Note: Apologies in advance to those that have regulations phobia. I'm going to be doing some quoting and explaining of some USTA League regulations.
Note 2: If you read through it all, I do get around to asking for your opinion at the end, would love to get people's thoughts here on the blog or in Facebook comments.
Now, on to the topic at hand.
It is pretty common knowledge that a USTA League player that is 3-strike DQ'd and promoted to the next level is not allowed play at their lower/DQ'd level after the DQ occurs. Here is the rule from the USTA Regulations (emphasis mine).
2.04B(3) Following an NTRP Dynamic Disqualification, the player may not play at the disqualified NTRP level of play or any lower NTRP level of play in either singles or doubles for the remainder of the Championship Year and for the succeeding Championship Year. In any Division using combined levels, the combined NTRP rating of the disqualified player and partner may not surpass the level of competition. A player who has been moved up as a result of an NTRP Dynamic Disqualification in the Adult Division must immediately adjust his/her NTRP level of play in the Mixed Division.
It is also pretty well known that a player cannot be DQ'd at Nationals. Here is that rule:
2.04B(2) Championships NTRP Dynamic Disqualification. There will be no NTRP Dynamic Disqualifications at National Championships.
What is perhaps not well known and I've seen happen is that a player can be DQ'd after Nationals if they accumulate a third strike at Nationals. Here is a relevant rule on how DQ's would affect play at subsequent championships/Nationals (emphasis mine).
2.04B(5) Individuals who receive their third strike while participating in an Early Start League (ESL) must immediately adjust their NTRP level of play. Such players may not participate at the disqualified NTRP level in a previous year’s championship for which they may have qualified.
Note that this seems go to against another rule saying strikes aren't even checked at Nationals (emphasis mine):
2.04B NTRP Dynamic Disqualification Procedures. Dynamic ratings will be calculated for all Adult Division players during local league competition and at every level of championship competition below National Championships to determine if any players have reached the NTRP Dynamic Disqualification criteria
But I have seen players DQ'd as a result of play at Nationals, so 2.04B only seems to be followed
during the event but the strikes are calculated
after the event. In fact, it happened this year in an interesting case.
The player was self-rated this year and went to one of the Adult Nationals events in mid-October, and apparently got a third strike there (despite 2.04B) as they are shown at the next higher level with a 'D' now on TennisLink, and the date shown for the DQ is in October a few days after that Nationals finished with no other matches played. Note that this player is rostered on a team in a 2019 ESL which is perhaps why their strikes were checked and the DQ/promotion recorded which is why I quoted 2.04B(5) above and believe it applies.
The player also went to 18 & Over Mixed Nationals three weeks after the Adult Nationals and per rule 2.04B(3) and 2.04B(5) above, would seem to have been required to play at their new/promoted level, but they played with a partner rated such that it is clear they were allowed to play at their lower/DQ'd level.
Further, the player also qualified for 40 & Over Mixed Nationals this weekend and the same thing happened again.
So why were they allowed to play? The rules do seem to be at least a bit ambiguous, or at least somewhat in conflict with each other, so must be interpreted, and apparently the interpretation was to allow them to play.
One interpretation (A) of the rules is that DQ's don't happen at a given Nationals event, e.g. a player will not be DQ'd during the weekend of a specific event they are playing at, but can occur
after the event like we see happened in this case. Given the player shows up as a 'D' at the promoted level on TennisLink, this would seem to be what happened, the player
was DQ'd.
Another interpretation (B) might be that once Nationals start, a player cannot be DQ'd from any Nationals event that year. This is perhaps the interpretation used to allow them to play, even though the player does show up as DQ'd on TennisLink. The rationale may be that the DQ should not have been calculated per 2.04B and so that supersedes it being published and they are acting as if it wasn't published.
I am not a lawyer, but my reading of the rules is that interpretation A is more correct, the player should not have been allowed to play at their lower/DQ'd level. In my opinion, more of the rules support it, and more importantly the rules that say no DQ's occur or strikes aren't checked at Nationals don't seem to have been followed, the player does show up on TennisLink at DQ'd, so the other rules should then kick in.
Even if you consider the "at" in 2.04B(2) to be ambiguous to a specific event or all Nationals, 2.04B(5) applies in this case as the player is participating in an ESL, got their third strike, and so must immediately adjust their NTRP level, including not being able to participate at the DQ'd level in a 2018 championship. The boxes for this rule seem to have all been checked and thus it should apply. And 2.04B(5) would seem to have been written explicitly for this scenario.
If the intent of the "at" in 2.04B(2) was to mean cannot be DQ'd from any Nationals event once they have been started, and 2.04B(5) is there only to potentially DQ a player prior to any Nationals event starting, one can see that side of the argument. But then why do they show up as DQ'd on TennisLink?
Playing devil's advocate for a minute, I can see an argument that a player may be playing at Nationals on consecutive weekends and have made travel plans for the second already when they are DQ'd after the first, and that it would not be fair to not allow them to play and be out the travel expenses. I can poke two holes in this though.
First, this is the accepted danger/risk of having self-rated players on a Nationals team. The USTA already gives a wide berth allowing self-rated players to improve and not get strikes. By the time they've gotten 3 strikes they really have demonstrated themselves to be way above level and that their self-rating was not accurate. And in this case, the player went 5-1 at Nationals at the
new/promoted level! Allowing them to play isn't fair to all their opponents and opposing teams, a significantly larger number than the player in question and their teammates. Shouldn't the rule be biased towards being fair to the larger number of players, and fair to those that didn't violate a rule and get DQ'd?
Second, the events affected were Mixed where it being a "combo" league, it was possible for this player to still play at their promoted level on the team, just with a lower rated partner. E.g. for 7.0 Mixed, a 3.5 that is DQ'd to 4.0 can still play on the team, they just must play with a 3.0 partner. So this player was still eligible to play both Mixed events, just with a different partner, so their travel expenses would not be for nought.
Clearly there is some interpretation to be made with the rules and regardless of what the right interpretation was, one was made and the players at the Mixed Nationals this year will carry on. What I think is more important now is that this is cleared up in the future, specifically that the language in the regulations is clarified or enhanced to be clear on how this should be handled, even if it is interpretation B, just so there isn't controversy about it.
But I've stated my case for not allowing them to play. What do you think and why? Am I being too strict it not allowing them to play? Should there be some leniency during Nationals? How should the regulations be changed or clarified?
