Twelve (!) 2017 USTA League National (Co-)Champions Crowned Due to Rain? Should Mobile be a Nationals venue?

The busiest weekend of 2017 USTA League Nationals is complete.  Well, sort of complete.  Let me explain.

This weekend found 18 & over 2.5 women and 3.0 levels being played along with 40 & over 4.0 and 4.5+ levels.  All told, that should lead to seven (7) National Champs being given out.  Yet, there appear to be 12 teams given titles.  How can this be?

The 18 & over 3.0 level was played in Arizona and went off without a hitch.

The women found Florida, Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Northern California making the semis.  Florida and NorCal had tight 3-2 wins to make the final where NorCal won it all 3-2, one court going to a super tie-break.

The men had Northern California, Texas, Caribbean, and Southern make the semis and every match from thereon in was a 3-2 win and those went for Southern and Caribbean with Caribbean taking the title.

The 40 & over 4.0 was at the National Campus and also appears to have gone fine.

The women had Intermountain, Midwest, New England, and Texas make the semis where 3-2 wins abounded, New England and Texas winning only to have Texas win the final 3-2.

The men had Mid-Atlantic, Florida, Middle States, and Southern win their flights to make the semis. Middle States and Florida won with Florida winning the final 4-1.

What did not go fine were the championships played in Mobile, AL where the 2.5 women and 4.5+ men and women were playing.

From what I'm told, Mobile is one of the wettest spots in the South, which makes it an interesting spot to choose to hold Nationals given you have players from all over the country, including Hawaii and Puerto Rico, making a trip at no small expense to play a bunch of tennis over three days.  While I'm sure it doesn't happen for every event held there, I've heard stories of many events being delayed or altered by rain as there are really no indoor facilities to fall back on.

As a reminder, the standard format for Nationals is round-robin in flights on Friday and Saturday, and then semis bright and early Sunday morning with the final (and 3rd/4th place match) immediately following.  The goal is to keep it to a three day event and allow those that want/need to to leave late in the day on Sunday.

Well, it all went bad this weekend.  The first two days went fine, but the forecast appears to have called for a deluge on Sunday, as the 4.5+ semis were actually moved forward and played late on Saturday so they could, I guess, hope to get the final in Sunday early morning.  From what one can see on TennisLink and what I've heard from some eyewitness reports, the plan did not work.

The 4.5 women had Southern, Florida, Missouri Valley, and Eastern all make it to the semis and they squeezed these in on Saturday, but the 3-2 winners each, Florida and Southern never got to play the final, thus co-champs declared.

The 4.5+ men found Midwest (narrowly on courts won tie-breaker), Pacific Northwest, Middle States, and Northern California advancing to the semis.  As noted above, they got the semis in on Sunday with NorCal and Middle States advancing 4-1 each, but the final was never played and the teams will be declared co-champs as I understand it just like the women.

For the 2.5 women was the worst though.  This was three flights of five teams with Pacific Northwest, Missouri Valley, and Southern winning the flights and they were joined by Florida as the wildcard.  I'm guessing that because all teams played twice each day already, they did not want to schedule the semis on Saturday, so when the rains came even they were not played.  What does the USTA do in this case?  They declared all four teams co-champs.  Isn't that nice, Florida gets a championship without winning their flight and not having to ever beat another flight winner!

As a result, instead of the 7 champs that should have been crowned, 2 extra co-champs come from the 4.5+ men and women, and 3 come from the 2.5 women making it 12 for the weekend.

From my perspective, all of this would be very unfulfilling.  Not only did these teams not get to play 1 or 2 matches they had planned on, but a real winner was not identified, and while giving out co-champs to multiple teams may be the only option, really feels odd and waters down the accomplishment.

And it all could have been avoided.  Yes, weather or other unforeseen events can happen anywhere, several years ago a freak storm caused delays and short sets for a Mixed Nationals in Tucson, but making the conscious choice to hold Nationals in Florida and Alabama, where October is likely to bring rain and at times lots of it, just seems a bit foolish.  In just a few weeks, not only has the fiasco in Mobile happened but Fort Lauderdale had significant delays leading to late night matches and shortened matches using short sets and no-ad scoring.  They were fortunate Sunday was not rained out and they got their semis and finals in.

Yes, I know many people liked the idea of Nationals being farther east as much of the population making trip would have shorter and more convenient travel, but are all those same folks still glad they had a shorter trip after facing delays and alternate formats of play and for some, not getting to play their last two matches and decide a champion?

To be fair to all my readers, while many of you said using the new National Campus was a great idea, over a third said California should continue to be used and holding Nationals in Alabama was supported by just 5% of players, behind "Other" at 10%.

What do you think?  Is this just the nature of the beast?  Just bad luck that two events in three weeks have been negatively affected?  Or is there an obligation on the part of the USTA to hold Nationals where the likelihood of delays or cancellation is lower, or there are indoor facilities to use as a fallback?