Tiebreak Rules from the #NextGenATP Finals

The Rules of Tennis

I have a complicated relationship with the Fast4 scoring system. I like it when playing UTR tournaments as the shortened format enables completion of a three match tournament in a single day. I don’t like it for competitions where a significant number of the competitors had to get on a plane to get there. Last week, the tiebreak format used at at the #NextGenATP Finals was added to the mix.

The USTA NTRP National Championships uses a special short-set tiebreak game that is straight out of the Friend at Court. That tie-break game is fundamentally flawed and can result in a significant advantage for one team. I first wrote about that problem back in February of 2020 in “Tie-Break: Short Set vs Fast4.” In April of this year, I revisited the scoring format from the 2021 NTRP National Championships in “USTA NTRP National Championships Recap.” That post had a couple of screen shots of the scoring rules provided to the competitors at this years tournaments. The USTA still had not addressed the ambiguity in the short set tie-break tables.

In every UTR tournaments that I have played, the tie-break game has always been declared as standard, first to seven and win by two. Today is the first time that I have fully considered that my generally more positive attitude about short sets in UTR has a lot to do with that tiebreak selection.

While I wasn’t particularly interested in the #NextGenATP Finals, I did make it a point to watch a couple of matches closely enough to see what tiebreak game was used in that event. It was the standard tie-break game. In other words, the tournament that loves Fast4 so much that they play it best of five… regards the shortened tiebreak game as a bridge too far.

The USTA should take notice. The USTA NTRP National Championships as well as some of the sectional qualifying events for that tournament is the only place in the world that I am aware of where the shortened tiebreak game is actually used. There is a reason that the USTA is alone on that island.

I propose that the USTA specify the Coman tiebreak game played first to seven and win by two for all Short Set events starting in 2022. No one will complain.