USTA League Nationals are just weeks away now and match schedules have been published, so I've started looking at schedules to see what they look like and what teams have stronger/weaker schedules.
Note, if you need a refresher on how Nationals works, read this.
The schedule is important because of the format used where all the teams are in one "flight" where everyone plays four random opponents. As you can probably imagine, this opens the door for wildly uneven schedules. My simulations factor in actual schedules, and one way to look at this visually is with a diagram that shows who plays who.
A popular event that many onlookers care about is the 18 & Over 4.0 men's event. Here is what that schedule looks like.
You can see that there are some groups of teams that are closely connected, but others that are very sparsely connected.
For example, Southern, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Hawaii all play two to three of each other. And similar for Missouri Valley, Middle States, SoCal, and Caribbean.
If you look at sections that are traditional powers, it appear Texas has a tough schedule having to play SoCal, Intermountain, Florida, and PNW. Middle States has to play Florida, NorCal, SoCal, and Missouri Valley, so theirs is not easy either. And Florida has Eastern, Middle States, Texas, and New England.
Southern perhaps has an easier schedule with Hawaii, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and PNW, but I'll be honest, this case of this schedules looks as balanced as you might hope.
What do you think? Is this way of doing schedules fair? Who got a hard or easy schedule?
And what other events/levels do you want to see the diagram for?
