The very last rankings point table in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document is for Team Tennis events. In the Adult context, I am guessing that people generally associate Team Tennis with USTA League play, but that isn’t what we are talking about here. I suspect that most Adult Tournament players are not even aware that Team Tennis is a valid tournament format and that it is actively used.
I am writing about Team Tennis today because it is the one place within the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System where points-per-round actually makes sense. In fact, it may be the only legitimate way to handle those types of events. To provide a sense of what the Team Tennis table looks like, here is a clip of the one currently in effect for USTA Adult Tennis.
(Email subscribers who don’t see the table should view this post directly on fiendatcourt.com.)
USTA Team Tennis Rankings Evolution
To fully understand the origins of that table, we have to go back to the era of the dynamic performance based rankings system that I yammered on about in yesterday’s post. Under that system, the incentive for players to compete in USTA team events, beyond the obvious camaraderie and social aspects, is the opportunity to play sanctioned matches against the top players from other sections. The “points” players earned through team competition were the (supposedly secret) dynamic ranking points.
When the USTA switched from the dynamic performance based ranking system to the “Cumulative Tournament Performance” (my term) system, one challenge for designing it would have been how to incentivize players to compete in team events. The issue would have been that without individual dynamic ranking points on the line, those players might opt out of team competition.
I believe that the Team Tournament rankings point table that appears in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document is reflective of the approach devised to initially solve that problem. It is a simple solution that allows players to earn cumulative ranking points from those team events.
The Team Tournament tables are a genuine points per round system. Each player who competes in a team match will receive ranking points for each match that they win. The points earned are scaled according to the line number. That makes complete sense when you consider the heritage of the dynamic performance based ranking system. It would have been unpalatable for player who won all matches at line 6 to earn the same number of ranking points as a player on line 1 who pulled off the same accomplishment.
I believe that when the committee arrived at this solution for handling the team tournaments under the “Cumulative Tournament Performance” system, it was possibly described as “points-per-round” because that is exactly what it is. It wouldn’t surprise me if the advocates of this approach claimed that it is just like how other draw formats are handled. It isn’t, but that is a nuance that would have been easy to overlook at the time.
All this is pure speculation on my part. I have been asking around and one knows where the points-per-round term actually originated. While this is my current theory, I am still combine through old USTA documents to try to find the earliest usage and the context of the origination. This post may even generate some commends with additional ideas or pointers.
The quest is far from over.
Why The Distinction Matters
I know that it probably seems that I am overly pedantic in arguing that the current ranking system should be called “Cumulative Tournament Performance” rather than the USTA description of “points-per-round.”
It matters because I believe that the majority of the errors in the current USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System tables can be directly attributed to an erroneous belief that it is a points-per-round system. That misunderstanding cascades through updates of existing rankings tables in the document.
Tomorrow I trace through the gyrations that have been made in the Round Robin points tables. It shows that the points-per-round idea is a tidy explanation for some of the continued errors in the tables for those draw formats. Finally, that post will demonstrate that starting with an “order-of-finish” mindset rather than slavish devotion to a “points-per-round” philosophy greatly simplifies the solution.
Intersectional Ranking Point Calculations
The highest level of team tennis within the USTA for Adults is Intersectionals. In my home state of Texas, the application period for players who are interested in competing on the 2022 teams is currently open. I assume that the other Sectional associations are at a similar stage in the process. For Adults, Intersectionals is a Team Tournament competed only at the age division Open level.
I apply to the Texas Intersectional team every year. The one time that I was selected was truly a transformational experience for me. I strongly encourage everyone to engage with the process and apply for your Section’s team.
I felt obligated to take a cursory look at the rankings point calculations given some of the other recent issues with the ranking point calculations for other draw formats. I focused in on the Women’s Intersectionals from 2021. That event doesn’t seem to have a tournament page on the USTA site. However, matches do show up on the individual players rankings lists from last year.
The following clip is the Women’s 55 singles player record from Intersectionals for Shelly Works.
The calculation (albeit very simple in this case) is correct. Intersectionals was competed at Level 3 and I confirmed with Shelly that she only played one singles match at the event at line 3. The 168 points that she was awarded are exactly what is in the Team Tennis ranking table in the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document.
Good enough for me. I decided to quit while I was ahead.
- USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, as of February 2022, viewed April 29, 2022.
- USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking, & Sanctioning Regulations, Amended December 2020, viewed April 29, 2022.
The banner picture from today is the Boys National Intersectionals Champions from 1987. (The handsome guy on the far left is my baby brother. I was standing just to the left of the photographer when that photo was taken.)
