The 3.5 women had a whopping 18 teams in the flight, and only three matches scheduled for each team which creates a very good chance of the situation to happen. For comparison, there is a small chance of it happening at Nationals (and it has happened), and there they have 17 teams playing four matches so you can only imagine the risk goes way up with an additional team and one fewer match.
The way things played out, there were five undefeated teams and only four could advance, so one was sent home. Here were the standings:
- OC LLW - 3-0 / 15-0 / 30-2 / 177-67
- SFV - 3-0 / 10-5 / 21-11 / 149-117
- V-WD - 3-0 / 10-5 / 21-13 / 145-118
- BC - 3-0 / 9-6 / 19-14 / 157-118
- SD - 3-0 / 9-6 / 21-14 / 153-130
So SD was left out, and worse, the broken standings tie-breakers bit them too! The tie-breaker is sets lost and BC and SD were tied, and the USTA chooses to ignore sets won and goes straight to games lost where SD and lost more games. Well, given they played, and won, two more sets, one can understand how they would have lost more games.
What do you think? Was SD given the short end of the stick and unfairly left out of the semis? Or every team knew the rules and just needed to play better.
So ridiculous!!!
ReplyDeleteWell the men 3.5s had 2 teams advance that were 2-1 so you never know
ReplyDeleteBut these teams had losses, so at that point you are at the mercy of other teams and tie-breakers. With even teams and a schedule that has them playing each other, this is expected and fine.
DeleteTerrible.
ReplyDeleteYou have to have 4 pools and the winners of each advance or else everyone play 4 matches during the random RR. But, the USTA outdated and unfair tiebreak system needs to change obviously. You make a great, but obvious, point that you'd expect the team winning more sets would naturally lose more games. They get penalized for actually doing better. Though, the random RR obviously can't be equal and completely fair, but that's no excuse for not making the tiebreak scenarios as good as possible.
ReplyDeleteUnflighted round-robin is ok when used correctly. You have to have enough rounds for the number of teams to ensure you don't have this scenario happen. Nationals is right on the edge with 17 teams and four rounds, but more teams and/or fewer rounds is asking for it.
DeleteSure, but Nationals is different than a sectional, having many more available courts likely and being a National event. With 18 teams at a sectional, that is more than at Nationals, so quite extreme for sectionals. And I'm sure there several other divisions being played at the same sectional. It is very unlikely a sectional could support every team playing 4-5 matches with 18 total teams. So this sectional has to reduce the number of teams where playing only 3 matches in a random RR would work better or play 4 matches each if possible. If not, they have to have 4 flights which would be a better solution than a random RR of 18 teams playing only 3 matches each, then no more than 4 undefeated teams.
DeleteThe problem is 18 teams. There are not 18 areas/districts in SoCal so there is no reason to take that many teams. I believe there are 14 areas so to get to 18 teams they are taking wildcards unnecessarily and creating the problem for themselves.
DeleteBut assuming they really want/need 18 teams, how do you split into flights? You are going to have two flights of four teams and two flights of five teams which has its own issues. Unflighted round-robin addresses this nicely as long as you have enough matches.
Yes, if 14 or even fewer teams it'd probably be about the same with 4 matches/team or leave it at 3 matches/team, as I mentioned and agreed with, too. 14 teams is enough, odd they're making it 18.
DeleteBut, if they're going to take 18 teams and there's not enough courts for 4 matches/team, then what are the options? 3 matches/team or 4 pools seem like the 2 best options. I don't know what else you could do without increasing the number of matches significantly. Even with 4 pools, that increases the # of matches by 8. So, that's too many probably already and probably wouldn't work. What else could they do if 4 matches/team is too many for 18 teams?
My point is that with 18 teams, there isn't a solution that uses only three matches per team as two of the four flights have to be five teams and you certainly aren't going to have those two flights not play a full round-robin are you? You could have two undefeated teams in the flight then and same issue.
DeleteYou can have just the two flights play the four matches per team which is adding fewer matches than having everyone play four, but then you have the issue of two flights _having_ to play four matches and being more fatigued come the semis.
Right, I understand. With my 4 pool suggestion, every team plays a full RR in their pool. Yes, 2 of the 4 teams in the semis would have played an extra match. But, this will often be the case for tournaments like this. There's not always even numbers. Just the way it is sometimes. If there's going to be 18 teams and it's not possible to have 4 matches for every team, then 4 pools makes the most sense. I don't know what else you could do. Maybe 3 pools of 6 with everyone playing 3 matches? I'd think that'd be very unlikely to have more than 4 undefeated teams then. The 3 pool winners plus the best 2nd place team advance. Maybe that's better.
DeleteUSTA SoCal is filled with the most garbage people.
ReplyDeleteI'm a league player who has played at Sectionals. If everyone knows the rules and tiebreakers ahead of time, what's the problem? There's no perfect solution. Take it on the chin, win more games next time, and lay off the sour grapes.
ReplyDeleteFair point, but I don't think everyone knows it is a possibility, thus the reason I write about it. If people knew it was a possibility, they very well might ask for a change.
DeleteAnd I don't think it is fair to say it can't be better. There are things about the format that can be done to minimize the chances of problems and those steps should be taken. Certainly Florida has botched it several times.