Seattle and Portland split the 2023 Pacific Northwest 40 & Over Sectional champions.

The Pacific Northwest section held their 18 & Over Sectionals two weeks ago and Seattle area teams romped and are sending the Section's representative at every gender and level.  The 40 & Over Sectionals was this weekend and the same thing did not occur.

The women's 2.5 had Portland's MAC face Southwest Washington's JTC with MAC taking the title.

The men's 2.5 was a round-robin with two Seattle and two Portland teams, the Seattle teams finished first and second with ETC beating our CAC/Silver Lake.

The women's 3.0 had Seattle's Mercer Island facing Portland's WHRC in the final and Mercer Island taking the 3-1 win and heading to Nationals.

For the 3.0 men, two Seattle teams faced off with Central Park facing Mercer Island and Mercer Island taking the 3-1 win for a clean sweep of 3.0 for Mercer Island teams.

At 3.5, the women's final had Seattle's TCSP playing Portland's GLVR with TCSP taking the 3-1 win.

The 3.5 men had two Portland teams facing off with  IRV and MAC playing in the final, and MAC winning 3-1.

The women's 4.0 had another Mercer Island team from Seattle face Portland's LOTC with LOTC coming out on top 3-1.

The men's 4.0 saw GTC from Southwest Washington face BETC from Seattle and BETC took the 2-2 win by extending one of their lost courts to a super tie-break.

The 4.5 women had two Portland teams make the final with GLVR taking the 3-1 win over SHC.

The 4.5 men also had two Portland teams face off in the final, MAC beating UP 2-2 due to extending a lost court to  a super tie-break.

Last, there was a 5.0 men's round-robin where Seattle Forest Crest went 3-0 against three other Portland teams.

The result is at the four advancing levels (3.0 thru 4.5), Seattle won four and Portland won four, so very balanced between the two largest districts in the section.  If you count the 2.5 and 5.0 levels, Seattle did come out ahead  6-5.

Congratulations to all the teams headed to Nationals!

USTA League Nationals begin in just over a month - Scouting reports are available!

It is the end of August which means USTA League Nationals are just over a month away.  The first event of Nationals is generally the last weekend of September or the first weekend of October and this year that is September 29 with the 18 & Over 2.5 women, 3.5 men and women, and 5.0 men and women kicking things off in Tucson and Surprise Arizona.

I've written about the full schedule here, and the USTA has a PDF with it here.

As of this weekend, Sectionals are nearly complete across all sections in 18 & Over and 40 & Over, I think just a few 40 & Over still to be played next weekend, so Nationals bound teams have been decided and captains and players are signing up and preparing for the event.

For some teams, preparation means scouting opponents in order to maximize the chances of doing well and perhaps even making the semis or winning it all.  For those so inclined, as I've done in past years I'm offering my same suite of reports.

The best value is a Flight Report that gives summary info on each team including full roster averages, top-8 averages, and played averages by court so you can who is strongest at the top, deepest, and tendencies on how they play their courts.

Much more detail is available in a Team Report which you can get on your own team or opponents.  This shows my estimated rating for each player along with a little rating history, plus the records and court played on the team, and for Nationals you get that breakdown by phase of playoffs.  Then you also get a partner report to see who played with who and how they did together.

Then, since Nationals uses the unflighted round-robin format, I do a Simulation Report that looks at the strength of each team by court and their actual schedule, and simulates all the matches a million times to see which teams are most likely to advance to the semis.  This is a great way to see what may be required to advance and who the contenders are.

I've been fortunate to do reports for teams that have gone to and won Nationals for a number of years, last year eight teams I helped were able to win a National title.

If you are interested in any of the above, contact me at ratings@teravation.net.  But even if you aren't and are headed to Nationals, have a great event.

Update: All of the teams at 18 & Over are now up on TennisLink.  No schedules yet, they should be out within the next week or two.

Should computer rated player be able to be disqualified and promoted in USTA League play?

For those that play USTA League, it is pretty well known that new players, and those with expired ratings or a few other scenarios, are required to self-rate to determine the level they will play at when they join a league/team.  Since the self-rating isn't perfect, there is a system in place where a player's results are evaluated to determine if they are out of level, and if so, they can be disqualified from that level and promoted mid-season.  This is known as the three-strike DQ process.

It is also well known that players that have a current computer (C) rating are not subject to this three-strike DQ process, meaning they can play the entire year and improve and be out of level, even way out of level, during the year, and they are "golden" and can't be DQ'd or promoted.

See my FAQ question 16 for more discussion.

What can be interesting to look at is how players get their strikes.  Generally speaking it is when they win very easily over decent to good at-level players, but there are times when score lines that don't look out of whack can end up being strikes.

I was recently made aware of once such situation at NorCal Sectionals where a self-rated player lost a match in straight sets, and got their third strike!  On the surface that may not seem possible, but indeed it is, and in this case it was because the opponent they lost to was rated significantly higher than they were and so the loss was a "good" loss and rated very high.  And yes, my ratings agree with the three strikes and DQ.

So how is it fair for a self-rated player to be disqualified for being out of level if they are playing someone, at the same level, who is expected to and does beat them in straight sets?  How high does this opponent have to be rated?

For starters, the threshold for a player to get a strike isn't just the top of their level.  The USTA gives some leeway for players to improve and be above level before they begin accruing strikes.  The leeway given is greater at lower levels because normal improvement can happen faster at lower levels.  I think the threshold may be too high in the first place, but they are what they are.

For discussion purposes, lets say the threshold in question for this case was 0.2 higher than the top of the level and lets assume the level is 4.0, that puts the strike threshold at 4.20, meaning the self-rated player got their rating above that three times.  For them to have such a rating and be expected to lose in straight-sets to an opponent means that opponent's rating is well north of that, perhaps as high as 4.35-4.40.

This means we have a 4.0 match being played between someone rated around/over 4.2 vs someone around 4.4!  How is a "normal" 4.0 player supposed to compete?

I don't think anyone would be surprised to know that to advance and do well in playoffs, you need to have players rated near the top of the level, and even into the next level.  Players do improve, especially those that get into the competition and are trying to advance and put in hours of practice to get better, and there is something to be said for not penalizing someone that puts in this work.  But at what point is there too much improvement?

With self-rated players the USTA does set a threshold the player cannot improve past, but should C rated players have such a threshold too?

The situation I outline may be an outlier and you don't want to change the entire system for just a few outliers, but I also don't think implementing something to catch the outliers means the other 99% of players will be affected.  In fact, that 99% of players may be affected in a positive way if they don't have to face such out of level players.

Note, it is unfortunate but the problem is exacerbated at times by players willing to manage scores, throw matches, or other shenanigans to get bumped down or ensure they don't get bumped up, so they can be one of these "top of level" players.  A threshold for C rated players to be DQ'd would most likely be targeting these players as they genuinely should be at the higher level.  Might it catch the occasional legit player who just improved "too much"?  Sure, but regardless of how a player gets there, isn't it more fair to the 99% to promote the out of level player and not force at-level player to compete with them to advance?

I realize it is hard to determine where to draw the line, but I think having some threshold for C rated players is a worthy discussion.  It could perhaps be a bit higher than the self-rate strike threshold to give a little more leeway, but a case could be made it should be the same, or that if it is higher the self-rate strike threshold should be a bit lower to start.

What do you think?  Should Computer rated players get a "golden ticket"?  Or should there be some threshold they too can't exceed without being promoted?

Seattle area teams sweep PNW 2023 18 & Over Sectionals

The 18 & Over Sectionals for Pacific Northwest were held this weekend, and remarkably the Seattle area teams (Northwest Washington) pulled of the clean sweep and in fact in most cases both finalists were from Seattle.

The 2.5 women saw two Seattle teams make the final, but WSC did it with a 2-1 record winning the tie-breaker over a Portland team at 2-1, and Mercer Island won the final 2-1 to punch their ticket to Nationals.

The 2.5 men had just four teams so just played round-robin and Seattle teams took first and second, ETC ahead of Columbia Silver Lake.  There is no Nationals at this level however, so just a Sectionals title.

The 3.0 women found Seattle teams ETC and Mercer Island in the final, each winning their flights with 3-0 records, and ETC took the title with a 4-1 win.

The 3.0 men also had Seattle teams in the final with TCSP and ETC meeting up having both gone 3-0, and TCSP took the 3-2 win to be heading to Nationals.

The 3.5 women had the first non-Seattle team in a final with Portland's MAC facing off against AYTC from Seattle, and AYTC won 5-0.

The 3.5 men was back to two Seattle teams with Forest Crest winning over Mill Creek 3-2 in the final.

The 4.0 women saw Southwest Washington (Tacoma/Olympia) make an appearance in a final facing off against AYTC from Seattle, and AYTC won 3-2.

The 4.0 men found two Seattle teams in the final, RBW who went 2-1 in their flight against BETC who went 3-0, and RBW came out on top with a 4-1 win.

The 4.5 women had Southern Oregon make a finals showing facing off against NTC from Seattle, and NTC won 4-1.

The 4.5 men had two Seattle teams play in the final with WSC taking the title over AYTC.

For the 5.0 women, there was just one flight and round-robin play where AYTC from Seattle won over SHC from Portland.

Last, the 5.0 men was also round-robin and had perhaps the most competitive event with Mercer Island, the sole representative from Seattle vs three from Portland, being tied with THPRD from Portland tying at 2-1 and 5-4 on courts with the other two Portland teams at 1-2 and 4-5 on courts.  But Mercer Island won the head to head match with THPRD and took the title.

Congratulations to all the winners.  Good luck at Nationals!

How did 2023 Florida 18 & Over Sectionals play out?

I wrote Friday about a potential issue with the use of the unflighted round-robin format at 18 & Over Florida Sectionals, but then heard they would be adding a final after all, but they didn't add the final to TennisLink until late Sunday so to outside observers there was some drama.

It turns out the drama was not because round-robin play finished with two undefeated teams (which was possible and the brewing issue), but because three teams finished 3-1.  Had they not introduced a final between the top two teams, they would have been picking a winner to go to Nationals where three teams were tied and two of them hadn't even played each other.

Here are the standings at the end of round-robin play:

• Miami - 3-1 / 14-6
• Hills - 3-1 / 12-8
• Broward - 3-1 / 11-9

Broward had beaten Miami 3-2, but then Hills beat Broward 3-2, but Hills lost to Orange 3-2 (who finished 5th of 7 teams at 2-2 / 9-11).  Miami and Hills did not play.

Had they just taken the top team in the standings, Miami would have advanced never having to play Hills.  But even with the final, you have to pick two of these teams and Broward got left out despite beating the top team in the standings.  But taking the top two teams to a final still solves the major problem.

In the final, Hills came out on top winning 3-2, so a very close competition, Hill ultimately beating both of the other two top teams to punch their ticket to Nationals.

I'm glad it all worked out in the end, congratulations to Hills!

Update: Unflighted Round-Robin may work out ok at Florida Sectionals

I just wrote about what appeared to be a potential unflighted round-robin issue at Florida Sectionals, but a reader on Facebook said a team dropped out late causing the change from two flights to unflighted seven teams and there is a final planned.  I guess it just doesn't show up on TennisLink yet so the fears may be unfounded.

I did think it would be interesting to visually see the schedule, so here it is.

If indeed there is a final, it could be the nice resolution to two undefeated teams, but it is perhaps more likely that it will be a rematch of a round-robin match.  That is the possibility with this format and one can argue it is good or bad.

On the good side, it means a team with a tough schedule that loses early can still have a chance to advance.  This keeps some drama and excitement, and perhaps keeps the teams more engaged through the end of the event.

On the bad side, it means a team could have to beat the same opponent twice to win the event.  If there are two top teams and they play in round-robin, pulling out the stops to win that match may just mean you get to play them again in the semis or final.  That can lead to the round-robin match perhaps being meaningless, especially if it is the last one and the teams know already they will both advance.

In general, I think unflighted round-robin is better than the most alternatives, as long as it is implemented correctly.  Hopefully there is a final for the 4.5 men this weekend.

USTA Florida may be botching the unflighted round-robin format once again! (false alarm, phew)

The unflighted round-robin format was introduced by USTA National a number of years ago for use at Nationals so that all teams could play four matches and the format would be consistent regardless of the number of sections that sent teams.  Some sections have adopted the format for section or even district championships, some smartly, and some not so smartly.

A few of the gaffes include NorCal having too many teams (22) and too few matches (3) leading to undefeated teams not advancing, SoCal doing something similar, and Florida using a mindless implementation of it (missing the "random" part) also leading to two undefeated teams being sent home.

It appears Florida may be at it again, this time having the 18 & Over Sectionals with what appears to be some flawed unflighted round-robin set ups.

Specifically, the 4.5 men this weekend appears to have seven teams all playing four matches, so every team doesn't play every other team, and they are only taking the top team as the Sectionals winner!  If every team doesn't play all the others, obviously two teams could go undefeated, and if you only take one team as the winner ... duh?

Hopefully what I'm seeing on TennisLink is wrong, but for every other flight going on this weekend, it shows flights/round-robins and then a finals to be played, but for the 4.5 men there is just the round-robin with no final.

If they do indeed take just the top team in the standings as the winner, they may luck out as the top teams do play each other.  Still, it is possible, and using such a format is just plain dumb.

I also see the 2.5 women with 10 teams and no final, but I don't think that event is this weekend so perhaps TennisLink just isn't fully populated.  Similarly the 4.0 men and women don't show finals, hopefully those get fixed.

Updated: I've been told there is indeed a final between the top-2 teams that just hasn't been added to TennisLink yet.  Apparently there was a late withdrawal and change to seven teams and unflighted.  Phew!  See this update.