Fiend at Court Unplugged
We have spent the previous two days contemplating the USTA League rules and ethical considerations of a captain having two teams in a local league Championship. Today we are kicking it up a notch and contemplating the same scenario at the Sectional level. A berth to the National Championships is on the line.
This is not a hypothetical scenario. Casey Carlson has recently advanced two teams to Tri-Level Sectionals. One of those teams qualified in Ft. Worth and the other in Dallas. Even more impressive, the Tri-Level tournament for those CTAs was conducted over the exact same weekend. I bow down to the administrative greatness that it took to coordinate two teams playing (somewhat) geographically separate events simultaneously. I probably couldn’t pull it off at all. Winning both is amazing.
The way I imagine that it went down is that Casey heard about Christy Vutam’s DTA League Championship achievement and responded with “Hold my beer.” I have no first hand knowledge of whether Casey is even aware that Christy Vutam captained both the Champion and Runner up teams in the recently concluded DTA winter league, but the rest of the story is entirely plausible. To be fair, it might have been a margarita rather than beer.
Operating Procedures and Rules
I was also impressed that Casey was able to assemble two complete Tri-Level teams with very little overlap. In fact, including Casey herself, there are only two players listed on both rosters. Both of those players are eligible for Sectionals on two teams.
There are applicable rules for this situation in the Operating Procedures for the Texas Section League. It is clear that players may only play on one team at the same level at Sectionals.
Players on Multiple Teams at the Sectional Championships. A player can play on more than one team at a Sectional Championship, provided they are at different levels. However, there will be no special scheduling for that player or team.
2020 Operating Procedures USTA Texas Section Tennis Leagues
The winner of the “upper” level of Tri-Level Sectionals advances to Nationals. Usually Tri-Level Nationals is in Indian Wells, which I am told is a really cool trip. In 2021, Tri-Level Nationals is scheduled for Surprise, Arizona. I am sure to some winning teams this will go down as “Surprise! Nationals is not in Indian Wells this year.” Nevertheless, going to Nationals is a tremendous incentive regardless of the venue.
Ethics and Equitability
There are two prevailing theories on how the USTA Texas Section office places teams into Round Robin pools for Sectionals. I personally believe that it is a random draw. There is also a school of thought that the NTRP computer makes pool assignments that are balanced across the relative strength of the teams.
Most of the time, I don’t think Round Robin group selection matters at all. Only one team advances to Nationals. The best team is the best team no matter how the groupings are made. However, this is USTA League, a format that currently has 195 instances of the word “grievance” in the official operating procedures. Somebody might get warped over the potential conflict of interest.
The best case scenario in this situation is if the two teams captained by Casey are drawn into separate Round Robin pools. In separate pools, the performance of each team is completely independent from the other. The Texas Section office might give strong consideration to manually forcing that separation if Dallas and Fort Worth are drawn into the same pool.
If the two teams wind up in the same Round Robin Pool, then I would think that the head to head matchup between Casey’s teams should come in the first round rather than later rounds. In the first round, none of the other results or variables are known. That makes it harder to “rig” the results.
The fact that this is a consideration is a reflection on USTA League culture. I seriously doubt that Casey would sacrifice one of her teams to the benefit of the other. It is considerably more likely that someone would become overly concerned about the possibility. It is better to sidestep the issue entirely.
Finishing Shots
A Captain who manages to simultaneously advance two teams to sectionals in the same level is impressive. It should be celebrated. Hopefully the majority of the other teams and casual observers will take note of the achievement and recognize it for what it is. A novelty.
There is no reason to amend the rules or to add additional instances of grievance to the League regulations and operating procedures.
- 2020 USTA League Regulations, https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/pdfs/190517_2020_National_Regulations.pdf
- 2020 Operating Procedures USTA Texas Section Tennis Leagues, https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/sections/texas/pdf/2020_League_Operating_Procedures.pdf
- 2020 Greater Fort Worth Tennis Coalition League Regulations, viewed 9/11/2020.
- USTA Dallas Local League Rules & Regulations, 2020, Dallas Tennis Association, viewed 9/11/2020.
