As the entry deadline approaches for this year’s USTA Texas Masters Championships, details about the tournament are starting to emerge. The 18+ and Open divisions have picked up a new title sponsor. The tournament is now properly identified as “The Austin Subaru Texas Adult Masters Championships.” I am going to stick with calling it the “Texas Masters” for the sake of brevity. However, that is not the most significant change that players will notice this year.
I do want to acknowledge my appreciation of Austin Subaru for their sponsorship. I personally drive a 2019 Subaru Crosstrek, and could not he happier with the vehicle. It is the perfect car for tennis players. “Matilda” makes occasional cameo appearances on this site including this picture from the post “My Tennis Cargo Bay Organizer.” I will probably drive a Subaru for the rest of my life.
I have previously talked a lot about the Texas Masters as an example of a powerful extrinsic motivator. The selection structure creates an incentive for players to compete in a lot of tournaments during the year. While anyone in the Section can enter the Texas Masters, only the top 8 from the standings list get to play in the event. This creates a sense of exclusivity that is energetically pursued by the playing community.
A historical perk of the Texas Masters is the traditional format of play. The 8 players/teams selected are split into two round robin pools. The winners of each pool then play an additional match to determine the Champion. That means that the format guarantees three matches against some of the top players in the Section as long as there are no byes or walkovers. It is a fabulous draw format that I strongly believe should be replicated more frequently.
Unfortunately, the traditional format will not be used in the tournament this year. That decision was recently announced on the Capital Area Tennis Association’s tournament website:
Format: Compass Draw – Points will be allocated according to final standings on the Compass Draw (1st thru 8th place) 1st pl: 1,500; 2nd: 1,050; 3rd: 900; 4th: 750; 5th: 120; 6th: 60; 7th: 60; 8th: 0
Excerpt from Level 4 Closed: Simply the BEST – 2022 Austin Subaru Texas Adult Masters Championships
The word on the street is that the decision to go with the compass format was driven by the fact that the USTA National Rankings calculation software still doesn’t cleanly handle two stage round robin draws. Ironically, the disconnect isn’t because Texas is off using an unsanctioned rogue format. It is fundamentally a smaller scale version of what is used in the NTRP National Championships. The root cause of the rankings point errors is endemic to the USTA Adult Tournament Ranking System document.
When USTA Texas performed the rankings calculations for the Texas Masters, the points awarded to each player used an “Order of Finish” based approach. The (relatively) new software that awards points and calculates the USTA National Rankings is still inconsistent at best. I don’t want to rehash the numerous issues that have been documented on this site in today’s post. However, “Points Illustrated: An Example of Rankings Inequities” gives a pretty good feel for some of the philosophical challenges.
Ever since the compass draw was announced as the format for the 18+ and Open divisions of the 2022 Texas Masters, people have been asking me what I think about the decision. I have also been entertaining questions about whether the compass draw rankings calculations are accurately performed. Until this week, I had not examined the format. The results of that analysis is the subject of tomorrow’s post.
On the surface, the compass draw is similar to the traditional format, as all players are nominally guaranteed three matches. However, one less match will occur in each event this year. An 8 entry compass draw is played out in 12 matches, and the traditional Texas Masters format requires 13. It might seem insignificant, but that is about 8% less tennis. I guess it helps with court capacity.
Additionally, I suspect that the detailed schedule of points that will be awarded to each place in the order of finish is a proactive attempt by the tournament organizers to head off the issues and complaints generated over the past couple of years. Dollars to donuts, there will still be angst from people who don’t bother to read or fully comprehend the published points schedule beforehand.
I believe that I understand the reasons that drove the tournament organizers to opt for the compass format this year. I support the decision, though I probably would have selected an FICQ draw for reasons that I will fully detail at some point this weekend.
In either case, using a draw format that continues to be riddled with rankings point calculation errors is more trouble than it is worth. However, it makes me profoundly sad to see tradition discarded for this reason.
- Level 4 Closed: Simply the BEST – 2022 Austin Subaru Texas Adult Masters Championships, Capatal Area Tennis Association Website, viewed September 26, 2022.
- USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, USTA Resource, effective February 1, 2022, downloaded September 26, 2022.
Sad to hear of this change. I liked the simplicity of round-robin pool play … and that it somewhat mirrored the ATP/WTA Finals.