Swiping Left… On USTA Tournament Draws

This weekend, I am writing about things that don’t work as well as they should. In general, poor technical implementation makes my head hurt. When easy and obvious solutions aren’t pursued as a priority, it only exacerbates the pain. The USTA tennis delivery system regularly sends me scrambling for the Tylenol bottle.

Four years after the new USTA tournament software platform was launched, getting a clear picture of the draws remains frustrating and elusive. For example, viewing brackets on a mobile phone is always going to be less than ideal due to the limited screen size. However, navigation on the USTA app and mobile version of the website does not implement basic navigation mechanisms that are currently regarded as industry standards.

This screenshot (assuming your email client or web browser doesn’t block images) is my first-round draw result at the Level 1 National Senior Women’s Clay Court Championships about a month ago. (You may note that I have exercised the blogger’s prerogative of showing a match that I won. This is my site.)

In the subsequent round, I played my friend Vicki Buholz. To find out how that match turned out is fairly complicated. I should be able to swipe left to view the matches in the next round. Instead, that navigation requires scrolling up to the top of the draw, selecting the correct draw stage for the next round match, and then scrolling back down to the match position on a brand new page.

Once the subsequent matches are completed, finding the result on the next page is fairly straightforward because all I have to do is find my name. That turns out to be a piece of information I can reliably retain through all that scrolling around.

However, it is more complicated before the tournament begins as I try to understand and plan for my potential paths through the draw. Finding my match days and times involves knowing my line number in the draw, transposing it into the correct range for every subsequent round, and scrolling down to the proper spot where that range occurs throughout the tournament. If that sounds convoluted, it is because it is.

I have even tried the easy and obvious solution of killing trees by printing a copy of the draw. Unfortunately, the player interface does not have any means or method for the creation of a well-formed printable version. It does not work from the mobile or desktop interface to the tournament website.

As a case in point, this is what the top of the draw sheet for my division at the Level 1 National Senior Women’s Clay Court Championships looks like when I try to print it from my laptop.

The draw is unreadable and unusable by any objective measure. The printout would be an absolute waste of paper, toner, and time.

The USTA claims to be investing significant time and energy into improving player experience at tennis tournaments. Providing players with readable and navigable draws would be a step in the right direction. I realize that technology can be hard, but this is not one of those situations. It is “Web Interface 101” level stuff.

Tournament players want, need, and deserve to see the draws. This is an important aspect of tournament play. Right now… I am totally swiping left on the implementation.