2019 PNW USTA League 18 & Over Champions Crowned

This weekend found the PNW USTA League 18 & Over Sectionals being played in Portland.  My preview said it was a balanced and wide open event with no district overwhelmingly favored, and it turned out that was the case.

Here are the teams that won it all and are now qualified for Nationals.

Women

• 2.5 - Robinswood-Schultze (NWW) beat Pro Sports Club-Robertson (NWW) 3-0
• 3.0 - Eastside TC-Wyer (NWW) beat Portland TC-Casey/Johnson (N OR) 3-2
• 3.5 - Salem T&SC Chamberlain-Horn (S OR) beat Eastside TC-Hubbard (NWW) 3-2
• 4.0 - Stafford Hills-Zielinski (N OR) beat TCSP-McCoy (NWW) 4-1
• 4.5 - Gorge AC-Kinsfogel (E WA) beat Salem T&SC-Fraser/Heikila (S OR) 4-1
• 5.0+ - Vancouver TC-Kowalewski (N OR) beat TCSP-Gleason/Bassetti (NWW) 2-1

Men

• 3.0 - Portland TC-Bracken/Bui (N OR) beat Eastside TC-Acuario (NWW) 3-2
• 3.5 - Tri-Cities CC-Kohan (E WA) beat Central Park-Paulson (NWW) 4-1
• 4.0 - Vancouver TC-Won (N OR) beat Stafford Hills-Williams/Monson (N OR) 4-1
• 4.5 - Mercer Island-Glick (NWW) beat Amy Yee TC-Ngeth (NWW) 3-2
• 5.0+ - West Hills-Dusicka (N OR) beat Mercer Island-Murphy (NWW) 2-1

The totals by district are:

1. Portland - 5
2. Seattle - 3
3. Eastern Washington - 2
4. Southern Oregon - 1

This is reasonably balanced, still a bias towards the larger cities with Portland beating out Seattle.

Congratulations to all the teams that competed, and good luck to those headed to Nationals!

When standings/seeding comes down to a coin flip in USTA League - Another case of insufficient tie-breakers

The 40 & Over Mixed season has just completed its regular season in my area and teams are now advancing to local playoffs.  Our local playoffs have the top-2 teams from each sub-flight advance into a single elimination bracket so seeding is important as it determines where the teams go in the bracket and who plays who.

The seeding is done using the standard USTA regulations and what TennisLink uses for standings, that is:

• Team won/loss record
• Individual court record
• Head-to-head
• Sets lost
• Games lost
• The dreaded coin flip

When you are doing seeding and breaking ties between teams from different sub-flights, head-to-head won't come into play, so it is pretty common that the sets lost and even games lost tie-breakers come into play.  And every once in awhile, it comes down to the coin flip.

That every once in awhile appears to have happened for one flight this year as there are two teams from different sub-flights tied with a record of 4-2, each with an 11-7 court record, each with 18 sets lost, and each with 171 games lost.  Let's bring on the coin flip to decide things!

Now, the good news is this is just for seeding, it is not determining which team will advance and which won't.  But while rare, a tie certainly could occur in the same sub-flight where a coin flip would decide which team advances and which doesn't.

Could this coin flip be avoided?  Absolutely!  I've written about the shortcomings of the current standings tie-breakers for awhile and even went through the process last year to submit a rules change proposal to fix it, but alas the proposal was not adopted and we are stuck with the current flawed tie-breakers.  Well, to be fair, the PNW section has adopted a local section rule in one case to fix one of the more egregious scenarios, but the problem remains in all the others.

Here is what should have happened.  The criteria used before sets lost should have been sets won/lost differential.  By this measure, team A was +5 (23-18) and team B was also +5 (23-18), so this is a push.  Next, rather than going to the horribly flawed games lost tie-breaker, it should have been games won/lost differential where team A was +15 (186-171) while team B was was -4 (167-171).  Certainly team A should get the higher seeding as by an objective metric (where they are clearly better, it isn't even close), and not a random coin toss!

Now, it is possible that team A wins the coin toss and this is all moot.  Or it is possible team B wins the coin toss and both teams lose first round and it is all moot.  And this is only for seeding so isn't really that big a deal right?  But if the rules could easily be altered to doing the seeding more fairly and equitably, why not do it?

What do you think?

How often to players playing up pull the upset and win? Interesting Tennis League Stats

In USTA League in the main Adult leagues, players may play at their rated level, but may also "play up" one level.  For example, a player who was a 3.5C at the end of 2018 can play on a 3.5 team but also a 4.0 team*.

An oft discussed question is whether playing up is a good idea or not.  Proponents of it say it give players more opportunity to play and gives them a chance to challenge themselves playing higher rated players.  Opponents of it say it causes the the higher level to become watered down when too many players play up, and leads to pointless uncompetitive matches.

I thought it might be interesting to look at some stats to see what the competitiveness of these matches is and how often the player playing up actually pulls the upset and wins.

For the purposes of this analysis, I'm looking at matches between players that are currently 3.5C and 4.0C rated players playing singles matches in the 18 & Over or 40 & Over leagues and looking at matches playing during the 2019 calendar year.

First, I show that there have been just under 10K of such matches played, 9,941 to be precise as of when I'm writing this.  So that is a pretty good sample size.  Of those, 1,899, or 19.1% were won by the lower rated player.

On the surface, that sounds pretty high.  Nearly 20% of matches between such players are won by the player playing up!  But when you think about it, is it really that surprising?  Even if every player was strictly within the range for their level, you would still have a 3.5 who is a "3.50" play against a 4.0 that is a "3.51" periodically, and you'd really expect the 3.5 to win about 50% of these.  Add to that that players playing up are often played on court 2 singles and that is often where the weaker at-level players are found and the nearly 20% is less surprising.  The consider that some 4.0s are declining and about to be bumped down to 3.5 while some 3.5s are improving and about to be bumped up, and that the "3.5" is probably favored in these, and the 20% and less surprising still.  And then consider there may be a few matches where the 4.0 was intentionally losing trying to manage their rating down ... 😞

Second, it is probably worthwhile looking at how many of these matches actually have the 3.5 rated high now (using my ratings), and we see that 1,255 of them have the 3.5 now rated higher, and so arguably they were supposed to win.  But only 937 were actually won by the 3.5 where they are now not higher rated, so this is probably the real value that should be considered the number of upsets, this being just 9.4% of the matches.

Third, let's look at some details from these true upsets.  Of the 937, 447 of them were straight-set wins for the 3.5, and of these they gave up:

• six or fewer games 220 times
• four or fewer 103 times
• two or fewer 29 times
• one or fewer 8 times
• twice the match was won giving up no games

So when the 3.5 wins, the match is usually very close to competitive, very rarely is it both an upset and a lopsided win for the 3.5.  And while there were two times it was a double bagel for the 3.5, considering all the variables in a tennis match, e.g. good/bad days, injured but complete match anyway, etc., that really isn't that many.

Fourth, what about how competitive the losses are?  Where the 3.5 lost, 1,079 were in a 3rd set, 10.9% very competitive.  But the 3.5 won:

• six or fewer games 5,738 times (57.7%)
• four or fewer 4,157 (41.8%)
• two or fewer 2,080 (20.9%)
• one or fewer 1,052 (10.6%)
• no games 349 (3.5%)

Depending on your definition of a lopsided, 20-40% of the total matches where a 3.5 plays up against a 4.0, it is a lopsided win for the 4.0.  And the 3.5 gets one game or fewer in more than 10% of the matches.

In summary, we see that while about 20% of these playing up matches are won by the player playing up, less than 10% should really be considered upsets, and of those, no more than a few hundred are approaching being a lopsided win for the lower rated player.

What do you think?  Does allowing playing up do more good than bad?  Is it a necessary way for players to challenge themselves?  Or is it abused and far too many players play up leading to uncompetitive matches?

* - Some areas may have restrictions on playing up or how many teams a player may play on in the same league

PNW USTA League 18 & Over Sectionals Begin Today - Quick Preview

In the Pacific Northwest section of the USTA, August is the big month for Sectionals with 18 & Over and 40 & Over Adult league champions being crowned.

This year, 18 & Over starts things off this weekend 8/9 thru 8/11 in the greater Portland area.  The 40 & Over league will determine its Sectional champ in two weeks 8/23-8/25 also in Portland.

Doing a quick review of the flights this weekend using my ratings, it appears these are the favorites for the women:

• 2.5W - The two NWW teams and Irvington from N. OR lead the way
• 3.0W - The top four teams cover SWW, NWW, N. OR, and E. WA
• 3.5W - Five teams close lead by Sunset AC from N. OR
• 4.0W - HBSQ from NWW and the two N. OR teams lead
• 4.5W - Vancouver TC from N. OR is the clear favorite
• 5.0+W - Vancouver TC and the two NWW teams lead the way

For the men:

• 3.0M - Sunset AC (N. OR) and Amy Yee (NWW) lead a tight grouping from all Districts
• 3.5M - Tri-Cities (E. WA) and Stafford Hills (N. OR) lead the way
• 4.0M - Stafford Hills and Vancouver TC from N. OR lead the way
• 4.5M - Cascade AC from N. OR is the clear favorite
• 5.0+M - West Hills (N. OR) and Columbia Basin (E. WA) lead

Interestingly, while Northwest Washington has won the vast majority of Sectionals in recent years, they are not the favorites nor even mentioned for the majority of the men's flights.  From these previews, Northern Oregon should be expected to take the most titles.

But it always depends on who actually plays and the match-ups captains are able to get, so we'll see what happens!

Should anyone be interested in flight or team reports to help prepare for a match this weekend, in two weeks for 40 & Over, or for preparing for any flight in the regular season or playoffs, contact me!

2020 USTA NTRP Nationals Schedule Published

If you are a USTA NTRP tournament player and interested in testing your skills against the best from other sections, NTRP Nationals may be for you.

NTRP Nationals is an event that players qualify for within their section, and then all the qualifiers come together for a weekend tournament to determine the champion at each NTRP level for each gender.

If you are interested, the schedule for 2020 has been published.

• 18 & Over Singles - April 3-5 in Surprise, AZ
• 18 & Over Doubles - April 17-19 in Surprise, AZ
• 50 & Over Singles - April 3-5 in Orlando, FL
• 50 & Over Doubles - April 17-19 in Naples, FL

There is a theme here, a player can't play both 18 & Over and 50 & Over in the same discipline, and 50 & Over is in Florida, likely on clay, while 18 & Over is in Arizona on hard courts.  This basically swapped from last year's schedule where 50 & Over was in Arizona and 18 & Over in Florida.  Makes sense to alternate so it is geographically closer to West/East coast in alternating years.

2019 Southern 18 & Over USTA League Sectionals Recap

The Southern section held their 18 & Over Sectionals this weekend, actually the last finals finishing up today, and here is a recap.

First, the weather.  The event was again in Mobile, and again there was rain.  So much that by the end they were playing no-ad and short sets to 4 rather than 6.  Note that 40 & Over is back at Mobile against this weekend and the forecast is for a 50% chance of scattered thunderstorms Saturday thru Monday, so there could be format changes again.  Let's hope the rain isn't too bad and a Sectionals Champ isn't decided with a short format.

Second, this Sectionals used the flightless random round-robin format for some events, it appears where there were fewer than 10 teams and so they couldn't have two five team flights.  Thankfully, unlike NorCal's use of the format where they had as many as 21 teams in the round-robin and each team play only 3 matches, Southern had each team play 4 round-robin matches and with only 7-9 teams in the round-robin, there were no undefeated teams left out from advancing to the semis.

That isn't to say things were always clear-cut.  There were some ties for the advancing spots:

• The 2.5 women had seven teams in the round-robin and three teams tied at 2-2 for 3rd-5th, but the 3rd and 4th teams had better court records.
• The 4.0 women had nine teams in the round-robin and a 4-way tie for 4th at 2-2, but one team had a better court record and advance, but still very close.  One super tie-break goes the other way in a number of matches and the result is a lot different.
• The 4.5 women had eight teams but no tie for the last advancing spot.
• The 3.0 men had eight teams and a 3-way tie for 4th, the advancing team having the better court record.
• The 5.0+ men had seven teams and a 2-way tie for 4th, the advancing team having the better court record.

So the format seemed to work well, and thankfully things were decided on court records and didn't get to the bad tie-breakers.

Third, we need to check if any Sectional Champs were early start league teams with bumped up players that won't be eligible at Nationals.

• The 3.0 men had a Georgia and Alabama team in the final, both from ESLs with players that are now 3.5s, and Georgia won.  They have just one 3.5 though so the team will largely be the same at Nationals.
• The 4.5 women had an ESL Georgia team in the final, but they did not have any year-end 5.0s and lost to Kentucky in the final anyway.
• The 4.0 women had an ESL Tennessee team in the final with one year-end 4.5, but Louisiana won the final.
• The 3.0 women had an ESL Georgia team with 7(!) now 3.5s playing a Tennessee ESL team with 3 now 3.5s.  Georgia predictably won and now goes to Nationals with a radically different roster than they won Sectionals with.  The seven ineligible players played in 66% of the player slots in round-robin.
• The 2.5 women had an ESL Tennessee team with 6 of 10 eligible players now 3.0s win and advance to Nationals.  Note that these 3.0s may be eligible for Nationals as the 2.5 level is granted an exception and players must be "clearly above level" to not be eligible for Nationals.

So one team will definitely be affected, and two others may have minor impacts to their Nationals eligible rosters.

Were you at the event?  How did it go or what are your thoughts?

ITF announces new World Tennis Number to compete with UTR

Regular readers of my blog may remember me writing about the International Tennis Federation's (ITF) International Tennis Number (ITN) in the past.  Well, it appears the ITN will be no more and be replaced by a new World Tennis Number (WTN).

The announcement, made jointly with several national tennis federations including the USTA, FFT (France), and LTA (Britain), doesn't offer many specifics but states that the WTN will

aim to break down one of sport’s key barriers to participation - uneven match-ups - allowing players of all abilities to determine their individual level. This will help players identify opponents and competitions of an appropriate standard and access to more competitive and enjoyable playing opportunities.

It goes on to mention that the WTN (emphasis mine)

will be a powerful enabler in fulfilling the fundamental objectives of increasing participation, and recruiting and retaining players of any age, gender and ability.

I don't believe the prior ITN specifically said whether it was or wasn't gender neutral, but clearly the WTN is intended to be gender neutral, unlike the USTA's NTRP but like UTR.

Some other items of note that I gleaned from reading the site and FAQ:

• Targets players of all levels, but a focus on recreational players.
• Reaffirms being gender and age neutral.
• Separate WTN for singles and doubles.
• No mention of calculation details other than it being "based on the player’s performance in matches relative to the strength of their opponent".  It does say the principals of the calculation will be published for all to see, but it is unclear to what level of detail that will be.
• Late 2019 to early 2020 launch.
• Mentions an on-line community to connect players worldwide.
• Other countries participating in the development include Canada, China, Ireland, Netherlands and Switzerland.

It also discusses adoption of WTN and says national association's existing rating systems are unaffected by introducing the WTN, and the roll out of WTN within a nation is up to the association and it may or may not be adopted along side or as a replacement for the existing system.

To me, while there is no mention of UTR in the press release or site to my knowledge, this is a shot across the bow of UTR.  The ITF is the international governing body for tennis and sees providing a way for players from or within any country to find and play competitive matches to be within their domain.  And to be fair, they created the ITN years ago pre-dating UTR.  Whether it is "international" or "universal" or "world" or "galactic" doesn't really matter, the aim is the same.

But ITN was not widely used (at least from my perspective in the U.S.) and frankly was dated in its algorithm and methodology as they were aiming to make it easy to implement by national associations or organizations 10-15 years ago or more.  In many ways, this sounds like an update to ITN to get it current, and they decided to rebrand it at the same time to make a splash.

What does this mean to USTA League and Tournament players?  My guess is nothing in the short term, I can't imagine there would be a change to use WTN in any way in the next few years.  But the USTA is supporting the WTN so I imagine there will be some collaboration to either support the calculation of the WTN by the ITF, or perhaps even calculate a WTN for players from their USTA play.  Regardless of how the USTA runs leagues and tournaments going forward, it appears players will have a WTN to use and gauge their play by.

What do you think?  Is WTN late to the game?  Or will a rating supported by the ITF and major national governing bodies carry more weight in the end?