USTA Nationals Wildcard Tie-breaker - Is it fair?

At several of the USTA Nationals this year, there are not a full four flights due to some sections not sending teams.  This results in three flights with the winner advancing to the semis, but a wildcard then being needed to fill out the semi-finals to four teams.

The tie-breaker the USTA has elected to use is percentage of games won amongst those teams that finished second in their flight.  Is this fair or the best option?

First, the flights don't always have the same number of teams, so going on team record or team winning percentage won't work as you aren't comparing apples with apples.  For example, the second place team in the five team flight may be 3-1 so 75% winning percentage will the second place team in a four team flight would be 2-1 or 67%.  The four team flight will always lose.

What about percentage of courts won?  This would seem to be more fair, all teams get to play five (usually) or three courts each and enough courts are played that the difference between four and five team flights kind of goes away.  For example, a four team flight second place team may win 4-1 and 3-2 and lose 3-2 resulting in a courts won record of 9-6.  A five team flight second place team may win 4-1, 3-2, 3-2, and lose 3-2 and have a record of 12-8.  Both of these are 60%, so clearly you'd need a second tie-breaker as ties here might be pretty common.

You could also look at percentage of sets won instead or as the second tie-breaker.  This is quite a bit less likely to end in a tie so could serve either purpose.  This would reward the team that is able to win more courts in the first place, and then win in straight sets more often and avoid match tie-breaks.

But the USTA chose percentage of games won.  My guess is since this is far less likely to ever end in a tie, it was simpler to do as there is just one tie-breaker that has to be calculated and you don't have to have a backup.  What it also does though is reward a team that is deeper and doesn't give up games in their wins and even in their losses keeps it close.  It punishes a team that may stack and give up a court, as their percentage of games won is hurt on that court where they likely lose badly, a 6-1,6-1 loss being far worse in this tie-breaker than a 6-4,6-4 loss.

Note that at least the USTA is using a percentage in this case unlike the games lost tie-breaker used in regular season league play that is flawed.

So, is that fair?  Should preference be given to the deeper team over the scrappy team that manages to finish second through smart captaining and getting favorable line-ups?  That probably makes sense, but what do you think?

What NTRP rating combination works best in USTA League 7.0 mixed?

I wrote a few days ago about different rating combinations in 8.0 mixed and which win more often than others.  I had folks asking about 7.0 mixed too, so here goes.

When a 4.0 male and 3.0 female play a 3.5/3.5 combo, the 4.0/3.0 pair win about 60% of the time.

When a 4.0 female and 3.0 male play a 3.5/3.5 combo, the 4.0/3.0 win about 54% of the time.

Last, when a 4.0 male and 3.0 female play the opposite pair, the 4.0 male and 3.0 female win about 57% of the time.

Other than this last point, the percentages are awfully similar to the 8.0 numbers.

What do you think.  Does this jive with your experience?

2014 USTA Nationals 40 & over 3.0 update

The 40 & over division of USTA League is having their first Nationals this weekend with the 3.0 level playing.

The women's semis are made up of a 4-0/18-2 SoCal vs a 3-0/13-2 Southern team along with a 3-0/13-2 Texas going up against a 3-0/11-4 NorCal.  It looks like some tough teams are facing each other.

The men have just 3 flights with Southern winning the 5 team flight at 4-0/15-5, Caribbean is 3-0/12-3, and Intermountain is 3-0/11-4.  I'm not sure but am guessing the wildcard to the semis may be Midwest.

2014 USTA Nationals 18 & over 4.5 update 2

The USTA is holding the 18 & over 4.5 Nationals in Indian Wells this weekend and here is how things stand heading into the semis.

For the women, Midwest won the 5 team flight going 4-0 and Southwest won their flight going 3-0.  Florida went 3-0 for their flight win and Texas went 3-0 as well.

For the men, Texas wrapped up their flight going 4-0, PNW beat out Intermountain winning 3-2 with 2 of the wins in match tie-breaks, Southern beat Hawaii also 3-2 with one win a match tie-break, and the 3-way tie I mentioned happened in the last flight with Caribbean winning the tie-breaker on courts won.

So 4 of the traditional strong sections are through to the semis for the men.

2014 USTA Nationals 18 & over 3.5 update

The USTA is holding the 18 & over 3.5 Nationals in Tucson this weekend and here is how things stand heading into the semis.

For the women, NorCal held on despite losing to Texas as Texas fell one court short of winning the tie-breaker when they lost a court in their last match, Midwest won their flight 3-0 losing just 3 courts, SoCal went 3-0 but won each match 3-2, and Caribbean won their flight 3-0.

So the semis have NorCal vs SoCal and Midwest vs Caribbean.

For the men, NorCal won the 5 team flight 4-0 losing just 3 courts, Caribbean flew through theirs 3-0 losing just 2 courts, SoCal won their flight 3-0, and PNW won theirs losing just 3 courts.

This sets up semis of NorCal vs SoCal, and Caribbean vs PNW.

New NTRP Rating Report - Match Ratings by Partner - Who do you play best with?

Have you ever wondered which doubles partner you play the best with?  Or on the other side, after a bad match with a partner thought to yourself "I never play well with that partner"?  You can certainly look at your win/loss record with a partner, but that doesn't tell the whole story as that doesn't tell you anything about the strength of the opponents.

Well, now I have an addition to my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Report portfolio that will tell you who you play the best/worst with.  This new report looks at the average match rating you generate with each partner so you can easily see which partners you've generated the best/worst match ratings with.

Here is an example, my match ratings from playing with different partners over this past year.

From this, we can see that I'm actually fairly consistent with the two partners I played the most with resulting average match ratings of 3.82 and 3.83.  The match ratings with the others vary a bit more, but being just a single match each it is hard to reach any conclusions.  Although perhaps I should try playing with Partner 2 more!

This report will be useful for individuals to see who they play the best/worst with, but especially useful for captains looking to put their best line-ups together.  When used with a team report, a captain can see how the match ratings of two players when they partner together compare with their current ratings.  If the ratings when they partner are higher, that pairing as a whole is better than the sum of its parts and it makes sense to play them together.

Now, I realize that this sort of information can be a bit dangerous.  Individuals may see that they don't get good results with a certain partner and refuse to play with them anymore.  The thing is, this happens already, the players are just basing these refusals to play on perception or win/loss record with a partner which may or may not be a real indication of who they play the best with.  With this new report, there will be no guessing or debate about who is right.  The numbers will tell the story.  And captains can point to real data to support their decisions of who to play together.

While I work on refining this report, I'll be include it for free in individual reports, new ones or updates, so contact me if you are interested.

2014 USTA Nationals 18 & over 4.5 update

The USTA is holding the 18 & over 4.5 Nationals in Indian Wells this weekend and here is how things stand after day 1.

Texas is leading the 5 team flight at 2-0, but both wins were 3-2 and there are three teams behind them at 1-1 and they still have to play one of them, Florida.  So things aren't decided yet.

The Pacific Northwest and Intermountain are leading the next flight at 2-0 each, and they play each other this morning to decide who moves on to the semis.

Similarly, Southern and Hawaii are 2-0 and play each other today.  Both of these teams are 9-1 on courts through two matches so this one could be close.

Last, Mid-Atlantic is leading their flight at 2-0 but they still play 1-1 NorCal and there is still a chance of a 3-way tie.

It should be some exciting tennis as the teams compete to make the semis.