedlock.
Once upon a time, I was entered in an NTRP 4.5 18+ doubles event with the “Umpire I gave birth to.” A 4.5 Singles entry was out of the question for her because I was entered in that event. Quite frankly, the spectacle of us trying to play on the same side of the net would be dwarfed in comparison of public head to head competition. The world does not need to see that.
On the eve of the deadline for entry into that tournament, we noticed that there were only two entries for Women’s Open. Adding her to the mix would ensure that draw made. While we were aware of the tournament prohibition on crossover entries, quite frankly we felt like we were doing the tournament a favor by throwing that entry in. As it turns out, we were wrong.
The tournament had quite a few scheduling issues that had absolutely nothing to do with my daughter’s crossover entry. In fact, a disparaging comment was hurled in our direction blaming us for those challenges. I am still not sure how we wound up as the villain in that situation.
If I wanted to play both doubles and mixed in a tournament, I need to find partners at the same NTRP level AND age band. I am fairly resourceful and have a lot of tennis contacts and connections. I would likely find a way to make it happen. Less connected or less dedicated players might simply decide that the tournament wasn’t worth the hassle. In fact I believe that is already happening in droves.
Paradoxically, the same tournament directors that prohibit crossover entries seem to have no compunctions against combining divisions. Last year, the Trophy Husband and I entered a Level 5 tournament in Texas at 50+. Ultimately that draw was competed at 40+, which is essentially a forced crossover of divisions. While I enjoy playing mixed doubles with the Trophy Husband, it irks me that I could not have entered the younger division with a stronger partner.
As various events in tournaments teeter on the precipice of viability, tournament directors should be doing everything within their power to help those draws make. Prohibiting divisional crossovers is the exact opposite of that.
This is one of those opportunities where the USTA could make a positive change with the stroke of a pen. Tournaments should not be allowed to prohibit divisional crossovers in adult tournaments. Period.
how do you feel about juniors crossing over in to adult divisions? I am in wheelchair tennis adult B division and you want to talk about leaving tournaments, I, a 45 year old new to tennis, newly disabled player, was matched against two 15 year old kids. I was beaten soundly and now not sure i want to invest the money to travel to these tournaments if they are going to match against juniors, who have no job, no kids and the full support of tournaments (they get scholarships to travel) These WC players have parents dedicated to their success and they play all the time, have coaches and one of them even has her own Nike shoe. as a new player, it was/is super discouraging.
With the caveat that I know next to nothing about wheelchair tennis, it sounds like the fundamental issue is that the kids might need to be slotted into Adult A. Anytime draws are struggling to achieve critical mass, there will be a wider range of tennis mastery levels competing in the same draw. The problem is that if you step away from tennis, then the next person at your competitive level that comes along will also find nothing but mismatches. Nobody likes to play a game that they feel they cannot win or is by all objective measures unfair. An alternate way to frame out your continued engagement in the sport is that you are on a mission of building participation for people like yourself.