How many USTA League teams do you captain?

Captaining a USTA League team is often a thankless job.

Captains have a long list of duties including recruiting and assembling a team, getting players signed up, scheduling, coordinating availability and juggling line-ups (e.g. egos and expectations), arranging practices/courts, communicating with other captains, knowing the rules, and so much more.  And all this is done in exchange for getting to play recreational tennis, perhaps some post season glory, and in some sections a thank you gesture/gift from the USTA at the end of the season.

Nevertheless, many captains come back for more every year, doing it again and again.  At my club, there is sort of a repeating set of captains with "Bob" captaining the 40+ 4.0 team while "Sam" captains the 18+ 4.0 team, and "Bob" and "Sue" captain the 40+ 8.0 Mixed team, etc.  The burden is spread out, and with a few exceptions, generally no one captains more than two teams in a year.

I happened to be looking at some captaining stats though and there are some captains that love the game so much, or perhaps love the "power" being captain gives them, that they captain many more than a few teams every year.  Looking back to 2015, I found 11 players that captained 40 or more teams since then, and that is including 2018 which is just getting started!  I even found several that captained 19 teams in 2017!

You might ask how this is possible?  Well, it helps if you are 55+, as you can easily see how you could get to six teams captaining 18+, 40+, and 55+, each in Adult and Mixed.  And some captains will captain an at-level team or playing up too, or multiple levels in combined leagues like Mixed and 55+.  Add to that that some areas have multiple seasons for a given league and the number goes up even more.  Some players live in parts of the country where they can play in multiple areas/districts/sections so that brings more opportunities.  And then there are alternate leagues like Combo, Tri-Level, and Singles.  Regardless, 19 is still a lot!

Captains will use lots of tools from simple spreadsheets to Web-sites that help coordinate availability, practices, and matches, and some get my reports to aid in recruiting and managing their team or scouting opponents.  Still it is not easy, so thank your captain for what they do, and try to be responsive when they e-mail and ask for who can play when.

How many teams to you captain?  How many would be too many?

It is March 2018, guess what that means it is time for? 2019 leagues?

It is March 12 and some areas have started play for their 2018 leagues while others will be starting shortly.  But in Atlanta, teams are already forming for 2019!

Yes folks, Atlanta redefines 'early' start leagues by starting them in the Spring, before some areas will start their 2018 league play.  Should a team advance through playoffs and to Nationals, it could be a full 19 months from when the team is formed to when it plays at Nationals.  That is some kind of long season!

In pursuit of the perfect USTA League season - Does it ever happen?

I recently heard a question asking if a USTA League team has ever won every court all year.  Going into a season, that is certainly the goal, but you would expect it to rarely if ever happen, simply because the NTRP rating system is aiming to have players of similar ability playing each other, and if that is the case you wouldn't think a team could win every court for an entire season.

Naturally, I had to go research it though!  I took a look at 2017 for the 18+ and 40+ divisions to first see if any teams had perfect regular seasons that played at least five team matches.  I found just nine teams that met this criteria:

• An 18+ 4.5 men's team from Idaho went 6-0/30-0 in a two team league
• A 40+ 4.0 men's team from New Jersey went 8-0/40-0 in a two team league
• An 18+ 2.5 women's team from Seattle went 8-0/24-0 in a nine team league
• A 40+ 4.0 men's team from Alabama went 7-0/35-0 in a two team league
• An 18+ 3.5 women's team from Atlanta went 7-0/35-0 in an eight team league
• A 40+ 4.5+ women's team from Louisiana went 6-0/18-0 in a two team league
• An 18+ 2.5 women's team from North Carolina went 9-0/27-0 in a four team league
• A 40+ 4.5+ men's team from Wisconsin went 7-0/35-0 in a two team league
• A 40+ 3.5 men's team from Georgia went 6-0/15-0 (yes half the matches were two courts) in a two team league

We see a full 2/3 of these teams come from two team leagues, and not to discount the accomplishment, but these leagues are often an A and B team, the B team there just to get the A team qualified to advance.

But regardless of how they achieved the perfect regular season, how did these teams do as they advanced?

A number of teams made it to Sectionals and even Nationals, but only one kept perfect run going to Sectionals and that was the Wisconsin 4.5+ team.  They had one local playoff they won 5-0 and went to Sectionals where they had their only loss of the season there falling short of Nationals and ended up losing six total courts.

The Seattle 2.5 team made it to Nationals, but lost courts along the way but did make the semis at Nationals.

So last year at least, there was no perfect season and really, no one terribly close.  And it looks like those perfect season from two team leagues generally did not prepare a team for playoffs as only one of those six teams even made a decent run to Sectionals.

NTRP tournaments now count toward NTRP ratings in the Pacific Northwest - Get a report including tournament matches

The USTA runs a number of different programs and formats for recreational players to play competitive tennis.  The one I write about most often is USTA League, where players form teams in one of several divisions and levels and play against other teams, and can advance on to playoffs and even Nationals in the main Adult and Mixed divisions.  This allows player who like the team atmosphere to play once a week or so in a 10-15 week season and potential advance further.

But USTA League is not the only game in town, there are sanctioned USTA tournaments as well, and these in two different formats.  Tournaments cater to the individual or doubles teams that are looking for several matches in a tournament format typically over a single weekend.

One tournament format is age group tournaments where there may be an Open draw for players of any age, but then several draws for players of at least a certain age, typically starting at 35 and over and going up in 5 year increments, although every tournament doesn't always offer every increment.  Players accrue points based on the category of tournament and how far they advance and get rankings based on those points.  These tournament matches have no bearing on a player's NTRP level.

The other tournament format is NTRP tournaments.  These are similar to USTA League in that players are in a draw with players of the same NTRP level (players can play up though), but it is done in a tournament rather than league format.

For the second format, since players play at a given NTRP level, one might wonder if these matches are used in calculating a player's year-end NTRP level.  The answer is "it depends".  Each section is given the option of including tournaments in year-end rating calculations and some do and some don't.

For as many years as I've been playing USTA League and tournaments, the Pacific Northwest section has not included NTRP tournaments.  For 2018, that is changing, matches played in sanctioned NTRP tournaments will count towards year-end ratings and levels.

I became aware of this being considered a number of months ago, and as I understand it it is due in large part to the new NTRP Nationals for this year.  This is basically a "Nationals" for NTRP tournament players similar to the Nationals that USTA League players can advance to.  By including NTRP tournament matches in year-end ratings, it will both increase the number of matches used in the calculations and better represent a player's rating that plays both league and tournaments.

What do you think?  Will NTRP Nationals and NTRP tournament matches counting for ratings cause you to be more interested in playing NTRP tournaments?

And for those that are interested, I can now include NTRP tournament matches in by Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports so do contact me if interested.

USTA League Tennis is Growing! But all is not positive ...

You may be surprised by the subject given that I've written about the declining participation in USTA League in the past, and that is true Nationally.  Since 2013, the number of players playing in the Adult leagues in all divisions from 18+ to 65+ has dropped from about 276K to 263K.  That isn't a huge drop, but it has been pretty steady.

But that decline is not happening in every section or area.  I've noted before that sections like the Pacific Northwest and Southern California have actually been growing, and the 40+ and 55+ divisions have shown growth as well.  But that means some areas and divisions are shrinking quicker to offset that growth.

This all comes up because in my area (Seattle) our growth actually appears to be causing problems.  I wrote last week that our local playoff format is changing to have fewer wildcards for second place teams in sub-flights, in fact there will be 31% fewer teams advancing to local playoffs under the new rule this 40+ season than there would have been under the old format.

The reason I've heard for this change is that as we've had growth, that means there are more teams and more sub-flights and thus more courts required for local playoffs if first and second place teams from each sub-flight all advance.  This all makes sense, but apparently, it is very hard to secure enough courts for all the teams.  Why wouldn't the USTA's money for courts be as good as any other user?

Some clubs are private and are reluctant to give up their entire facility for a weekend as I'm sure members will complain and other (perhaps lucrative) programs they offer, e.g. juniors, would suffer as well.  But apparently even public facilities aren't wanting to give up the whole facility and keep some courts for instruction or other programs.  The result is fewer courts could be secured and fewer teams will be advancing, putting a much higher priority on the regular season.

Not that I doubted what I heard, but I had do do some checking to confirm this growth and to see if the problem is real.

Taking a look at the 40+ league in Seattle since its inception, I looked at the number of teams and the number of rostered players and indeed there has been growth.

In 2013, there were 162 teams and it grew all the way to 264 in 2017 or 63% growth.  For rostered players, it went from 2,404 to 3,858, a 60% growth.  That would be noticeable and would certainly increase the number of courts required for playoffs.

The 18+ season has not yet started, but it too has grown in Seattle unlike most areas.  Teams grew from 274 in 2013 to 362 in 2017, 32% growth, and players grew from 3,610 to 4,907, 36% growth.

What is interesting is that for 2018, the 40+ team count actually dropped from 264 to 247, but the player count increased from 3,661 to 3,858.  I'm not sure the reason but one could speculate that facilities are even reducing the number of teams they'll sponsor/allow so teams are down, but there is still player growth and so rosters are now larger.

So there indeed is evidence to indicate there has been dramatic growth in teams and players, and perhaps facilities are tightening up the courts available for USTA both for regular league play with team counts down and also for playoffs.

How do we solve this?

Perhaps we were just lucky to have courts available and securable in the past so that first and second place teams could all advance.  It could be that it is more normal to have just first place teams advance and we are just losing a perk few other areas had.

But perhaps this indicates there is demand for more courts and there is an opportunity for facilities to expand or for new facilities to be built.

Last, players should talk with their facilities and encourage them to choose to support local playoffs and make their facilities available.  We already typically use more than one facility for playoffs, why not add a third?  Clearly club members want to play, shouldn't facilities support those members?

What do you think?  Is there a problem?  If so, what is a solution?  Or do we just need to suck it up and accept that second place teams won't be going to playoffs?

With fewer teams making Seattle area local playoffs, are the men's sub-flights balanced?

I wrote last week that a change in playoff format is going to result in 31% fewer teams making local playoffs in the 40 & over division in the Seattle area.  Specifically, where last year every sub-flight had the first and second place teams advance to playoffs, now, at most levels, just one second place team from all the sub-flights will advance.

This clearly puts a premium on the regular season.  In past years, a team could lose a match, perhaps even two, and still make it to local playoffs.  Now, that is less likely to be the case and there very well could be teams with just one loss that don't advance.

Those reading closely will note that there is a spot for at least one second place team to advance, so you might think that this will make things equitable and allow that really good team that got unlucky and had to face another really good team to advance anyway.  But is that really the case?

For that theory to be true, it requires that all the sub-flights be reasonably balanced so that every second place team have a reasonable chance of winning that coveted wildcard.  If they aren't balanced, one sub-flight could have three or four very good teams and beat up on each other resulting in a second place team with at least two losses, while a weaker flight could have a weak second place team lose their one important match but have a record that appears better than those in the tougher flight.

So, I went about checking on how balanced the flights are to see if teams will have an equal chance or if things are stacked in favor of some sub-flights.  To do this, I looked at the top-8 averages for each team using my ratings as of 1/1/18.  This is the best gauge of how strong a team could be known to be prior to the season starting.

Note of course that players can improve during the year, self-rated players aren't accounted for, and player availability and teams doling out equal playing time can result in teams with high top-8 averages not doing as well as expected.

For the below, I'm looking at just the men.  I wrote about the women's flights here.

The 2.5 men have just one flight so we'll skip them.

The 3.0 men have three flights and 28 teams.

• Flight A has the top-3 teams and five of the top-7 so definitely appears to be the toughest.
• Flight B on the other hand doesn't show up until T9 and then has three of the bottom 4.
• Flight C fits in between but does have four of the top-12.

Certainly some disparity here, can flight A with all its strong teams get the wildcard?

The 3.5 men have four flights and 38 teams.

• Flight A doesn't show up on the list until T11 and has three of the bottom 4 so appears to be the weakest flight.
• Flight B has four of the top-10 but is otherwise spread out pretty evenly.
• Flight C has five of the top-9 so appears quite strong.
• Flight D has the top team, but then five between T11 and T17.

There are some real differences here too.

The 4.0 men have three flights and 30 teams.

• Flight A is at the top with two of the top-3, five in the middle 8, then three of the bottom 5.
• Flight B has three in the top-10, then fills all of the spots from 20-25.
• Flight C is weighted towards the top with six of the top-13.

The flights are different but no one is really strong or weak.

The 4.5+ men have two flights and 16 teams, the flights alternating the top-7 spots.

Again, one flight shows a big disparity and another a noticeable one.  We'll see who takes advantage of it.

With fewer teams making Seattle area local playoffs, are the women's sub-flights balanced?

I wrote last week that a change in playoff format is going to result in 31% fewer teams making local playoffs in the 40 & over division in the Seattle area.  Specifically, where last year every sub-flight had the first and second place teams advance to playoffs, now, at most levels, just one second place team from all the sub-flights will advance.

This clearly puts a premium on the regular season.  In past years, a team could lose a match, perhaps even two, and still make it to local playoffs.  Now, that is less likely to be the case and there very well could be teams with just one loss that don't advance.

Those reading closely will note that there is a spot for at least one second place team to advance, so you might think that this will make things equitable and allow that really good team that got unlucky and had to face another really good team to advance anyway.  But is that really the case?

For that theory to be true, it requires that all the sub-flights be reasonably balanced so that every second place team have a reasonable chance of winning that coveted wildcard.  If they aren't balanced, one sub-flight could have three or four very good teams and beat up on each other resulting in a second place team with at least two losses, while a weaker flight could have a weak second place team lose their one important match but have a record that appears better than those in the tougher flight.

So, I went about checking on how balanced the flights are to see if teams will have an equal chance or if things are stacked in favor of some sub-flights.  To do this, I looked at the top-8 averages for each team using my ratings as of 1/1/18.  This is the best gauge of how strong a team could be known to be prior to the season starting.

Note of course that players can improve during the year, self-rated players aren't accounted for, and player availability and teams doling out equal playing time can result in teams with high top-8 averages not doing as well as expected.

For the below, I'm looking at just the women.  I'll follow up with an analysis of the men.

For the women, the 2.5 level has just one sub-flight so no issues there.

The 3.0 women have four sub-flights and 39 teams, and it is not balanced it appears.

• Flight A is pretty tough with eight teams ranked in my top-24 including teams ranked T2 and T5.
• Flight B doesn't have any team in the top-4, but has four in the top-11 so very tightly bunched.
• Flight C is arguably even tougher at the top with three of the top-8 including #1, T2, and T5!
• As you might expect, Flight D ends up being far weaker with only three in the top-14.

It is very possible that sub-flights A, B, and C beat up on each other and the second place team from sub-flight D takes advantage.

The 3.5 women have five sub-flights and 43 teams and some serious haves and have nots.

• Flight A has no team in the top-6 so is not top heavy, but has eight of the next 18 so has a lot of depth.
• Flight B is stacked with five in the top-9 and then three more in the next 11!  It will be tough for a second place team to advance here.
• Flight C is very weak on paper, just one team in the top-25!  Worse, it has the bottom 2, three of the bottom 4, and six of the bottom 10.
• Flight D is fairly strong with four in the top-13.
• Flight E is not very strong with just two in the top-26.

It appears flight C will be a cakewalk for the top team, and flight B will be a dog fight.

The 4.0 women have three flights and 28 teams.

• Flight A has three of the top-7 teams.
• Flight B has #1 and T2 but then no other until T12.
• Flight C has five of the top-11.

These flights do have a different make-up, but nothing egregiously out of whack it appears.

The 4.5+ women have two flights and 11 teams with two teams from each flight advancing.  Flight B has the top-2 teams and flight A the bottom three, but the trick here on top of that is that in flight A, teams don't have a balanced schedule and someone will get to play the bottom team twice while another team will play the top team twice.

In summary, from the above there is certainly not perfect balance between the flights, and in some cases there is a huge difference, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out and who the wildcard teams are.