It is April, time to think about Georgia States and 2020 Leagues!

Tennis is big in Georgia.  How big is it?

Georgia usually has the 2nd most participants in USTA League of all states, second only to California.  And California is two sections while Georgia is just one of 9 states in the Southern Section!

But USTA League is not the only game in town, ALTA is huge in the greater Atlanta area, so big that USTA League has to schedule their leagues around the ALTA season leading to a number of early start leagues that start as early as May.  Yes, teams are now forming in Georgia for the 2020 championship year while most areas are just getting going for 2019.

But this packed schedule doesn't keep the USTA from scheduling multiple seasons for some leagues, which leads to a lot of teams qualifying for States.  And that is pertinent right now as 18 & Over Georgia States are coming up in a few weeks.

I've done a number of reports on teams, flights, and simulating results, and there are a few observations.

First, winning Georgia States is a tough job.  In some cases there are three flights of six teams each meaning a team must potentially win seven straight matches (5 in flight, a semi and final) to just win States and get to go to Sectionals.  And some of these teams already had to win local playoffs to make it to States.

Second, due to the early start leagues and Southern's rule allowing bumped up players to keep playing on their teams, there are some loaded teams with bumped up players still playing at their lower level.

Third, despite some loaded teams, some flights are going to be very competitive.  One flight had 4 of 6 teams all tied with the same full roster average rating, and another had the top 5 of 6 all with full roster averages within 0.04 of each other.  There are going to be some competitive matches and flight winners may not be decided until the last point is played.

Good luck to all the teams playing at Georgia States!

Upcoming USTA League playoffs - Georgia States and NorCal Districts/Sectionals

It is May, and that means more sections/districts/states are getting to the playoff part of some seasons.  These are usually leagues that started in January/February and so are in areas where outdoor play can begin then or where advancing leagues are played indoors.

An example of the latter is the Pacific Northwest where Seattle held its 40 & over local playoffs a few weeks ago, and in the next couple weekends some examples of the latter are holding state/district playoffs.

Georgia is an example of a warm weather state and the next two weekends find their 18 & over league States being played this weekend in Macon and next weekend in Rome.  These are often hard fought playoffs with early start teams in the mix that may have players bumped up at 2017 year-end still eligible to play.  Some of these early start teams had their regular season as long as last Spring so there is ample time to improve but also perhaps hard to keep teams together that long.

Northern California also plays year-round outside and their 40 & over Districts are also being held this weekend May 4-6.  Not only that, Sectionals follow right away being held two weeks later, May 18-20.  So we'll have teams qualified for Nationals before the end of the month!

With playoffs comes facing teams and players you may not be familiar with.  Local leagues typically have a lot of the same players year to year and captains know tendencies and what to expect so line-up decisions aren't that hard.  But come playoffs, captains likely don't what to expect.  Sure, seasoned captains that have been there before tend to go back, but the make-up of their teams changes and scouting opponents becomes important.

The flight reports I can generate are a great tool for doing this scouting as they give you a great overview of a team with both the average dynamic rating of their full roster, the average dynamic rating of their top-8 players, and a summary showing the average rating played by court for each team.  All of this allows captains to know who the strongest/weakest teams are, and specifically where a team is strongest, all helping them determine line-ups for each match balancing playing time and giving the team the best chance of winning.

If anyone is interested in a report, contact me.