This Ain’t My First Fast 4 Rodeo

Today’s topic gives me a rare opportunity to plagiarize myself, as I previously blogged about the Fast4 set format a little over a year ago for another site. As an administrative side note, one of the benefits of regular personal writing is that provides an opportunity to evaluate personal growth over time. I am happy to observe I am developing a more nuanced view of the rules of tennis. I am also happy to note that my evolved thinking does not preclude additional ranting about Fast4.

In 2018, the USTA pioneered an NTRP National Championship tournament as a way to create new level-based competition. According to the USTA web page published shortly after the event, it was an “overwhelming success” in the inaugural year. While those exuberant claims of success no longer appear on the site, it does appear that the USTA NTRP Championships is firmly ensconced as an annual occurrence.

When I originally wrote about this topic, my perspective was that the NTRP Championship is a great idea for promoting tournament play. At the same time, I was very critical of the USTA for the decision to play this event under the Fast4 Format. My basic thesis was that the format is an overall detriment to the player experience. That opinion was based on direct first hand knowledge, as I played in the inaugural 50+ 2018 NTRP National Championship held in Naples Florida. “Overwhelming success” is not the phrase that I would have used to describe the event I attended.

Ordinarily, I would want to point to the Fast4 format rules as dictated by authoritative sanctioning body. This leads me into my first basic criticism: There is no consistent source of the Fast4 rules published by a well established and credible sanctioning body. The “Short” set format published in Appendix V of the USTA Friend at Court contains all the basic aspects of the scoring system, but it isn’t stitched together and packaged in a cohesive format. The term “Fast4” is not used in the USTA Friend at Court.

In a nutshell, the Fast4 Format consists of “Short” sets, where the winner of each set is the first to win 4 games. A tie-break game is played if the score reaches 3-3 or 4-4 “at the discretion of the sanctioning body.” The decision of the game count when the tie-break should be played seems to be roughly 50-50 in actual usage across events.

The lack of definition on when a tie-break game is invoked is not the only example of “Alternatives,” or what I would call waffling, on the format. Another examples include service lets, which can either be in play or not. There are also inconsistencies in the format of the tie-break game. The only universally practiced rule that I can discern is that the game scoring system is No-Ad.

In the absence of an authoritative source of the Fast4 scoring rules, there are a lot of “weed” websites that describe the format. Internet searches on official sources of this rule turns up a lot of domains that people probably don’t want to click on. Wikipedia is the most reputable domain that regularly turns up in the results.

I am not done ranting on this topic, but I will end today with one example of how my views on Fast4 have evolved since I originally encountered the format in 2018. I still hate it but also accept that it is not going away any time soon.

It is absurd that the USTA sanctions and promotes a National Championship which is played under a scoring format that is not included in the Friend At Court. With that I issue a challenge to the USTA to please formally document a consistent definition of the scoring rules of Fast4. It seems like a small ask.

1. 4 Fast Arguments Against Fast 4, Bleeping Tennis, September 21, 2018 (This is a domain also owned by the author.)
2. About NTRP National Championships, USTA, page viewed September 21, 2018 and February 20, 2020.
3. Nine serves up FAST4 tennis, David Knox, TV Tonight (Australia), December 23, 2014
4. New Rules, Next Gen ATP Finals, viewed February 20, 2020.
5. United States Tennis Association (2020) Friend at Court. White Plains, NY