The USTA has held USTA League Nationals at a variety of sites over the years, and has added two new ones (at least in recent memory) this year in Las Vegas, NV and Arlington, TX. In light of the
weather issues last year and
this year already, I thought it would be interesting to look at some objective data, average rainfall totals and days of rain, for all the sites.
Here they are, using information from
U.S. Climate Data for average rainfall and
Weather Spark for days with precipitation (where available) in October, ordered from least to most rainfall:
- Palm Springs, CA - 0.20 inches / 1 day
- Las Vegas, NV - 0.28 inches / 1 day
- Phoenix, AZ - 0.59 inches / 2 days
- Tucson, AZ - 1.22 inches / 3 days
- Orlando, FL - 3.31 / 9 days
- Mobile, AL - 3.70 / 7 days
- Arlington, TX - 4.61 inches / 7 days
- Fort Lauderdale, FL - 6.42 / 11 days
Clearly, there are 4 sites that are drier and 4 that are wetter. I've bolded the locations for Nationals this year, and apart of Vegas, you can see that save for Ft. Lauderdale, the wettest locations are being used this year. This is not anything that hard to determine and should have been consulted prior to picking the sites.
And I'll be honest, when I heard Arlington was a site this year, along with Vegas, I thought both would be good because they'd be unlikely to have rain. I had not looked up the rain situation in Arlington, I just assumed it is central Texas and would be dry, but had I done some research earlier would have been more critical of its selection as a site to hold Nationals. A 1 in 4 chance of a day being wet and 4.61 inches of rain in a month is a lot and you have to almost expect an event to be affected.
Now, weather is unpredictable, and a storm can come through and it can rain anywhere, none of the above sites are 0% or 0 days so none guarantee a dry event. And Phoenix even had some rain (but not near the amount Arlington did) last weekend. But averages do tell a story and, well, on average that is what will occur, and clearly some sites are better and worse to hold an event where dry weather is required.
Additionally, there can be contingency plans in place in the event of weather, for example securing and using indoor facilities in the event of rain, so the availability of those needs to be judged against the risk of needing them. But it appears there were no plans in advance, or they were not sufficient in Arlington last weekend.
The National Campus in Orlando is not the wettest listed above, but is reasonably wet. But it also has the capability to adapt as there are some indoor courts there, and they have over 100 courts so have capacity to use more courts and do more in parallel to catch up if needed. This is a great example of having a contingency plan at a site where there is a chance of rain.
All that said, when players are taking time off from work and spending thousands on airfare and lodging, in my opinion they have a right to expect that between the site selection and/or contingency plans that the event will be held to completion in as close to a full format as possible.
I know more goes into selecting a Nationals site than just saying "let's go there". A city/facility has to be interested or willing to host, and as I understand it they may even need to bid on it, but I'm also sure the USTA could encourage sites to bid. Cost of the facility, and convenience/cost for those players traveling to it is also a factor. But I'm pretty sure the majority of players would choose to spend a few hundred more dollars and have a complete event than to skimp and have an event where
just 53% of the planned tennis was played, or
4-way National Champions are declared when matches can't be played.
Let's hope we can avoid more rain the rest of this year's Nationals, but also that future sites are selected in a way and plans put in place that gives a greater chance of a complete event.
Update: A few additions made to use the National Campus in Orlando as an example of how a lot of course and some indoor can be a suitable contingency plan.
