More 2017 USTA League National Champions Crowned - The rain won a battle but not the war

Another weekend of Nationals is in the books, and six more teams are headed home as National Champions.

All of the play was in Florida this weekend, 40 & over 3.5 in Ft. Lauderdale and 55 & over 6.0 and 8.0 in Orlando.

Yes, there was rain again in Ft. Lauderdale, most of Saturday was washed out, the rain arriving just after noon, but thanks to rescheduling some Saturday matches to Friday and shortening matches on Saturday (each set started 2-2 and they played no-ad) just a few matches from flight play remained to be played Sunday morning.  Alas, one of those was to decide a women's semi-finalist, and with play delayed in the morning to get the courts ready things did go long.

But champions were determined averting the disaster in Mobile a week earlier when five more teams than expected were given co-champion labels.

The 3.5 women had Eastern, Southern California, Midwest, and Caribbean make the semis where it took 3-2 wins for Eastern and Caribbean to advance and another 3-2 win for Caribbean to take the title.

The 3.5 men had Texas, Eastern, Intermountain, and Mid-Atlantic all go undefeated in flight play, and then every match in the semis and final had a 3-2 score with Texas winning it all over Mid-Atlantic.

The 55 & over 6.0 women saw Florida, Northern California, Northern, and Pacific Northwest in the semis with Florida and NorCal facing off in the final with NorCal coming out on top, all 2-1 wins.

The 6.0 men's results had Southern California, Southern, and Texas winning their flights with Northern joining as the wildcard.  And Northern as the wildcard won it all, taking out Southern Cal in the final, Texas getting 3rd.

The 8.0 women had Florida, Hawaii, Eastern,  and Mid-Atlantic in the semis with Florida over Hawaii for the title with Mid-Atlantic getting third.

The 8.0 Men had Mid-Atlantic, Southern, Southern Cal, and Middle States in the semis.  Mid-Atlantic took the title over Middle States, Southern Cal getting third.

More Nationals are still to come, next weekend the 18 & over Mixed gets into gear.

Rain rain stay away! Fingers crossed, 40 & over 3.5 USTA League Nationals may finish in Ft. Lauderdale

Day one of USTA League Nationals for 40 & over 3.5 men and women is in the books and rain and associated delays was avoided.  Well, that was expected as the forecast for Friday was good, it is the Saturday forecast that is alarming.

It has called for an 80-100% chance of thunderstorms all week, and still does as of now, but it appears it may hold off until noon.  This would give them about four hours to get matches in.

But how can they fit a full day of matches into four hours?

The USTA did make the right move and reschedule as many matches as possible from Saturday to Friday.  This means that every team played two matches Friday, normally a number of teams would play just once Friday and twice Saturday.  However, flight one for the men and women are five team flights and every team will have two matches to play on Saturday to complete round-robin play, and the other flights all have a match per team to play meaning 11 team matches for both men and women, or 22 team matches, must be played.

The big challenge with be the five team flights as only four can play at a time meaning it takes three "time-slots" to get them all in.  Nationals matches, especially in singles, can end up taking 2+ hours, so three time-slots would be 6+ hours.  Just doing the math, 7:30 plus 6 hours is 1:30 pm which is well into the window when the storm is due to hit.  And that would still mean two teams would be playing back to back with no rest between matches.

To try and give them a chance, they will be going to a short format as they did for the rain delayed event in Ft. Lauderdale two weeks ago with the goal of keeping matches to one hour.  The shortened format is to start each set at 2-2 and play no-ad rather than playing out the deuces.  Many areas play no-ad during the year, but starting at 2-2 is certainly different and puts a priority on starting quickly.  It has the potential for changing who wins, particularly as it takes fitness out of the equation a bit.

For the sake of the players to took the time and money to make the trip, lets hope they get it in so they can play the semis and final on Sunday as scheduled.  While Sunday had as high as an 80% chance of rain, it now appears to be just 20% so perhaps rain won't be an issue then.

Good luck everyone!

Will rain disrupt 2017 USTA League Nationals this weekend?

USTA League Nationals continue this weekend with the 40 & over 3.5 men and women in Fort Lauderdale and the 55 & over 6.0 and 8.0 men and women at the National Campus in Orlando.

On the heels of semis and finals in Mobile being completely washed out last weekend and co-champs declared, it is natural to wonder what the weather will be like this weekend since the events are in Florida.

I wrote a few days ago that there was rain forecast for Fort Lauderdale and unfortunately there still is.  The forecast right now has actually gotten worse than earlier, it is now 10% chance of rain Friday, 90% on Saturday, and 80% on Sunday.

As a result, it appears the USTA is altering the schedule to try to play more matches on Friday which makes sense.  The original schedule had some teams scheduled to play one match Friday and two on Saturday, now every team is scheduled to play two matches on Friday.  Unfortunately, that means one flight each for men and women has two matches on Saturday and every other team has one match Saturday.  We'll see how it goes.

The forecast is better in Orlando, just a 20% chance of rain on Saturday and 10% on Sunday so that is looking good for the matches to be completed.

But how is the weather in the Southwest?  Palm Springs is sunny with 0% chance of rain, same for Phoenix and Tucson.  Makes you wonder why so many events were moved from there to Florida and Alabama.

In any case, lets hope I'm not calculating EDNR National Champions on Monday!

The 2017 USTA League 18 & over 4.5 Women's National Champion is Florida (EDNR Edition)

The 2017 USTA League Nationals held in Mobile this past weekend did not get completed due to weather and four co-champions were declared for the 18 & over 2.5 women and two each for the 40 & over 4.5+ men and women.

Co-champions just leaves a sour taste in one's mouth though, so in an effort to declare one champion for each of these events, I came up with an approach to identify an Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings (EDNR) National Champion.  I will be doing this each time something happens at an event the the final is not contested on the court.

I took a look at the 40 & over 4.5+ men and 18 & over 2.5 women, now the 40 & over 4.5+ women.

In this case, I have not learned the actual line-ups, so I am using the line-ups each team used in their semi-final wins.  Using these and my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings through the semis, that yields this result.

Court	Florida 4.5+ W	Expected Result	Southern 4.5+F
1S	Elizabeth Baldwin	0.03 →	Spencer Moorman
2S	Joan Simmons	← 0.44	Vanessa Dixon
1D	Gail Gibson / Allegra Campos	0.12 →	Jan Deener / Allison Scanlan
2D	Avery Zercoe / Gueisy Herrmann	← 0.12	Stacy Trinkle / Mary King
3D	Dagmar Rocker / Katarina Rutherford	← 0.11	Marnie Ochoa / Claudia Wesbrooks

This shows a tight one, with Florida winning 3-2 with the four close matches being split and Florida winning an easy one.

Congratulations Florida on winning the 40 & over 4.5+ women's EDNR National Championship?

p.s. for those interested, yes, I can simulate any match and can include such simulations with scouting reports I do if requested

The 2017 USTA League 18 & over 2.5 Women's National Champion is Missouri Valley (EDNR Edition)

The 2017 USTA League Nationals held in Mobile this past weekend did not get completed due to weather and four co-champions were declared for the 18 & over 2.5 women and two each for the 40 & over 4.5+ men and women.

Co-champions just leaves a sour taste in one's mouth though, so in an effort to declare one champion for each of these events, I came up with an approach to identify an Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings (EDNR) National Champion.  I will be doing this each time something happens at an event the the final is not contested on the court.

I already identified Northern California as the EDNR National Champion for the 40+ 4.5+ men, now I take a look at the 18+ 2.5 women.  This event didn't even complete their semis, so I'll be simulating the two semis and the resulting final.

In this case, I was able to learn what the line-ups were for one semi-final, but am making a best guess at the other.  Using these line-ups and my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings through round robin, that yields this result for the Florida vs Missouri Valley semi.

Court	Florida: Yacht Club/Taylor	Expected Result	MoValley:Melcher/Austin
1S	Katherine Sherman	0.07 →	Megan Lynch
1D	Dawn Crawford / Cheryl Flanders	← 0.09	Sandy Lyons / Alison Ryan Drain
2D	Jennifer Espinosa / Evelyn Edenfield	0.29 →	Britney Coffey / Maya Horsford

This shows a 2-1 win for Missouri Valley, but really close on two of the courts.

The other semi between Pacific Northwest and Southern would have played out this way.

Court	Pacific NW:Goel	Expected Result	Southern:Edwards
1S	Claudia Huzar	← 0.11	Katrina Moore
1D	Anne Wilson / Jillian Lee	← 0.04	Karin Rubnitz / Cindy Cummings
2D	Ginevra Smith / Anna Graves	0.11 →	Christy Butcher / Rhonda Katzman

This shows a tight battle on each court, PNW coming through with a 2-1 win.

Using the same line-ups above in the final then would have had the following.

Court	Pacific NW:Goel	Expected Result	MoValley:Melcher/Austin
1S	Claudia Huzar	0.07 →	Megan Lynch
1D	Anne Wilson / Jillian Lee	← 0.16	Sandy Lyons / Alison Ryan Drain
2D	Ginevra Smith / Anna Graves	0.21 →	Britney Coffey / Maya Horsford

In another 2-1 result, Missouri Valley would come out on top.

Congratulations Missouri Valley on winning the 18 & over 2.5 women EDNR National Championship!

p.s. for those interested, yes, I can simulate any match and can include such simulations with scouting reports I do if requested

The 2017 USTA League 40 & over 4.5+ Men's National Champion is NorCal (EDNR Edition)

The 2017 USTA League Nationals held in Mobile this past weekend did not get completed due to weather and four co-champions were declared for the 18 & over 2.5 women and two each for the 40 & over 4.5+ men and women.

Co-champions just leaves a sour taste in one's mouth though, so in an effort to declare one champion for each of these events, I came up with an approach to identify an Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings (EDNR) National Champion.  I will be doing this each time something happens at an event the the final is not contested on the court.

The first we'll look at is the 40 & over 4.5+ men.

In this case, I was able to learn what the line-ups used in the aborted final were.  Using that line-up and my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings through the semis, that yields this result.

Court	Nor Cal 4.5+M	Expected Result	Middle States 4.5+M
1S	Brian Heimbecker	← 0.07	Mark Tepes
2S	Michael Hotti	← 0.22	Joseph Fisicaro
1D	Roman Olmos / Andrew Ngo	← 0.06	Michael Sass / Jeffrey Hoffmann
2D	Anthony J. Latos / Denton Desquitado	0.07 →	Jay Nistad / William R Dipietro
3D	Brian Jacobsen / Kevin L. Howard	← 0.03	Jim Burmester / ed colfer

This shows a 4-1 win for NorCal, although four of the courts are quite close with three going NorCal's way.  While those close matches could go either way when they are played for real, in the world of Dynamic Rating National Champion, NorCal would come out on top.

Congratulations NorCal on winning the first ever EDNR National Championship!

Uh-oh, rain is in the forecast again for Florida, will we have another EDNR champion in 40+ 3.5?

It appears the USTA League Nationals "weather issue" edition is going to continue this coming weekend.

The 40 & over 3.5 men and women are scheduled to be in Fort Lauderdale, site of the weather delayed 40 & over 3.0 men and women from a couple weeks ago.  I just checked the weather and things don't look good.

Yes folks, that is a 100% and 90% chance of thunderstorms and rain this weekend.  Friday (not shown) is better, just cloudy and no rain expected, but if this forecast is accurate, the entire second day and semis/finals could be washed out.

When the last event there had rain, it resulted in 4-6 hour delays, modified scoring to start sets at 2-2 and play no-ad scoring, and matches played late into the night.  With the forecast above, it doesn't appear even those measures would allow them to get the matches in.

So what will be done?  I don't know but can guess/suggest a few things.

• Find indoor courts to use on Saturday and Sunday.  This wasn't done a few weeks ago though, so unclear if it is even an option.  If it is, this is probably the best one as it allows for normal matches, just probably on a different surface than planed (it was supposed to be on clay).
• If indoor courts aren't available, they will probably shorten the scoring format again and get as many matches in Friday as possible and hope there is a window to finish up over the weekend.  The weather report makes this appear unlikely to work though.
• As an extreme measure, they could go some sort of ultra short scoring format, say playing super tie-breaks for each match, and try to get the whole thing in on Friday.  I'd guess this is unlikely though.
• Another unlikely option would be to offer teams the option to come early (Thursday is sunny) or stay late (forecast for Monday is fine) to get the matches in.  This probably is not reasonable given the logistics and travel involved for what could be 34 teams.

For those headed to Orlando for 55+ 6.0 and 8.0, I'm not ignoring you, but your forecast for 60% and 40% rain over the weekend is not nearly as dire, but you may still end up having a shortened scoring format at some point.

We can cross our fingers and hope the forecast is wrong, but this seems to be a disaster waiting to happen in Fort Lauderdale, worse than what happened in Mobile last weekend where 8 co-champions were declared for what should be been 3 championship events due to Sunday being rained out.  If they can't even finish flight play, would the USTA consider naming all the mathematically still eligible teams to win a flight co-champions?  That could be on the order of 12 teams per event of 24 teams!

I'm reaching out to anyone I know that is going to the event to see what the USTA is telling them, but it should sure be a bummer to travel thousands of miles to not even get to finish play in your flight.  If you are planning to go, please comment with what you've heard from the USTA.

The good news is, I have a solution for naming a single National Champ should they not get to finish.  I've come up with the Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating (EDNR) National Champion where using my estimated ratings and real (where possible) line-ups, I simulate each match to determine who advances or ultimately is the winner so we can have the satisfaction of naming a winner.

I'm working on identifying the EDNR champs for Mobile now, lets hope I don't have to do it for Fort Lauderdale this weekend!