I wrote a few months ago about the
proposal I had submitted to the USTA regarding changing the standings tie-breaker rules that are presently in the USTA League regulations. I recently learned that the rules committee found my proposal thought provoking, but has elected to not put it in place for the 2020 regulations.
There was an acknowledgment that it was perhaps time to revisit the tie-breaker rules, and a task force may be formed to do so, but because there had been a big change to the Nationals format for 2018, they didn't want to introduce a significant change again the following year.
I have to say I'm disappointed the USTA chose not to adopt my proposal as I think it is pretty clear that the current tie-breaker rules have some serious shortcomings and fixing the rules would benefit all players throughout all phases of the season, not just at Nationals.
For those just joining the conversation, the synopsis of the proposal was that the current rules for determining standings is as follows:
- Team won/loss record
- Individual court won/loss record
- Head-to-head
- Sets lost
- Games lost
The main issue with the current rule is the last two criteria. Sets lost and games lost only look at half of the statistics available, i.e. they ignore sets won and games won.
Consider a scenario where two teams play in a six team flight and play each other team twice. The two teams are tied on record at 9-1 having split in their head-to-head matches, and are also tied on individual courts, say each one is 38-12. Per the tie-breaking rules, we would next to go sets lost to break the tie.
Let's say both teams won each of their 38 courts in straight sets, and team A lost all of their courts in straight sets while team B had half of their losses go to third set tie-breaks. By the sets lost tie-breaker, both teams would have lost 24 sets (two sets lost for each of their 12 losses) and so the tie-breaking would go on to games lost. But this completely ignores that team B won 6 more sets than team A did due to winning a set in six of their losses. Certainly winning a set even in a loss is better than losing in straight sets isn't it? Per the current rules, that isn't considered and doesn't matter.
My proposal was to use sets won/lost differential, or if teams were tied on sets lost to next look at sets won to break the tie. In either case, team B would correctly be chosen over team A in my scenario above.
But what about games lost? This is where the current rules are the most egregious.
Consider again team A and team B that have identical stats down to all but one match. In that one match, team A loses 6-0,6-0, while team B loses 7-6,7-6. Per the games lost tie-breaker, team A will have lost 12 games while team B lost 14 games, and team A, the team that lost 6-0,6-0, would be chosen over team B because they lost fewer games. Clearly, at least to me, but apparently not the USTA, it is better to play a close match and extend a set to a tie-break rather than not even winning a game. A team would also be penalized for losing a set 7-5 or 7-6 instead of 6-4 as that is 7 games lost vs 6. The USTA is basically saying if you are going to lose a set, lose it quick and don't try to keep it close which is just silly.
Again, my proposal was to use games won/lost differential, as this would equitably give a team credit for keeping their losses close vs being blown out. And my hope was that the issue with games lost would be so clear that at least changing it would be adopted, but alas no.
Note that under the current rules, the games lost tie-breaker flaw just compounds the sets lost rule above, as since neither sets differential or sets won will be used first, more ties will fall to this rule to be decided and it will clearly pick the wrong team a lot of the time.
In the majority of league play, determining standings never gets to breaking ties with sets lost so the issue rarely crops up. It is even more rare that it gets to games lost. But it does happen.
I personally had a friend whose team lost out on the games lost tie-breaker when under my proposed change they wouldn't have. And my section's coordinator who sponsored my rule change had also seen cases where a team that had a lopsided loss unfairly came out ahead because of the games lost tie-breaker.
But with the new format for Nationals last year, the chances of these tie-breakers coming into play went way up, and in fact they did rear their ugly head
several times. I analyzed all of the Adult Nationals in 2018 and there were four situations where teams were tied and, in my opinion the wrong team advanced due to the current sets lost or games lost tie-breakers.
So what can be done? I don't believe my proposal is dead. As I understand it the USTA wants to wait and see how this year's Nationals go and may consider it again next year. But the rules committee does solicit feedback from each section, so if you feel strongly about this, let your section staff know so that they can represent your interests.
