Tennis News You Can Use
It was a safe bet that there would be growing pains as the USTA transitioned tennis tournament registration to the new digital platform. Registration is now open for tournaments scheduled in early January. It is apparent that players are struggling to complete their entries. Progress is sometimes painful.
There have been several spirited threads of conversation about the platform changes in the Facebook group for the rabid tennis tournament players in Texas. That group has participation from a few prominent tournament directors in the Section. One indicated that he is “Completely and utterly confused by everything.” Another tournament director wrote “We’re stuck at this point.”
There is a player in Texas that regularly creates and shares a spreadsheet of the major tournaments in Texas. Several players use that artifact as a “Tournaments at a Glance” type resource. The phrase “Why USTA Why” was embedded in the title of his first version posted for 2021.
I was surprised at some of the questions that have been asked in the Facebook forum. I feel like there has already been a lot of conversation about the New National Seven Level framework, yet questions continue to resurface. I would anticipate that this will be an ongoing theme as casual players in the tennis ecosystem drift in and out of tournament participation.
Registration in Practice
I have been eagerly anticipating the start of actual tournament registrations so we can see how the new system works in practice. As an engineer that works on systems with digital human interfaces, I would characterize the new system as “clunky.” That’s the official technical term.
It is kind of astonishing, but the USTA Play Tennis registration page does not have a means to collect all the information that is needed to enter a tournament. As a glaring example, a player registering for doubles has no way to indicate who their partner will be. It is a shocking oversight.
The organizers of the CATA Polar Bear tournament have addressed that deficiency by creating a separately hosted form linked from the tournament page to collect that data. For that tournament, the additional information is doubles partners and T shirt sizes. Many players will miss that link from the USTA tournament page. Equally likely is that some players will fill out that form and not realize that they did not complete their registration on the USTA site. The technical term for what is likely to ensue is “cluster.”
The Mixed Complication
Since the USTA does not offer Mixed Doubles as a sanctioned event at NTRP levels in 2021, these tournaments are set up in Play Tennis as an unsanctioned tournament. Each NTRP level is specified as it’s own tournament and the level is set to “Open.” What could go wrong?
The net result of this workaround is that the “real” tournament disappears from the query in a sea of these unsanctioned side events. It is going to make it hard for players to find the primary tournament. Additionally, it is not possible for players to query directly for these unsanctioned mixed events.
Positive Features of Play Tennis
There are two improvements in Play Tennis over the legacy TennisLink system. First, there is a way to add another player to the primary player’s account. It always kind of chapped me that the non-refundable registration fee was charged to both myself and the Fiend at Court spousal unit when we were playing the same tournament. I would imagine that this consolidation is particularly useful in junior tournaments where a parent can register multiple children in a single transaction.
The second improvement is automated collection of the tournament waiver forms which are now ubiquitous in the pandemic era. In fact, it does not appear to be possible to register for a tournament without first acknowledging consent to the waiver. This is how it should be.
Showing Our Stripes
Of all the changes, I was happy to see that payment processing is moving from the Active platform to “Stripes” which is a more conventional payment processing system. This impacts the “non-refundable processing fee.” Another way to phrase this is “Let’s stop flushing money down the toilet.”
The USTA collected $11.4 million in tournament and league registration fees in 2019 according to the IRS form 990. They don’t break down the numbers any further, but I have worked through various scenarios and my best guess is that the fees siphoned off to a third party will be cut to approximately half.
I also don’t know if the USTA negotiated a better rate, but the normal terms from Stripes are 2.9% of the transaction plus 30 cents. For a $48 entry fee, which is exactly what the Polar Bear tournament is charging, it comes out to $1.69. That is significantly less than Active was skimming off the USTA.
The ability to consolidate entries among family members will also contribute to the savings. For example if I had made four entries into that tournament, the processing fee would be $5.86. If that is divided across myself and the Fiend at Court spousal unit, then it is only a moderate savings of the $6 that Active would take. However, if I am a parent registering 4 children it cuts the registration fees by half.
I still assert that the USTA has the necessary economy of scale to implement their own payment processing system. At the same time, after viewing the initial release of Play Tennis, probably it is best to leave financial transactions and data to a third party for awhile.
Finishing Shots
One Texas Tournament player summed up the new system with the statement “Leave it to the USTA to take a crappy website and make it worse.” There are clearly some kinks to be worked out, and some glaring oversights to correct. However, I do see earmarks of the underlying infrastructure that should make it easier for the USTA to improve and maintain the system.
I am concerned about all the registration challenges within the player community in Texas that have a lot of experience registering for tournaments. Casual members of that ecosystem may be so stymied by the Play Tennis interface that they give up. That would have a depressive effect on participation. Maybe the USTA should consider setting up a helpline.
In the long run, it is probably going to be OK. Progress is sometimes painful.
The new USTA Play Tennis Interface can be found at https://playtennis.usta.com/tournaments
