This weekend’s deep dive into the USTA Texas 50-mile radius rule continues with a glaringly neglected detail. USTA Texas has never implemented a mechanism that clearly defines the exact center of the 50-mile circles that form the playing area boundaries. More charitably, if this detail was ever locked down in the past, no one seems to know where that document is anymore.
For reference, the following is the current wording from the USTA Texas Operating Procedures that defines “Out of Area Players.” This rule is more commonly referred to as the “50-mile radius rule,” which is the term I prefer since it is more descriptive.
Out of Area Players. A team may have one player outside the 50-mile radius of a large city, Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Houston and North Houston. All other cities can have a maximum of two players outside the 50-mile radius from the center of the city. A player is NOT considered out of area if the area where the player resides is without a league/division for the past three years. A player residing in another Section is considered an out of area player.
2025 Texas Operating Procedures, USTA League, Excerpt (This document does not currently have section numberings.)
The wording is very sloppy because it conflates establishing the 50-mile radius rule with defining which local areas are considered big cities. Additionally, “North Houston” isn’t a city at all. Even for the other five, which are indeed actual places, the center of the circle is undefined in the regulation.
That ambiguity might sound trivial at first, but it can matter a lot. The rule limits how many “out of area” players a team can have, with “out of area” defined by the distance from the center of a designated city, a definition that isn’t precise. Essentially, this comes down to how the center of the city is determined. When a team’s eligibility is challenged, someone has to decide what that center point is.
In the earliest days of this blog, I approached the USTA Texas Section office for clarification on where the center of the circle was defined. That inquiry was largely driven by self-interest. I was anticipating that a team I was captaining might face a challenge over whether my roster was compliant with the 50-mile radius rule. I had two players who were very close to the edge of that circle, and I was allowed only one. Depending on where the pin was dropped, I either had 0, 1, or 2 “out of area” players. While I felt that the most defensible and logical place to drop the pin resulted in a legal roster, I was not the person making that call. Additionally, the other captain had much closer ties to the people who would ultimately be making the decision than I did.
The following excerpt from a post I wrote at that time captures the adventures I experienced while trying to definitively determine and document the center of the circle that was to be used. Specifically, I asked the USTA Texas Office for the precise location of the center of the circle for all 19 qualified CTAs in Texas. I thought it was a quick request and assumed I would receive a document that intuitively should have existed.
The initial response was that it is calculated using Google maps. The instructions provided were to type in the name of the city, click on “directions”, and type in the player’s address as the destination. The result of that procedure results in the distance of a route rather than a measurement of “as the crow flies.”
In order to calculate the actual distance, there is a “measure distance” feature in Google that can be accessed by right clicking and drawing a line between two points. Following a little more back and forth with the Texas Section Adult League coordinator, I am convinced that is what was originally intended.
So where does Google get the coordinates for the the city center? Executive summary: I don’t know. I spent an inordinate amount of time studying the Google maps API documentation on geocoding locations. I understand the mechanics of the query, but not how the source of the latitude and longitude is determined.
Let me try that again in English. When a user enters a city, such as “Fort Worth, TX” into Google maps, the latitude and longitude are magically returned. This is set by the man behind the curtain. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Speculation is that the location is generally algorithmically calculated based on the geographic geometry of the location. Google loves algorithms, so this is plausible. However, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the location can also be manually set to a landmark. This is readily apparent by the location of the city center pins for the 5 “Large” cities defined by USTA Texas.
Anytime there is ambiguity in a rule of this nature, the appearance of impropriety is difficult to avoid. Even if every decision is made with integrity, the lack of a definitive standard can erode confidence in the decision process. Every captain constructing a roster at the beginning of the season deserves to know with certainty where the boundary lies. Additionally, there should also be assurances that none of that will change in the middle of the league season.
When I initially raised this issue with the USTA Texas Adult Tennis staff in 2020, it wasn’t seen as a significant problem. I disagreed then, and I still do now. Additionally, clarity is becoming even more important because the USTA Texas League Committee recently passed a new rule ostensibly to step up the enforcement of the 50-mile radius rule. Consequently, if we’re going to enforce it more rigorously, we need to make sure everyone is operating from the same map.
There are several possible ways to fix this. The simplest option would be for USTA Texas to officially declare a specific coordinate for each city center. That approach would guarantee consistency statewide but would require the Section to maintain the list and publish updates if necessary. A second approach would be to delegate the responsibility to each local area, requiring them to document and publish their own official city center coordinates. That could work, but only if every local area does it transparently and consistently.
The most practical solution might be a hybrid. The Section could give each local area a chance to declare its city center by a set deadline each year. If an area fails to act, USTA Texas could impose a default coordinate. Once defined, those points should be locked for the duration of the year and only change on January 1. That would provide structure, transparency, and predictability.
When I mapped the 50-mile radius circles for all of USTA Texas in 2020, I used Google’s default city-center coordinates to illustrate how unevenly this plays out across the state. Those points, as determined by Google at the time, were often tied to landmarks such as city halls or courthouses, but not always.
When preparing for this post, I went back through the 18 CTAs that are actually cities to determine if their Google pins had moved over the past five years. Ten of the pins had not moved at all, and two of the pins had moved only very slightly. However, the other five had moved pretty significantly. In one case, the pin is now a full 11 miles away from where it was located in 2020. Also, North Houston (NOHO) is also a qualified CTA, but it was omitted from this exercise since it isn’t an actual city.
Everyone should be aware that Google doesn’t consult with USTA Texas when it moves its pins. The coordinates could change at any time, leading to absurd situations where a team that started the season compliant ends in violation simply because Google tweaked its data or a city requested its pin be moved to an actual or different landmark. The only way to prevent confusion with the 50-mile radius rule is to establish fixed, published reference points under the Section’s control and authority.
The absence of a defined center point was an untidy aspect of the 50-mile radius rule when I first examined it, and it remains untidy now. It’s the kind of administrative loose end that can quietly undermine perceptions of integrity. As enforcement tightens, the need for precision becomes even more pressing. USTA Texas has a choice: continue to rely on arbitrary map pins and ad hoc decisions, or take ownership of defining where those circles actually are.
I’d argue that for an organization that claims accountability, excellence, and integrity among its core values, precisely defining those center points is an obvious update that is way overdue.
- 2025 USTA League National Regulations, USTA Resource Document, April 14, 2024.
- 2025 Texas Operating Procedures, USTA League, (undated).
| City (CTA Office City) | CTA | 2020 City Center | 2025 City Center |
| Houston | Houston Tennis Association (HTA) | Houston City Hall 901 Bagby Street | The pin has moved slightly, but is in essentially the same place. The pin is now at the intersection between Houston City Hall and Market Square Park. |
| San Antonio | San Antonio Tennis Association (SATA) | Bexar County Courthouse 100 Dolorosa | The pin has been moved to the San Antonio City Hall. This is about .1 miles as the crow flies, but a couple of city blocks over on the map. |
| Dallas (Addison) | Dallas Tennis Association (DTA) | Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla St | Has not moved. |
| Austin | Capital Area Tennis Association (CATA) | CVS Drug Store 500 Congress Ave | Has not moved. |
| Fort Worth (Colleyville) | Greater Fort Worth Tennis Coalition (GFWTC) | The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium 111 E. 3rd St | Has not moved. |
| Corpus Christi | Corpus Christi Tennis Association (CCTA) | Overpass I-37 and SH 181 | This has moved to the Corpus Christi City Hall. |
| Laredo | Laredo Tennis Association | Melrose Family Fashions 319 Convent Ave | Has not moved. |
| Lubbock | South Plains Tennis Association | Whataburger 1702 19th St | Pin has moved. It is now at Gateway Plaza Downtown Park. This is an 11-mile difference. |
| Amarillo | Amarillo Area Tennis Association | Castle Furniture Store 800 N Fillmore St | Pin has been moved to the Amarillo Civic Center Complex. |
| McAllen | Rio Grande Valley Tennis Association | Stripes 1001 W. Miracle Mile | Has not moved. |
| Waco | Waco Tennis Association | Cash America Pawn 1724 W Waco Dr | The pin is now at a Wells Fargo Bank. This is about a 1.5-mile change. |
| Beaumont | Southeast Texas Tennis Association | Paul A Brown Learning Center 88 Jaguar Dr | Has not moved. |
| Abilene | Abilene Tennis Association | Overpass S 1st Stand S Pine St | The pin has been moved to the Abilene City Hall. This is about a half-mile difference. |
| Midland | West Texas Tennis Association | Bank of America Financial Center 303 W Wall St | Pin has been moved about .2 miles to the Honolulu building. |
| Wichita Falls | Wichita Falls Tennis Association | Wichita County Courthouse Annex Parking Lot 900 7th St | Has not moved. |
| Bryan | Brazos Valley Tennis Association | Brazos County Courthouse 300 E 26th St | Has not moved. |
| San Angelo | Concho Valley Tennis Association | Bealls Department Store E Harris Ave and S Chadbourne St | Has not moved. However, the Bealls department store has closed, and the building now houses a bail bond office. |
| Longview | Northeast Texas Coalition Tennis Association | Taco Bell 200 W Marshall Ave | Has not moved. It is still a Taco Bell. |
