Fiend at Court Unplugged
The 2021 USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document currently has 8 separate tables that define the point allocation for various formats of competitive play. A recent USTA Closed Level 4 Tournament, the Texas Masters, revealed a fairly significant flaw in the two of the three round robin tables in that document. Fur a full treatment of this topic, new readers should roll back to the posts from the previous two days. In a nutshell, currently the draw format selected for a tournament impacts the points available to the competitors and it shouldn’t.
As I analyzed the point tables and rankings lists over this weekend, additional inconsistencies between the tables relating to the points awarded for performance were discovered. These are not as dramatic as the problems with the round robin tables. However, just because something is slightly wrong doesn’t make it less wrong.
The ranking points discrepancies that appear in the 2021 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System tables are only possible because that document includes multiple tables. A widely accepted engineering design principle is that that there should be a single source of truth for the data. Put another way, the multitude of tables invited the logical disconnects that became apparent following the Texas Masters.
An Order of Finish Based Approach
This post is my thought exercise on what a single source rankings table would look like in practice. It turned out to be easier than I expected. I accounted for the granularity that can occur from a full feed in consolation bracket which I believe should be universally used, but I digress. That makes the table look a little more complicated than it actually is.
The key to the approach is that the points are strictly and consistently allocated based on the Order of Finish in the tournament. It doesn’t matter what draw format is used, there is always an Order of Finish inherent to that system.
The tables in the 2021 USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document include a column for the number of people who can receive each tier of ranking points. That column is superfluous if an Order of Finish approach is used. There can be only one player name in each slot of the order of finish.
In fact there is an error in at least one of the current USTA tables that specifies an incorrect number of players that can receive points at one of the tiers. It is yet another illustration of the types of issues that emerge when there isn’t a single source of truth in a data system.
The only variation in draw formats occurs comes down to granularity in the points tiers. Sometimes 3-4 is played out. Sometimes 5-6 is played out. I have accounted for the granularity that can arise from a 256 full feed in draw. It doesn’t change the basic mechanics of the system.
I should also note that I preserved the total points and percentages in the current system. The table above doesn’t materially change anything beyond eliminating ambiguity.
Mapping Draw Formats to Order of Finish
Just as there should be a single source of truth for the points, there should be a single place where determination of the Order of Finish is specified. The draw formats pretty much already have it. At the end of each competition, the players who finished in each slot are what should drive the points allocated for the tournament, again based off a single master table.
This prevents players from being penalized based on the competition format selected by the tournament and provides the consistent tournament experience that the USTA and the competitive community both desire. It also eliminates players from being penalized by byes in the brackets which is a flaw in some of the existing tables.
Additionally, it provides an equitable and fair path forward on how to handle the situation with the Texas Masters.
Order of Finish in the Traditional Format of the Texas Masters
The Texas Masters is an 8 player/team tournament which starts with two round robin pools each with 4 teams/players. The champion of each round robin group are then paired to compete for the championship. Here is the Order of Finish for that format:
| Order of Finish | Description | Level 4 Points |
| 1 | The winner of the Championship Match | 1500 |
| 2 | The losing finalist of the Championship Match | 1050 |
| 3-4 | The second place team from each round robin group. Logically, these are the losing Semifinalists. | 750 |
| 5-8 | The other teams from each round robin group who win a match. It is an established standard that you have to actually win a match to be awarded ranking points from a tournament. Logically these are the losing Quarterfinalists | 525 |
It is pretty straightforward to produce the Order of Finish for the other draw types. I would be happy to help if anyone working on this in an official capacity would like my input or assistance.
- 2021 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, USTA Web Hosted Document, viewed 11/11/2021.
