Unflighted Round-Robin Format - USTA Southern gets it!

I've written several times over the years how the Southern California section has deployed the unflighted round-robin format in less than ideal ways where undefeated teams can be left out of advancing to the semis/final, and it has happened, most recently just a month ago.

Well, I happened to be looking at how the Southern section uses the format and am pleased to acknowledge that Southern does it right!

The challenge SoCal has is they have too many teams, and too few matches.  Some of SoCal's flights have 18 teams, and then each one only plays three matches, which is a recipe for disaster.  SoCal isn't alone as Florida has deployed the format where two teams got left out, and even at Nationals where there are fewer teams (no more than 17), National makes sure the teams play four matches each which mitigates the risk of having too many undefeated teams, although a fifth has happened a couple times.

Southern on the other hand has no more than 9 teams, and even with half the teams SoCal may have they get each team four matches!  That accomplishes several things:

• Gets each team more matches and more playing time for players
• More fairly identifies the top teams as more teams play more opponents
• Virtually eliminates the chance of an undefeated team being sent home

When there are 8 or 9 teams in the flight, Southern takes the top-4 teams into a draw starting with semifinals and in this format, there is virtually no way of having a fifth 4-0 team.  But if there are fewer than 8 teams the take just the top-2 teams to a final.

In this latter case, there may be the potential for a third 4-0 teams in extreme cases, but instead of sticking their head in the sand and hoping it doesn't happen, Southern has a clause in the rules to handle it!

The clause reads:

In the rare instance that there are more undefeated teams than allowed in playoffs, an additional playoff match may be added to accommodate the extra undefeated team. (For example, there are three undefeated teams in a partial round robin group of seven teams after four team matches against randomly selected opponents. A playoff match between the #2 and #3 team, based on standings, may be added to determine which team is placed in the final playoff against the #1 team.)

I think this is perfectly reasonable, and is something I've written about and suggested to National staff be implemented, so am pleased to see Southern doing it.  Yes, it creates an extra match that has to be fit in somewhere, but I think that is eminently more fair than telling a 4-0 team, that may have gone 4-0 with the toughest schedule of the 4-0 teams and lost out on a courts, sets, or games tie-breaker as a result, that they don't advance.

To my knowledge, even National has not adopted a clause like this to address the possibility of sending an undefeated team home, so well done Southern for leading the way.

What do you think?  Should National and all sections adopt language like this in how they implement the format?