Rating Changes at NTRP Nationals

The USTA recently announced some changes to NTRP Nationals. Yesterday I celebrated the adoption of the standard tie-break game over the fundamentally flawed short-set tie-break previously used at the event. Today’s topic is a significant change in eligibility for players who get bumped up an NTRP level between their qualification year and the National Championship tournaments the following April.

This is yet another case where the tyranny of the calendar leaves the USTA with limited options. In “Hot Takes from 18+ USTA League Sectionals,” I recently outlined how USTA National League Championships dominate the fall calendar, forcing the Sectional Championships into August. For the same reason, the individual NTRP National Championship tournament cannot be in the Fall because the USTA is likely loath to create such a scheduling conflict.

Traditionally, tournament rankings are most celebrated on an annual basis. That isn’t just a USTA cultural phenomenon. The ITF, ATP, and WTA all celebrate year-end rankings. While the 12-month rolling lists provide the snapshot at the moment, the end-of-year rankings have more permanence. Consequently, it was no surprise that the USTA initially elected to use the end-of-year rankings as one possible method to determine bids for the NTRP National Championships.

The USTA also allowed Sections to conduct “Automatic Qualifying” tournaments. Essentially the winner of the event gets an automatic bid to NTRP Nationals the following spring. That is why a few weeks ago, a lot of players from Texas played a Southern AQ tournament and attended matches at the Atlanta Open on the side. That is tennis tourism at its finest.

In the inaugural year of the NTRP National Championships, the USTA made the decision to allow players who had been bumped up an NTRP level at the end of the year to compete at their previous level at the NTRP National Championships the following spring. I am fairly confident I would have made the same decision given the same constraints. Starting with the 2024 National Championship events, players may only compete at or above their current NTRP rating level.

The seeds for that change were sewn in 2020 when the tournament was Covid-cancelled. At the time, a second decision was made to allow qualifiers for the 2020 tournament to receive automatic bids to the 2021 event. That created a situation where players who were bumped up in two consecutive years were subsequently allowed to compete in the event despite their current rating, which was two levels up. Not surprisingly, the other players complained. I am sure that is what drove this current change.

In addition to the rating policy change, the USTA has also announced that the National Standing List (NSL), as of the entry deadline of the tournament, will be used as a basis for selection. Unless the entry deadline is moved way back, many players won’t know if their entry has been accepted until two weeks before the tournament. So much for locking in early discounts on travel arrangements.

As is often the case when making changes of this nature, there is a lot of player angst and trepidation. One of the more prominent complaints is the fact that NSL rankings points earned from January through March of this year essentially do not count. Based on the grumbling I have been treated to, some people would have made different playing decisions during those months had they known.

That isn’t the only conundrum created by the recent policy changes. Tomorrow I will round out the weekend by examining some of the other situations in the NTRP National Championships that are also a can of worms.