Analyzing 2022 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - How often do appeals stick? How many are inappropriate?

I just wrote about 2022 year-end ratings and how many players have already appealed their rating, but a natural follow up question is how many of these appeals are really appropriate?

Allowing appeals is seemingly done for a few reasons:

• Players get bumped up but want to continue to play their their old team and friends
• Players get bumped up and there is no flight at the higher level and appealing down allows them to play
• Players are improving but just missed a bump up and want the validation of the higher rating by their name
• A team at the higher level needs players but roster limits require a minimum number of at-level players so if someone appeals up, they help meet that minimum number

One can debate which of the above, or other reasons there might be, are legitimate reasons to appeal, but one could also make the case that if someone appeals and then goes back to their old rating after a year, perhaps that appeal wasn't appropriate or justified.

Whether you agree with the characterization of this scenario indicating an inappropriate or unjustified appeal, it is a statistic we can look at so I went above doing so.  What I'll be doing is looking at players that appealed in year X but in year X+1 went back to their old level.

I will note that my data is not necessarily 100% perfect, but I think it is good enough for us to get a good idea of what happens with players that appeal.

First, looking at players that appealed their year-end level up:

• 2021 - 1,948 appeals up with 645, or 33%, bumped back down at 2022 year-end
• 2019 - 2,443 / 729 / 30%
• 2018 - 2,018 / 630 / 31%
• 2017 - 1,765 / 552 / 31%
• 2016 - 1,866 / 574 / 31%

This shows a pretty clear trend of around a third of appeal ups being "inappropriate".

What about appeal downs?  Here that is:

• 2021 - 3,307 appeals down with 1,060, or 32%, bumped back up at 2022 year-end
• 2019 - 4,706 / 1,544 / 33%
• 2018 - 3,123 / 1,400 / 45%
• 2017 - 2,151 / 834 / 39%
• 2016 - 2,122 / 834 / 39%

Here we see a higher percentage, but not quite as consistent year to year, of appeal downs being "inappropriate".

What do you think?  Do these stats tell us anything about whether the appeal system is working as intended?  Is it a concern that 30-40% of appeal players go back to their pre-appeal level?

Analyzing 2022 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - Who appeals and in what direction?

Next up in our analysis of 2022 USTA NTRP year-end ratings, we take a look at appeals.

We aren't even a week post ratings release, and not everyone that is going to try to appeal has done so so these stats could change, but many that want to appeal will do it right away so I think it is still worthwhile to take a look now.

First, my analysis shows that 2,633 player have successfully appealed, 1,476 of them down and 1,157 up.  For comparison, for 2021, 4,107 appealed down and 2,335 appealed up.

Where it gets more interesting is when splitting it out by gender.  Of the 1,476 appeals down, 632 of them were women and 844 were men.  That is a similar ratio to 2021, perhaps a bit more heavy towards men.  But for appeals up, it switches and women do it more with 953 women and just 204 men.  Again, this is a similar ratio to 2021.

So more women appeal up than down, and a lot more men appeal down than up.

But part of this may have to do with the levels players are at.  It is generally the case that lower rated players are more likely to appeal up and higher rated ones are more likely to appeal down.

Here are the appeals down and up for women using the appealed from level.

• 2.5 - 0 / 670
• 3.0 - 191 / 753
• 3.5 - 449 / 390
• 4.0 - 622 / 52
• 4.5 - 411 / 2
• 5.0 - 165 / 0
• 5.5 - 18 / 0

And the men.

• 2.5 - 0 / 71
• 3.0 - 46 / 188
• 3.5 - 473 / 148
• 4.0 - 835 / 54
• 4.5 - 626 / 7
• 5.0 - 254 / 0
• 5.5 - 17 / 0

We see that a lot of 2.5 and 3.0 women appeal up, and interestingly more 3.5s appeal down to 3.0 than up to 4.0.  At 4.0 and above there are very few appeals up and the majority are down.

The men also have more appeals up at 2.5 and 3.0 and that swaps at 3.5 and by a much larger ratio than the women with 3x appealing down vs the women vs just 15% more for the women.

What do you think?

Analyzing 2022 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - Bump rates by level and gender

Continuing on with my analysis of 2022 USTA NTRP year-end ratings, I take a look at bumps rates by level, both overall and by gender.

Here are the overall bump rates by level.

We can see 2.5s are only bumped up and not down, nearly 13% of 3.0s are bumped up vs under 4% being bumped down, 3.5s are close to even, and then at 4.0 and above there are more bump downs than up.

Let's see how it is by gender as well.  The women:

Not a whole lot different from the overall, just fewer bump ups once you get to 3.5 and above.

And here are the men:

As you'd expect, just a slight difference with more bump ups at most every level.

Stay tuned for more.

Analyzing 2022 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - Section bump rates by gender

The USTA published 2022 year-end NTRP ratings last week so that means it is time to start doing some analysis to see what we can learn.

To start, we'll look at bump rates overall and by section including by gender.  In all the charts below, it is showing the percentage of players bumped down (purple) or up (green).

First, the overall rates were:

• Stayed - 86.1%
• Bumped up - 8.3%
• Bumped down - 5.6%

This is very consistent with most years.  For the women:

• Stayed - 85.7%
• Bumped up - 8.7%
• Bumped down - 5.6%

And then men:

• Stayed - 86.9%
• Bumped up - 7.6%
• Bumped down - 5.5%

Not a lot of variation, the men are bumped up slightly less than the women, the bump down percentages are about the same.

Here are the overall bump rates by section.

Unlike many years in the past where some sections have significantly higher bump up rates, we see that the bump rates are remarkably similar across the sections.  Just Hawaii, with slightly more bump downs than bump ups, and Northern, with just slightly more bump ups than down, don't fit the profile of most of the other sections where bump ups were about 50% higher than bump downs.

Taking a look at the same stats but by gender, here are the women.

Nothing is remarkably different here.  Just Hawaii and Northern are about equal bump up/down rates, and with a little variation the rest have about 50% more bumps up than down.

And the men.

Here we see a few sections with more than 50% greater bumps up than down like Eastern and perhaps Florida.  Southwest is also close to near equal and Hawaii has a lot more bumps down than up and Missouri Valley is near equal.

Stay tuned for more.

2022 year-end NTRP ratings have been published!

It has been much anticipated, and has finally happened, the USTA has published year-end ratings for 2022!  As I write this, there are at least some players with 2022 year-end ratings on TennisLink.

To check what your rating is, you can go to TennisLink and look yourself up, or login and it should show your rating.  Make sure to check the date and that it is 12/31/2022 as that is what all new ratings should show.  If it still says a different date, yours may not be updated yet, or you didn't play enough matches to get a new rating.

Stay tuned for analysis of the ratings, but if anyone has any questions or wants to get a report to understand why they were/weren't bumped up or down, contact me!  And I'm always interested in situations where players successfully appeal, so if you do that and it is granted, drop me a note.

I'll be doing my usual analysis in the next few days, looking at general bump rates, then drilling in by gender and level and section (those links to 2019's analysis) to see what we can tell about how the USTA handled things this time around.  So stay tuned!

Week Seven of 2022 USTA League Nationals Recap

Week seven, the final week, of 2022 USTA League Nationals is complete, here is a recap.

This weekend was just 40 & Over Mixed with two levels played in Arizona and two in Orlando.  The Orlando even had a day washed out by hurricane Nicole but they went to a short set format on Saturday and got all the matches in, although I think a few teams didn't make it.

The 6.0 level in Orlando had the PNW team missing, but the other teams played with a five-way tie at 3-1 with Middle States, Eastern, MOValley, and Southwest advancing having the better court records.  Southwest and Eastern won the semis to make the final where Eastern won 3-0.

The 7.0 level was in Arizona and after Eastern and Hawaii went 4-0, there was a big tie with six teams at 3-1, but NorCal and SoCal stood out with the best court records and took the spots.  Eastern and NorCal played in the final where NorCal won 2-1.

The 8.0 level was also in Arizona and a nice and tidy four teams went 4-0.  Middle States beat PNW 2-1 while Intermountain did the same with SoCal, and then PNW won the final 2-1.

Last, the 9.0 level in Orlando had Southern and Eastern go 4-0, and then a three-way tie at 3-1 saw PNW and Florida advance with the better court records.  Eastern and Florida advanced with 2-1 wins before Florida won the final 2-1.

That is a wrap for 2022 Nationals!  Well, there are some what they call "Invitationals" to be played in the Spring with the 65 & Over and Tri-Level Invitationals, but at this point, the next big thing is ratings which should be published the week after Thanksgiving, I'm guessing on 11/30.

Congratulations to the new 2022 Nationals Champs!

40 & Over Mixed Nationals in Orlando in the path of hurricane Nicole

The last weekend of Nationals is this weekend with the 40 & Over Mixed events all being played, 7.0/8.0 in Arizona and 6.0/9.0 in Orlando.

Unfortunately, the latest on hurricane Nicole is that it is going to make landfall on the Atlantic side of Florida early Thursday morning and move inland and north pretty much right over Orlando.  The good news is it appears to be a quick moving storm so may be clearing out by Friday, but reports are that Orlando could get 2-4 or even 4-8 inches of rain, and the airport closed Wednesday afternoon.

The National Campus has already posted they were closed at 1pm Wednesday and will remain closed through 1pm Friday, but I don't know there is any guarantee they are ready to open and begin hosting a Nationals event right at that time.  If they are, perhaps they can still pull it off, perhaps with a short set format, but if they don't start Friday, would they try to fit it all in on Saturday and Sunday?

Of course, to have an event you need players, and most would have been arriving Wednesday and Thursday and it is sounding like no one will be arriving tomorrow so for anyone to be there and ready to play Friday had to have already arrived, or find a way to sneak in Friday morning.

In the grand scheme of things, this is just recreational tennis and pales in comparison to folks homes and belongings, and certainly lives that could be at risk from the hurricane.  But I will try to update this post or add others as I learn any more about plans for the weekend.

Update: It appears the plan is to use short sets and get all of the round-robin matches in on Saturday.  This will allow teams to make it there on Friday.  It isn't ideal, but is probably making the best of a tough situation.

The facility should be open Friday afternoon for check-in and courts available for practice with matches starting at 9am.  Most teams are expected to be there but perhaps some won't be able to make it.

Week Six of 2022 USTA League Nationals Recap

Week six of this year's USTA League Nationals is complete and here is a recap.

This weekend was just 18 & Over Mixed with the 7.0 and 9.0 levels playing in Arizona.

The 6.0 level had three 4-0 teams advance, and then three 3-1 teams tied for the last spot with SoCal getting it with a better court record to join Intermountain, Florida, and Mid-Atlantic.  Intermountain won it all beating Mid-Atlantic in the final.

The 9.0 level had just two 4-0 teams in New England and Texas, the latter winning every match 2-1, and then four-way tie at 3-1 had NorCal and Southwest advance with the best court records.  Interestingly, both one-loss teams won the semis with NorCal beating Southwest in the final.

That is it for the 18 & Over Mixed, next weekend is the last and will have all of the 40 & Over Mixed levels playing, 7.0 and 8.0 in Arizona and the 6.0 and 9.0 in Orlando.

USTA Adult League Participation 2013 thru 2022 - Participation is up! No, wait, it is down. Well, ...

I'm starting my year-end statistics and analysis a little earlier than normal this year.  I normally wait for year-end ratings, but some of the analysis isn't dependent on them, namely participation numbers.  Since my analysis uses the USTA rating year period and that just closed for 2022, I can do this analysis now.

I've done this analysis in past years, so I'm continuing the same methodology this year which is to look at unique players that played in the main Adult leagues, i.e. 18 & Over, 40 & Over, 55 & Over, and 65 & Over.

As I noted last year, trying to make sense of 2020/2021 is difficult due to how COVID disrupted league play.  I did generally treat 2020/2021 as one "year" in my analysis but did take a look at how things looked if they were treated as separate years as well.  I'll do some of the same below.

First, here is participation across all of the main Adult leagues treating 2020 and 2021 as separate years.

Participation is up over 10% over 2021!  Tennis is growing!  Well, yes, the stats show there was an increase over last year, but remember last year was still recovering from the COVID shortened 2020 that was down 23% from 2019.  This is why I had combined 2020/2021 for much of my analysis.

So how does it look with 2020/2021 combined as a single year?

Using this approach we see that participation grew in the combined 2020/2021, but has taken a healthy drop this year.  Treating 2020/2021 as one period for this analysis clearly has some flaws as one would not expect the growth in 2020/2021, if real, to have turned around into a significant decline this year.

But if 2020/2021 was representative, 2022 would have seen the largest drop in participation, both in raw numbers as well as percentage, since I've been doing this analysis.  There were about 23K fewer players participating which was a drop of nearly 9%.

Perhaps the best way to look at this is to ignore 2020/2021 and focus on the change since 2019 since that was the last non-COVID year.  2019 was pretty flat compared to 2018, but there had been a slow/steady decline since 2013.  From 276K to 258K the decline of 18K was 3K per year, or the decline of 6.5% over the six years was about 1.1% per year.  If that 1.1% had continued for three years, we'd be down another 3.3% or so, or down to about 250K.  The actual 2022 participation of 242K is down an additional 8K or 3.2%.

And just looking at 2022 compared to 2019, this year was down 16K or over 6%.

From this we could conclude that the decline we saw from 2013 thru 2019 has continued at an even higher rate, or participation has not fully recovered from COVID yet.  The truth is probably some combination of the two.

On the other hand, given 2019 was basically flat, you might make the case that the decline had stopped and participation was going to remain flat.  If that is the case, 2022 fell short of expectations by over 18K and over 6%.

Moving on to look at each age division on its own, here is the 18 & Over with 2020/2021 combined.

Here we see 2020/2021 didn't get the same bump the overall numbers did, and the drop this year was a pretty significant 9K or almost 6%.  Compared to 2019 the drop is slightly higher at almost 7% and also a greater rate of decline than previous years.

Here then is 40 & Over.

This division had shown significant growth in the fictitious combined year, but had a big drop for 2022.  It was 19K or 14% from 2020/2021, and the growth trend there was since 2013 to 2019 disappeared as 2022 was 9K or 8% down from 2019.

Last we look at 55 & Over.

This division had also been showing growth, particularly in 2019, but it had a modest decline in the combined 2020/2021 and 2022 was basically flat, both down just over 4% from 2019.

I think the message is pretty clear.  Overall, participation may still be affected by COVID, but even considering that, the decline we've seen over the past 10 years is likely continuing.

What is interesting is that the decline is not biased as much towards younger players as it was in past years.  Where 40/55 & Over leagues showed increases from 2018 to 2019 while 18 & Over declined, all declined similar amounts since 2019.

Note: These are statistics from the data I've gathered and may not exactly match the USTA's data or they may report numbers using different criteria than I am.

If the 2022 rating year is over, when will year-end NTRP ratings be published?

Based on what I've been told, the cut-off date for 2022 year-end ratings has passed and so now we await their publishing.  When will that be?

Historically the ratings are published "around December 1st", and that is what an e-mail I recently received said to expect, but the exact date varies a bit year to year, but is always sometime early/mid-week the week after Thanksgiving.

I've done a decent job of writing a blog post every year right around when the ratings come out, so here is the history so we can see if we can identify a trend.  In reverse chronological order and using PST since, well, that is where I am.

2021 - Tuesday 11/30 Around 9 pm

2019 - Sunday 12/1 around 9 pm

2018 - Wednesday 11/28 around 7 pm

2017 - Thursday 11/30 around 9 pm

2016 - Wednesday 11/30 around 7 pm

2015 - Sunday/Monday 11/29-11/30 overnight

2014 - Monday 12/1 around 9 pm

2013 - Sunday/Monday 12/1-12/2 overnight

2012 - Monday 11/26 early morning

There you have it, the date has always been by the end of day 12/1, but as early as 11/26.  In some years there was a published date or timer on TennisLink but sometimes that date was not hit and there were delays resulting in the dates above.

And the day of the week varies.  For awhile, it appears they were targeting Sunday night or Monday morning, but recently it has usually been mid-week.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say to expect something around 9pm on either Wednesday 11/30 or Thursday 12/1.

Now we wait and see!

The 2022 Rating Year is Done!

The 2022 USTA League Nationals are not yet complete, there are still two weekends of Mixed Nationals to go, but Adult Nationals are now complete, and this year that means we are past the cut-off date and all matches that will count for year-end ratings have been played.

There has been some confusion the past couple weeks over what the date was.  I understood the date to be October 30, when the last Adult Nationals was completed, but most everyone I was hearing from was saying the were being told it would be November 13th, when the last Mixed Nationals would be finished.  I was pretty confident in 10/30 being the real cut-off but wasn't sure why the 11/13 date was being shared as the date.

This is by no means the final word, but I'd reached out to a coordinator and was initially told it was 11/13, but then was told that the cut-off date is indeed 10/30, but that there is a grace period to get matches entered and that date is 11/13.  Assuming this is the case, it is possible that 11/13 being the cut-off date for entry but the cut-off date for matches to be played was 10/30 was confusing and misunderstood and thus miscommunicated.

Also adding to the confusion is that last year the cut-off date was the last day of Mixed Nationals (11/14) and so one might logically conclude it would follow the same pattern this year.  However, to the best of my knowledge, all other recent years have followed the pattern of the last day of Adult Nationals and it appears last year was a one-time experiment with a later date, but we are back to the previous pattern.

So, I'm going with this past Sunday 10/30 as the cut-off date.  Apologies to anyone that I may have told 11/13 being the date, but I'm pretty sure I said I thought that might be wrong but what was being shared with a number of players.

Week Five of 2022 USTA League Nationals Recap

Week five of 2022 USTA League Nationals is complete and here is a recap of who won.  See my recap of the round-robin for how the teams got to the semis.

The 55 & Over 6.0 women appears odd on TennisLink with New England advancing over Eastern in a semi, but no scores entered.  The other side had Southern beating Mid-Atlantic and Southern won the final.

The 55 & Over 6.0 men had Midwest beat Northern and Hawaii beat PNW to reach the final where Hawaii won the title.

The 55 & Over 9.0 women had Florida take out SoCal while Eastern beat Texas, and in the final Florida won it all.

The 55 & Over 9.0 men saw Middle States beat Southern and Northern beat Mid-Atlantic, and Northern won the final to take it all.

Moving on to 18 & Over Mixed, the 6.0 level Intermountain beat SoCal and Mid-Atlantic beat Florida and then Intermountain won the final.

The 8.0 level SoCal beat Mid-Atlantic and Caribbean beat Southern before SoCal beat Caribbean to win the final.

Last, the 10.0 level NorCal beat Texas and Southern beat SoCal, with NorCal winning the title.

Congratulations to all the teams!

The last two weekends of Nationals will be just Mixed with 18 & over finishing up next weekend in Arizona, and then 40 & Over Mixed playing the last weekend in Arizona and Orlando.

2022 USTA League Nationals Week 5 Round-Robin Recap

It is the end of another Saturday of Nationals, and here is how the round-robin played out for this weekend's events.

The 55 & Over 6.0 women had two 4-0 teams in Eastern and Southern, then a 5-way tie at 3-1 for the last two spots and Mid-Atlantic and New England got the spots by having better court records than the others.

The 55 & Over 6.0 men had a 4-way tie at 3-1 for two spots behind 4-0 Northern and PNW, with Hawaii and Midwest both being 10-2 on courts and advancing.

The 55 & Over 9.0 women had two 4-0 teams in Florida and Texas, then only two 3-1 teams in Eastern and SoCal advance.

The 55 & Over 9.0 men had a 6-way tie at 3-1 behind 4-0 Middle States and Northern, with Mid-Atlantic and Southern having better court records than the other four teams.

Moving on to 18 & Over Mixed, the 6.0 level had three 4-0 teams in Intermountain, Florida, and Mid-Atlantic with SoCal getting the last spot over two other 3-1 teams by having a better court record.

The 8.0 level also had three 4-0 teams in SoCal, Southern, and Caribbean, and then Mid-Atlantic was the best of five 3-1 teams having the better court record.

The 10.0 level had two 4-0 teams in Texas and SoCal, and four teams at 3-1 with Southern and NorCal getting the spots, NorCal winning a tie-breaker on one fewer sets lost than Eastern.

Good luck to everyone tomorrow!

Week Five of USTA League Nationals - Rain in Orlando

Week 5 of USTA League Nationals is going on as I write this with the 55 & Over 6.0 and 9.0 in Orlando and Mixed having its first weekend of play with the 18 & Over 6.0, 8.0, and 10.0 in Arizona.

Unfortunately, it rained this afternoon in Orlando washing out most of the second matches.  This means there will be short sets and no-ad tomorrow to get all the matches in.

My simulation shows the 6.0 women could have a big tie at 3-1, the 6.0 men could have a 3-way tie for two spots, the 9.0 women could be a tidy four teams at 3-1 or better, and the 9.0 men could have five 3-1 teams for four spots.

For Mixed, the 6.0 level will likely have a tie at 3-1 for two spots with three teams, the 8.0 level still has a chance of five undefeated, but also could end up with six teams at 3-1, and the 10.0 level could have a big tie at 3-1.

Week Four of 2022 USTA League Nationals Recap

Another weekend of USTA League Nationals is in the book and here is how it played out.  See my round-robin recap to see how the teams got to this point.

The 18 & Over 5.0 women had NorCal beating Southern 3-0 to face Midwest in the final who beat Intermountain 2-1.  In the final Midwest won 2-1.

The 18 & Over 5.0 men had Texas win it all beating MOValley 2-1 after those teams beat NorCal and Middle States 2-1 each.

The 40 & Over 3.0 women saw PNW beat Mid-Atlantic and Middle States beat Florida to make the final, the latter in a "2-2 win" fashion, and then Middle States won the final.

The 40 & Over 3.0 men saw NorCal in PNW in the final having beaten Southern and Texas, with NorCal winning the final.

The 55 & Over 8.0 women saw Florida beat New England and Midwest beat Middle States in the semis, with Midwest coming out on top in the final.

Last, the 55 & Over 8.0 men had SoCal and Southern play in the final with SoCal winning it all, with Mid-Atlantic and Florida being beaten in the semis.

Next weekend, 55 & Over wraps up with the 6.0 and 9.0 levels playing in Orlando and Mixed gets going with the 18 & Over 6.0, 8.0, and 10.0 levels in Arizona.

Congrats to all those that won, and good luck to those playing this coming weekend.

2022 USTA League Nationals Week 4 Round-Robin Recap - The tie-breakers rear their ugly head

It is a Sunday in October, and that means USTA League Nationals events are going on and we have teams in the semis and final.  Here is how things stacked up from the first two days of play this weekend.

The last weekend of 18 & Over play has the 5.0 men and women in Arizona.

The women had one 4-0 team and three 3-1 teams advance, those being NorCal, Intermountain, Midwest, and Southern.  The simulation had three of these teams likely to be in the mix so not too bad.

The men had three 4-0 teams in NorCal, MOValley, and Middle States, and Texas was the sole 3-1 team.  The simulation again had three of these teams among those likely to be in the mix.

It is interesting that both the men and women had 5th place at 2-2.  This is in part due to not having the full 17 teams, but still makes for a nice clean top-4 teams.  But both were close to having a tie at 2-2 for the last spot which would have been interesting.

The last weekend of 40 & Over play has the 3.0 men and women in Arizona as well.

The women had three 4-0 teams in PNW, Florida, and Middle States, and then Mid-Atlantic won a tie-breaker at 3-1 having won two more courts than the closest pursuer.

The men had two 4-0 teams in Southern and PNW, then a 4-way tie at 3-1 with Texas and NorCal having better court records and advancing.  The simulation had three of these teams in its top-4, and the other top-4 predicted team was in the tie at 3-1.

The 55 & Over events continued in Orlando with the 8.0 men and women playing.

The women unfortunately had the flawed tie-breakers come into play.  No dispute about the top-2 teams with Florida and Midwest both 4-0, and then Middle States was 3-1 and the best record on courts among other 3-1 teams, but the fourth spot went to New England (3-1 / 8-4 / 17-9) over Southern (3-1 / 8-4 / 19-9).  The teams were tied on everything to sets lost (9 each), but despite Southern winning two more sets than New England (19 to 17) the USTA ignores that and goes straight to games lost where New England lost fewer (91 to 98).  This is clearly not equitable as Southern was able to extend several matches they lost to match tie-breaks and thus won more sets, but do not get credit for it.

The USTA knows this is a problem and hasn't addressed it including rejecting a regulations change proposal that would have fixed it.  It is possible to get this right, the ITF does after all.  It happens once or twice every year, so it would be nice for all involved if it was fixed.

Note that Southern's loss was to a 4-0 and top seed Florida team that lost only two courts in the round-robin, one of those to Southern.  New England lost to a Hawaii team that was 1-3, their only win over New England.

However you look at it, hard to justify New England advancing.  Sorry Southern 55+ 8.0 women.

The men had one 4-0 team in SoCal with Florida, Southern, and Mid-Atlantic advancing as 3-1 teams with one other 3-1 team having a worse court record.

Simulating 2022 USTA League Nationals - 40 & Over 3.0 Men

As I've done since 2018, I will be doing simulations of each Nationals to predict who the most likely four teams are to make the semi-finals, and also look at other interesting things that may occur.  In the years I've done this, the simulations have done a pretty good job predicting who would advance to the semis including having all four teams predicted correctly several times.

Why do these simulations you ask?  The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents.  This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used.  The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen.  Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.

Nationals is into its third week this weekend, the 40 & Over 3.0 event being held in Arizona.  Here is what the simulation says is likely to happen for the Men's flight.

As a reminder, my simulations are done using my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and looking at the average rating for the top group of players on each team, the actual schedule each team will play, and then doing a million simulations of the matches with some random variation in each team's expected result.

With 16 teams at the event the USTA created a schedule has a very small chance of five undefeated teams, and a less than 1% chance of four undefeated.

There is an 82% chance that there will be a tie for the last spot (4-0 or 3-1) and it come down to tie-breakers.  The most likely size of the tie is a four at 29%, five is 25%, and three is 20%.  The chances of larger ties diminish pretty quickly, but a 14-way tie is theoretically possible, but it appears a multi-way tie is a very high probability and it could be reasonably large.

Should there be a tie on team record, it comes down first to who has the best court record, then head-to-head (if applicable), then to who lost the fewest sets, then who lost the fewest games, and finally percent of games won.  There is a 25% chance it comes down to the sets lost tie-breaker, and there is a 67% chance that is between two teams and a pretty good 27% chance it is between three teams.  If the controversial tie-breakers are going to come into play, this is the likely spot.

The schedule strengths do vary quite a bit, the team with the easiest schedule having an opponent average of 3.00 while the team with the toughest schedule having an opponent average of 3.10.  Schedules will make a difference and three of the top teams likely to advance have the easiest schedules.

So who is most likely to come out in the top-4?  Southern, PNW, Intermountain, and NorCal are solid picks to advance, but there are a bunch of teams lurking including Middle States, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic.

For those interested, I offer a variety of reports to make Nationals more fun and help captains prepare.  I have a Simulation Report that has all of the details of the simulation including the average ratings for each team, each team's schedule strength, the most likely record for each team, and the chance of each possible record for each team.  I also offer reports to help teams scout opponents in more detail, both a Flight Report with full roster averages, top-8 averages and played by court averages for each team, as well as full Team Reports with detailed ratings for each rostered player and stats who who plays with who and on which court and how they do together.  Contact me if interested in any of these reports.

Simulating 2022 USTA League Nationals - 18 & Over 5.0 Men

As I've done since 2018, I will be doing simulations of each Nationals to predict who the most likely four teams are to make the semi-finals, and also look at other interesting things that may occur.  In the years I've done this, the simulations have done a pretty good job predicting who would advance to the semis including having all four teams predicted correctly several times.

Why do these simulations you ask?  The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents.  This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used.  The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen.  Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.

Nationals is into its third week this weekend, the 18 & Over 5.0 event being held in Arizona.  Here is what the simulation says is likely to happen for the Men's flight.

As a reminder, my simulations are done using my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and looking at the average rating for the top group of players on each team, the actual schedule each team will play, and then doing a million simulations of the matches with some random variation in each team's expected result.

With 14 teams at the event the USTA there is just a minuscule chance of five undefeated and a less than 1% chance of four.

There is a 66% chance that there will be a tie for the last spot and it come down to tie-breakers.  The most likely size of the tie is a four at 32%, three is 25%, and five is 18%.  The chances of larger ties diminish pretty quickly, but a 12-way tie is theoretically possible, but it appears a multi-way tie is a very high probability and it could be reasonably large.

Should there be a tie on team record, it comes down first to who has the best court record, then head-to-head (if applicable), then to who lost the fewest sets, then who lost the fewest games, and finally percent of games won.  There is a 29% chance it comes down to the sets lost tie-breaker, and there is a 58% chance that is between two teams and a pretty good 31% chance it is between three teams.  If the controversial tie-breakers are going to come into play, this is the likely spot.

The schedule strengths do vary quite a bit, the team with the easiest schedule having an opponent average of 4.77 while the team with the toughest schedule having an opponent average of 4.84.  Schedules will make a difference and three of the top teams likely to advance have the easiest schedules.

So who is most likely to come out in the top-4?  NorCal, Intermountain, Texas, and Florida are solid picks to advance, but PNW, MOValley, Eastern, and New England are lurking.

For those interested, I offer a variety of reports to make Nationals more fun and help captains prepare.  I have a Simulation Report that has all of the details of the simulation including the average ratings for each team, each team's schedule strength, the most likely record for each team, and the chance of each possible record for each team.  I also offer reports to help teams scout opponents in more detail, both a Flight Report with full roster averages, top-8 averages and played by court averages for each team, as well as full Team Reports with detailed ratings for each rostered player and stats who who plays with who and on which court and how they do together.  Contact me if interested in any of these reports.

Simulating 2022 USTA League Nationals - 18 & Over 5.0 Women

As I've done since 2018, I will be doing simulations of each Nationals to predict who the most likely four teams are to make the semi-finals, and also look at other interesting things that may occur.  In the years I've done this, the simulations have done a pretty good job predicting who would advance to the semis including having all four teams predicted correctly several times.

Why do these simulations you ask?  The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents.  This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used.  The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen.  Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.

Nationals is into its third week this weekend, the 18 & Over 5.0 event being held in Arizona.  Here is what the simulation says is likely to happen for the Women's flight.

As a reminder, my simulations are done using my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and looking at the average rating for the top group of players on each team, the actual schedule each team will play, and then doing a million simulations of the matches with some random variation in each team's expected result.

With just 11 teams at the event the USTA never creates the schedule is such that there can be at most three undefeated teams and just a 1% chance of that.  There is a 19% chance of two undefeated.

There is an 57% chance that there will be a tie for the last spot and it come down to tie-breakers.  The most likely size of the tie is a 5 at 41%, four is 32%, and six is 14%.  The chances of larger ties diminish pretty quickly, but a 11-way tie is theoretically possible, all teams at 2-2, but it appears a multi-way tie is a very high probability and it could be quite large.

Should there be a tie on team record, it comes down first to who has the best court record, then head-to-head (if applicable), then to who lost the fewest sets, then who lost the fewest games, and finally percent of games won.  There is a 26% chance it comes down to the sets lost tie-breaker, and there is a 56% chance that is between two teams and a pretty good 30% chance it is between three teams.  If the controversial tie-breakers are going to come into play, this is the likely spot.

The schedule strengths do vary quite a bit, the team with the easiest schedule having an opponent average of 4.74 while the team with the toughest schedule having an opponent average of 4.83.  Schedules will make a difference and three of the top teams likely to advance have the easiest schedules.

So who is most likely to come out in the top-4?  Texas, PNW, SoCal, and Intermountain are solid picks to advance, but Southern, NorCal, and Middle States are lurking.

For those interested, I offer a variety of reports to make Nationals more fun and help captains prepare.  I have a Simulation Report that has all of the details of the simulation including the average ratings for each team, each team's schedule strength, the most likely record for each team, and the chance of each possible record for each team.  I also offer reports to help teams scout opponents in more detail, both a Flight Report with full roster averages, top-8 averages and played by court averages for each team, as well as full Team Reports with detailed ratings for each rostered player and stats who who plays with who and on which court and how they do together.  Contact me if interested in any of these reports.

Week Three of 2022 USTA League Nationals Recap

I am late writing this recap, but A) there was a lot to write about, and B) everything wasn't official for a few days.

It was an eventful weekend, and not only because it was the busiest weekend of Nationals with four different events going.  The 18 & Over division continued with the 3.0 and 4.0 levels in two different Arizona locations, the 40 & Over 4.5s in Oklahoma City, and 55 & Over got started with the 7.0 level in Orlando.

Let's start with the easy ones.

The 55 & Over 7.0 women had a reasonably tidy set of four semi-finalists with Florida and PNW 4-0 and Southern and MOValley 3-1 and a court ahead of the closest pursuer.  Just PNW was a bit of a surprise, the simulation had the other three among the favorites.  MOValley and Southern won their semis and Southern took the title.

The 7.0 men had four undefeated teams in SoCal, Texas, New England, and Southern, with that last team winning every match 2-1.  New England was the minor surprise here, the other three all among the favorites in the simulation.  SoCal and Texas won to play the final where SoCal won.

Next, the 40 & Over 4.5 women saw three 4-0 teams in Hawaii, SoCal, and Mid-Atlantic, joined by New England.  Three of these teams were in the simulation's top-7.  New England and Mid-Atlantic won to face in the final with Mid-Atlantic winning, just one week after a similar team won 18 & Over 4.5, so quite a run.

The 4.5 men had four 4-0 teams in Southern, NorCal, Florida, and SoCal advancing.  All four teams were in the simulation's top-6.  The semis saw two 2-2 "wins" with SoCal beating Southern on the games tie-breaker and Florida beating NorCal the same way.  Florida then won the final 3-1.

Now, it gets more interesting.  Why you ask?  Well, it rained in Arizona.  And interestingly despite the two sites being on other sides of Phoenix less than an hour apart, the 4.0 events were more severely affected, not being able to get more than one set of matches completed on Saturday.  The 3.0 events I believe went to short sets, but did manage to get their round-robin done and semis/finals played on Sunday.

For the 3.0 women, there were three 4-0 teams in Southern, PNW, and Caribbean, with Intermountain beating out NorCal for the last spot on the sets tie-breaker.  Interestingly, NorCal won a far higher percentage of games but lost two more sets.  Three of these were in the favorites from the simulation.  The semis saw Southern and Caribbean both win 3-2 and Southern took the title.

The 3.0 men had three 4-0 teams with a clearly best 3-1 team advancing in fourth.  Southern beat Midwest 3-2 and Intermountain did the same vs PNW.  In the final, Southern won 3-2.

Now, the 4.0 event.  With only one time-slot completed and that just men, and the second slot started but not finished, the rain came.  They got back out briefly to try to play again but that was halted and play was called for the day.  With so little of day two played, there was no way to play the event as originally planned.  I had ideas about completing a few matches and taking the top-8 to quarter-finals, and some other ideas too after teams completed their third matches, but the USTA elected to simply have everyone play short set matches and play out the schedule and to name the top-4 teams in the standings the first thru fourth place finishers.  This resulted in everyone getting their minimum four matches which was good, but did not allow the champ to be decided head to head on the court.

For the 4.0 women though, it didn't even work out as well as they had hoped, as what I feared, some teams not showing up for their last match or defaulting courts, happened.  When this happens it messes with standings and teams that got full match defaults benefit while the teams that had to play the team that defaulted are penalized in the standings, so some team matches that were completed were disregarded in order to make things equitable.  But with the defaults and disregarded matches, this left some teams with just three matches played, and one with just two.  TennisLink's standings are frankly broken, as they show 3-1 teams ahead of a 3-0 team, so the USTA told teams they'd figure it out in a day or two and notify teams the results.  I believe some teams were allowed to take pictures with several different banners to cover their bases on what they would decide.

Ultimately, while TennisLink still shows the order as SoCal, New England, Southwest (all 4-0) with MOValley fourth at 3-1 and a 3-0 PNW team listed as 7th, the order they told teams they arrived at was SoCal, Southwest, New England, and PNW.  I think this factored in reversing some matches for the defaulting teams, but also gave PNW credit for being undefeated.  It is sad that with four undefeated teams it couldn't be decided on the court.

The 4.0 men did complete their round-robin without any full team defaults, and they had three 4-0 teams in Intermountain, Mid-Atlantic, and SoCal at 4-0 with Southern at 3-1.  This was the order which again was sad given the undefeated teams were 19-1, 18-2, and 17-3 on courts.  Yes, Mid-Atlantic had an easier schedule, but it would have been nice to see this decided on the court.

So there you have it.  A strange weekend of Nationals, but on to the next with 40 & Over and 18 & Over both wrapping up with 40 & Over 3.0 in Surprise and 18 & Over 5.0 in Scottsdale.  55 & Over continues in Orlando with the 8.0 level.

An idea for the 40 & Over 4.0 men

I wrote about the rain and its impact on the schedule, and offered some ideas for how to determine a champ yesterday.

A new idea I had today.  There are/were four undefeated teams, but two of them, Intermountain and Eastern play so that would leave three undefeated teams, if Mid-Atlantic wins vs Caribbean, or two if they lose.  At this point, just take the top-2 teams in the standings and have them play their 4th match against each other to determine the champ.  The scheduled opponents for those two teams could play each other for their 4th so there is really no impact to matches played, but we get some clarity by having the top-2 teams play each other.

Yes, if there are three teams 3-0 one of them is left out.  But I think this approach is better than having them all finish 4-0 without having played each other, it at least has the top two teams by the standings play head to head.

What do you think?

I'm confident this won't happen as it is too late to adjust for it I'm sure, but I would have loved to see it.

2022 USTA League Nationals Week 3 Round-Robin Recap - Sort of

The round-robin phase of week 3 of USTA League Nationals is (supposed to be) over.  I say that because there was rain at some events in Arizona, and the 18 & Over 4.0 men and women are not nearly complete and the 3.0 got farther but isn't complete.

For the 18 & Over 4.0 women, they didn't get any matches completed today so all the teams have only two matches complete.  The men got five matches completed today leaving a bunch of teams having played just two matches.  I wrote a few hours ago several ideas for how to finish the event, my preferred being to find a way to determine a top-8 equitably and have quarters, semis, and the final on Sunday, but the USTA appears to have elected to try to just finish the round-robin on Sunday and determine 1st thru 4th based on the standings with no semis or final.

Doing this does give all the teams an opportunity to get the four guaranteed matches they came to play, but I have concerns about the format as I fear some players/teams that lost early on Saturday and are 0-3 already made plans to leave and may default their matches on Sunday.  Another 0-2 team may do the same.  This can upset the competitive integrity of the event and when the champion will be determined from standings and not head to head play, that is an issue.  We'll see how it plays out, but if some teams default or mail it in, the teams that care to play may effectively be those in my quarterfinals option and it has the benefit of deciding things head to head instead of based on who had an easier schedule and look the best in the standings.

The 18 & over 3.0 event was also in Arizona but somehow got more matches in but still has quite a few to go.  The women have five teams that have finished round-robin, but 12 that haven't.  The men have nine that are done but that leaves eight with a match still to play.  I have not heard how they are going to finish.  It may be more reasonable to squeeze in the remaining matches and still have semis and a final, but I'm not sure if they'll do that.

The 40 & Over 4.5 event has not had any drama that I'm aware of and they do have semi-finalists set.  The women have three 4-0 teams in Hawaii, SoCal, and Mid-Atlantic, with New England joining them at 3-1 having beat out Texas by one court in the tie-breaker.  For the men there were four 4-0 teams with Southern, NorCal, Florida, and SoCal advancing.

The 55 & Over 7.0 event was in Orlando.  The women have Florida and PNW as 4-0 teams advancing with 3-1 teams Southern and MOValley beating out SoCal and Southwest on court record.  The men have four 4-0 teams in SoCal, Texas, New England, and Southern.  Southern made it by winning every match 2-1 and 8-4 on courts, and there were two 3-1 teams that were 9-3 on courts behind them.

We'll see how the Arizona events wrap up tomorrow!

Rain in Arizona wreaks havoc with the 18 & Over 4.0 schedule

As I write this, it is raining in Arizona and the 18 & Over 4.0 events are woefully behind schedule.  In fact, with the forecast for rain to continue into the evening the players have been told there will be no more matches today and a plan will be communicated at 8pm tonight.

The men only had 5 matches completed this morning and it appears none of the women's matches have been completed.  The question now is how to finish?

It is unlikely they can come up with a schedule or format that allows completing all of the matches for all the teams.  And those that are 0-2, 0-3, or 1-2 likely aren't terribly interested in sticking around and changing travel plans.

My suggestion would be to figure out a way to reasonably identify the four best teams with the minimum additional matches played.

For the men, there are two 3-0 teams, SoCal and Eastern, and with only two other 2-0 teams, the 3-0 teams should be in the semis.  The two 2-0 teams, Intermountain and Mid-Atlantic, are certainly candidates for selection, but given the standings, there is really just one other team, Florida, who would have an argument to be considered with them.  Florida is 2-1 and 11-4 on courts and it is possible that if Intermountain or Mid-Atlantic lost 4-1, they'd be tied with Florida and the tie could be broken.  None of the other teams are or can get to 2-1 and 11-4.  NorCal, Caribbean, and Midwest could each get to 2-1 but Caribbean has already lost a court vs Mid-Atlantic so they'd be at best 9-6 on courts, and NorCal and Midwest could get to 10-5 on courts so are already eliminated as Florida and Mid-Atlantic are already ahead of that.

So, I'd suggest Mid-Atlantic finish their match with Caribbean to see if they can win another court and be ahead of Florida.  If they do, or they finish tied at 2-1 / 11-4, the standings tie-breaker is used to break the tie and whoever wins that gets the 3rd semi spot.

It is trickier with Intermountain.  Their third match was to be against Eastern and it isn't really fair to make Eastern play a fourth match.  Unless you want to make the Eastern/Intermountain match a way to make IM play a third match and be a "play-in" match to make the top-4.  I don't really like this idea.

What might be better is to have Intermountain play any other team, say Hawaii since that was to be their fourth match, and as soon as they win two courts they are in, or if they only win one court the tie-breaker with Florida and/or Mid-Atlantic is done.

One last option would be to take the standings as is and take the top-5 and two of them play a play-in match to make the semis.  You could have Intermountain and Mid-Atlantic play since they are the ones with just two matches needing a third to be fairly compared with the teams ahead of them.  Or have Florida play in the play-in as they have a loss vs Eastern as they have the most courts lost.

Or, one other idea.  Take the top-8 in the standings right now and do quarterfinals.  This would add 2-1 teams Southern, Northern, and New England.  This is a bit unfair to the 1-1 teams that didn't have a chance to get to 2-1, but those teams had no shot making the top four or five under the above options.  Or you could try to play/complete the matches for the 1-1 teams first thing in the morning and then take the top eight to the quarterfinals.

The women is a different story with none completed.  I'll write another blog on them shortly.

Update: Here is my best idea.

Plan to take the top-8 to the quarterfinals.

To get the top-8 as fairly as possible, you need the 1-1 teams to play/finish their 3rd matches.

Mid-Atlantic and Caribbean already started, have them finish.  Mid-Atlantic is already in the top-8, but Caribbean could find their way in if they win.

NorCal and Hawaii is I think already started, have them finish.  NorCal could find their way into the top-8

Texas and Midwest is I think already started, have them finish.  Both are 1-1 and could find their way in.

That is it, once those are finished, take the top-8 in the standings to quarterfinals.  Use short set/fast-four format for the quarters and semis, if time allows, use normal sets for the final.

Simulating 2022 USTA League Nationals - 40 & Over 4.5 Women

As I've done since 2018, I will be doing simulations of each Nationals to predict who the most likely four teams are to make the semi-finals, and also look at other interesting things that may occur.  In the years I've done this, the simulations have done a pretty good job predicting who would advance to the semis including having all four teams predicted correctly several times.

Why do these simulations you ask?  The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents.  This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used.  The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen.  Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.

Nationals is into its third week this weekend, the 40 & Over 4.5 event being held in Oklahoma City.  Here is what the simulation says is likely to happen for the Women's flight.

As a reminder, my simulations are done using my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and looking at the average rating for the top group of players on each team, the actual schedule each team will play, and then doing a million simulations of the matches with some random variation in each team's expected result.

With 17 teams at the event the USTA never creates a schedule that can avoid more than four undefeated teams, and there is no chance of six undefeated and a less than 1% chance of five undefeated.  There is only a 2% chance of four undefeated, so we may see a very competitive event.

There is an 88% chance that there will be a tie for the last spot (4-0 or 3-1) and it come down to tie-breakers.  The most likely size of the tie is a 4 at 29%, three is 24%, and five is 21%.  The chances of larger ties diminish pretty quickly, but a 14-way tie is theoretically possible, but it appears a multi-way tie is a very high probability and it could be reasonably large.

Should there be a tie on team record, it comes down first to who has the best court record, then head-to-head (if applicable), then to who lost the fewest sets, then who lost the fewest games, and finally percent of games won.  There is a 25% chance it comes down to the sets lost tie-breaker, and there is a 69% chance that is between two teams and a pretty good 26% chance it is between three teams.  If the controversial tie-breakers are going to come into play, this is the likely spot.

The schedule strengths do vary quite a bit, the team with the easiest schedule having an opponent average of 4.25 while the team with the toughest schedule having an opponent average of 4.34.  Schedules will make a difference and two of the top teams likely to advance have the easiest schedules.

So who is most likely to come out in the top-4?  Southern, Caribbean, Florida, and SoCal are solid picks to advance, but Mid-Atlantic and Eastern are very close.  New England, Middle States, and NorCal could make some noise if things go their way.

For those interested, I offer a variety of reports to make Nationals more fun and help captains prepare.  I have a Simulation Report that has all of the details of the simulation including the average ratings for each team, each team's schedule strength, the most likely record for each team, and the chance of each possible record for each team.  I also offer reports to help teams scout opponents in more detail, both a Flight Report with full roster averages, top-8 averages and played by court averages for each team, as well as full Team Reports with detailed ratings for each rostered player and stats who who plays with who and on which court and how they do together.  Contact me if interested in any of these reports.

Simulating 2022 USTA League Nationals - 40 & Over 4.5 Men

As I've done since 2018, I will be doing simulations of each Nationals to predict who the most likely four teams are to make the semi-finals, and also look at other interesting things that may occur.  In the years I've done this, the simulations have done a pretty good job predicting who would advance to the semis including having all four teams predicted correctly several times.

Why do these simulations you ask?  The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents.  This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used.  The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen.  Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.

Nationals is into its third week this weekend, the 40 & Over 4.5 event being held in Oklahoma City.  Here is what the simulation says is likely to happen for the Men's flight.

As a reminder, my simulations are done using my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and looking at the average rating for the top group of players on each team, the actual schedule each team will play, and then doing a million simulations of the matches with some random variation in each team's expected result.

With 17 teams at the event the USTA never creates a schedule that can avoid more than four undefeated teams, and there is a very small chance of six undefeated (1 of the million simulations) and a less than 1% chance of five undefeated.  There is a 5% chance of four undefeated, so we may see a very competitive event.

There is an 86% chance that there will be a tie for the last spot (4-0 or 3-1) and it come down to tie-breakers.  The most likely size of the tie is a 4 at 29%, three is 26%, and five is 21%.  The chances of larger ties diminish pretty quickly, but a 13-way tie is theoretically possible, but it appears a multi-way tie is a very high probability and it could be reasonably large.

Should there be a tie on team record, it comes down first to who has the best court record, then head-to-head (if applicable), then to who lost the fewest sets, then who lost the fewest games, and finally percent of games won.  There is a 24% chance it comes down to the sets lost tie-breaker, and there is a 71% chance that is between two teams and a pretty good 25% chance it is between three teams.  If the controversial tie-breakers are going to come into play, this is the likely spot.

The schedule strengths do vary quite a bit, the team with the easiest schedule having an opponent average of 4.32 while the team with the toughest schedule having an opponent average of 4.46.  Schedules will make a difference and three of the top teams likely to advance have the easiest schedules.

So who is most likely to come out in the top-4?  NorCal, Northern, Southern, and Intermountain are solid picks to advance, but SoCal, Florida, and Eastern are lurking.

For those interested, I offer a variety of reports to make Nationals more fun and help captains prepare.  I have a Simulation Report that has all of the details of the simulation including the average ratings for each team, each team's schedule strength, the most likely record for each team, and the chance of each possible record for each team.  I also offer reports to help teams scout opponents in more detail, both a Flight Report with full roster averages, top-8 averages and played by court averages for each team, as well as full Team Reports with detailed ratings for each rostered player and stats who who plays with who and on which court and how they do together.  Contact me if interested in any of these reports.