The Handbook for Planning and Conducting Tennis Tournaments

Last week I carved out some time to swing by the Library of Congress. It was the perfect opportunity to review a USTA publication on how to plan and schedule tennis tournaments that happens to be in the collection. The Library of Congress actually has two separate editions of the book, and I was able to compare them side by side.

The Handbook for planning and conducting tennis tournaments was written by Lois A Blackburn and edited by the USTA Center for Educational and Recreational tennis. The biographical information included in the book was enough to help me pinpoint Blackburn’s induction page for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) Hall of Fame. While her accolades mostly centered around her coaching career at Mary Baldwin College where she was a physical education teacher and tennis coach, the Handbook for planning and conducting tennis tournaments was included as the final bullet point in her summary.

The editions of the handbook in the Library of Congress were published in 1979 and 1985. Both books run 95 pages. However, there are new sections in the 1985 version. I spent some time trying to figure out what was cut before realizing the page length remained the same primarily through a different font selection and a size reduction in some of the graphic images.

I was all but drooling over the reference section of the handbook, which identifies several earlier publications that Blackburn leveraged in her effort. In particular, “How to Conduct Tennis Tournaments” by Judy Barta from 1969 looks like an interesting historical artifact for perusal. I found a lot of additional research threads to pull on the reference section alone.

Based on my experience with tournament administration in my youth, the publication is a credible and comprehensive guide for running events. In fact, the 1985 version would have been the one in use when my Mom was running tournaments. She doesn’t recall ever seeing a copy of the handbook, but the tournament director training periodically conducted by USTA Texas back in the day certainly drew from it.

The handbook’s top level sections cover broad topics like how to create a tournament, how to set up administration, and how committees should be structured. The book spends more space on committees than any other generic topic. The spark that sent me searching for this reference manual in the first place was scheduling tournaments. That subject appears as one of the “Implementation” committees.

The scheduling subsection was greatly expanded between the 1979 and 1985 editions of the manual. The primary difference was a more detailed explanation of “The Garman System” for scheduling tennis tournaments. In fact, one of the references points to a resource of more detailed tables. The USTA has a more recent version of those tables from 2009 posted to a public assets website. My mom definitely used a printed copy of The Garman tables when scheduling tournaments back in the 1980s

Basically the Garman system is structured to maximize court usage while minimizing player wait times at the tournament desk. It implements what I would call a “rolling wave” of match scheduling based on the number of courts available and average match length expected. Presumably, tournament directors have some historical data or guidance to use when making the determination of expected average match run time. Scoring format and court surface are variables that will have significant impact on the durations.

To get a feel for rolling wave scheduling, a tournament with 8 courts available that expects an average match time of 1:44 should plan for 8 matches during “Period 0” at 8 am. With that average match length, Period 1 would not have any new matches scheduled. However, Period 2 at 9:00 will plan for two additional matches. Every half hour from then on throughout the day has 2 or 3 additional matches scheduled.

This should look familiar to tournament players, as we have all seen draws with these staggered match times. I assume that the USTA tournament software directly supports the Garman tables to some extent. I had to chuckle at the passage in Blackburn’s manual that stated the system was created by “solid” mathematical analysis. I suppose that is to distinguish it from specious mathematical work.

What sent me searching for this book is because it is clear that some USTA tournaments are struggling to create efficient schedules. The existence of this handbook and evidence that the Garman tables were still being updated in 2009 are both pretty strong signs that there is probably more current guidance available. I am still looking for a chance to engage with USTA tournament director training as soon as it is next available.

In any case, I enjoyed my time spent in the reading room of the Library of Congress this week. It is a cathedral-like setting that inspires a sense of reverence and awe. Even reading a niche tennis book like the Handbook for planning and conducting tennis tournaments created a sense of gravitas. Experiencing this venue is a definite bucket list item for library geeks like myself.

That being said, I probably shouldn’t have had to go there. Surely the USTA has a current electronic version of this revised book that can be shared.

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1. Handbook for planning and conducting tennis tournaments, Lois A. Blackburn, 1985.
2. Lois Blackburn Bryan, ITA Hall of Fame, viewed October 1, 2022.
3. The Revised Garman System, Dr. Brian German, USTA Asset, 2009.