Fiend at Court Unplugged
Every once in awhile someone will point out to me that I have historically railed against the “Fast4” shortened format, while extolling the virtues of UTR tournaments that use a very similar Short Set format. While it looks like an inconsistency on the surface, there is a one word explanation: Context.
There are a lot of UTR tournaments in my area. Each one that I have played has provided three competitive Short Set matches played on a single day. I do not have to travel very far to find a suitable UTR tournament to play on almost any given weekend. In that context, I play a lot of tennis with a minimal investment of time.
My only direct experience with Fast4 was at the inaugural year of the USTA NTRP National Championships. At that event I played the theoretical maximum of six Fast4 matches across three days. That is approximately equivalent to three full matches. It also cost me two days of travel, an airplane ticket, a rental car, and 4 nights of lodging. That’s a lot of overhead for 3 matches. I easily could have played the same amount of tennis across a three day weekend staying at home and competing in my local leagues.
I have come to the recent revelation that had the number of matches at the NTRP National Championship been doubled, I probably would have been more positive about Fast4 as a format. In other words, it is not that there was something wrong with the system, but rather that there was something fundamentally wrong with the concept of the “proper” amount of tennis for National Championship.
I keep hearing that the tennis consumer is pressed for time and that shorter formats are necessary to increase participation in the sport. Those calculations need to account for commute time and other overhead that also factors into the equation that ultimately defines player experience.
I personally prefer full length matches, but a lot of shortened format matches are a great substitute if they are scheduled into a reasonably short timeframe. Fast4, Thirty30, Short Sets… are all great formats if properly planned and scheduled.
I don’t think that always comes through in my general crotchety grousing about shortened formats.
Mark Milne has recently released two new videos promoting Thirty30 tennis. I particularly like the “Hype Video.”
