Should Points Per Position be used for 2020 USTA League Nationals?

With 2019 Nationals complete, let's start thinking about 2020!

The 2020 USTA League regulations introduced a 4-court format for the 40 & Over division with one singles court and three doubles courts being played.  Being in the National regulations, this is the format that will be used at Nationals, but sections are given the leeway to use alternate formats as they deem appropriate in local league play as well as local/district/sectional playoffs.

It will be interesting to see how this format is adopted by each section.  My guess is that many will follow National's lead and use it just to be consistent.  My section, Pacific Northwest, will be using it and I've heard that NorCal and at least parts of Southern will be too, and I'm sure more will follow.

There are some challenges with a 4-court format, reduced playing opportunity is one, especially for singles players, but the possibility of 2-2 ties and how to determine a winner is another.

On this second point, I mentioned early in my analysis that the Points Per Position format is an approved alternate format for USTA League play to determine standings, and this is one way to address the 2-2 tie issue.  I wrote up more thoughts and had a poll on the subject too.  And at least one section, PNW, is adopting this format change for 2020.  I will continue to monitor if other sections move this way too.

But this raises the question, if the 4-court format is driven by National and will be used at Nationals, should Points Per Position be used there rather than traditional wins and losses?  As it stands now, it is possible, and has happened, that 4-court matches end in a 2-2 tie that cannot be broken by the current tie-breakers so what would happen at Nationals should this occur?

One solution is to go to Points Per Position for the un-flighted round-robin portion and have the standings determined based on accumulated points and not the team won/lost record as it is today.  It would be a bit of a radical change for many, but if more sections adopt the format for local league play, it might actually make sense.

Of course, many playoffs, Nationals included, eventually get to an elimination bracket where a team match winner must be determined.  While a 2-2 tie that isn't decided by the existing tie-breakers is unlikely, it is possible so what happens then if a semi-final or final winner can't be decided?

What do you think?  Should playoff flights that use the 4-court format use Points Per Position scoring?

USTA Adult League Participation 2013 thru 2019 - The decline in unique players continues

With 2019 USTA League Nationals complete, we can begin looking at some statistics for 2019 and how it compares with prior years.

For this analysis, I'm looking at unique players that played a match in the Adult leagues which includes 18 & Over, 40 & Over, 55 & Over and 65 & Over during each ratings year, which is roughly November thru October.

This does not include any participants in Mixed, Combo, Tri-Level or other secondary leagues.  This is the same analysis I've done in past years.

Here goes, first participation across all the aforementioned divisions.

We see the decline of the past 5 years continues.  What was 276K participants has dropped to 254K in 2019 or 8%, which is down 3,400 from 2018.  And the decline is for both men and women, the men dropping 1,400 since 2018 and the women 2,000.

But this is across all divisions mentioned above.  Let's look at the numbers by division to see if the trends are consistent.

Here is just 18 & Over.

The decline here is consistent with the broader trend, 213K in 2013 down to 191K in 2019, down 10%.  The drop from 2018 to 2019 is just under 4K though.

On to 40 & Over.

Here we see growth!  Part of this is perhaps due to 40 & Over being a new division in 2013, but it is up from 117K then to 131K in 2019, up 12%.  Participation actually dropped 200 from 2017 to 2018, but is back to growing again up 1,700 in the past year.

With this division growing, it seems a bit odd that the USTA took the step to change the standard format from 5 courts to 4 courts for 2020, reducing playing opportunity 13% overall and 50% for singles players in this division.  It will be interesting to see what happens to participation in 2020.

Last, we'll look at 55 & Over.

There is growth here too!  Participation is up from 48K in 2013 to 55K in 2019, up 15%.  This growth has remained pretty steady year to year as well.

The working hypothesis I've floated in previous years is that the USTA membership is aging and that fueled the growth in 40 & Over and 55 & Over, as more players became eligible, but those players have begun to play less 18 & Over and they are not being replaced by new under 40 players.  What do you think?  Is this the case?

Note: These are statistics from the data I've gathered and may not exactly match the USTA's data or they may report numbers using different criteria than I am.

The Last 2019 USTA League National Champions Crowned - Week 7

The final weekend of 2019 USTA League Nationals was held in Orlando with all of the levels for the 40 & Over Mixed division being played.  After some rain, delays, and short format matches, they got it all in as scheduled on Saturday and Sunday.

The 6.0 level found PNW beating New England in one semi 3-0 while Intermountain beat Mid-Atlantic 2-1 in the other semi.  The final was won by PNW 2-1.

The 7.0 level had a pair of 2-1 wins in the semis, SoCal beating Texas and Southern beating Mid-Atlantic.  In the final, Southern won also by a 2-1 score.

At the 8.0 level, SoCal beat Mid-Atlantic 3-0 while Middle States beat Florida 2-1, and the final found SoCal pulling out a 2-1 win.

Last, at 9.0, there were 2-1 wins in the semis, Southern beating Florida and Mid-Atlantic beating MoValley, and Southern won the final 3-0.

And with that, 2019 Nationals are over!  Now we wait for year-end ratings to be published, or if you are impatient, contact me to get a report.

USTA League Nationals Week 7 Semi-finalists - What tie-breakers had to be used?

Despite some rain, delays, and short-format on Friday, the round-robin phase of week 7 of USTA Nationals is complete and we have four sets of semi-finalists in Orlando.

The 6.0 level had three undefeated teams in PNW, Mid-Atlantic, and Intermountain, and remarkably there was only one 3-1 team, New England, so they advanced.  We were very close to a 2-2 team advancing to the semis!

The 7.0 level had three undefeated teams in Texas, Southern, and Mid-Atlantic, and then there was a 3-way tie at 3-1 for the last spot with with SoCal getting it on best court record 9-3 to Intermountain and NorCal's 8-4.

The 8.0 level had three undefeated teams in SoCal, Florida, and Middle States, and then had a 5-way tie for the last spot at 3-1.  Mid-Atlantic and Texas were tied at 9-3 on courts ahead of Eastern, PNW, and MoValley, and Mid-Atlantic got the spot having lost one fewer set.  They did win the same number of sets so using the better sets won percentage would have resulted in the same team advancing, but it is interesting that had they tied on sets lost, Texas would have easily won the games lost tie-breaker having lost 14 fewer games.

The 9.0 level had two undefeated teams in Southern and Mid-Atlantic, and then a 4-way tie at 3-1 with MoValley and Florida having better court records than NorCal and PNW.

These teams will play for the last titles of 2019 tomorrow!

40 & Over Mixed Nationals update: One match to go

After some rain, delays, and short format matches, day two of USTA League 40 & Over Mixed Nationals is underway, and with most teams having three matches played, here is how things stand.

The 7.0 level is going to be a dog fight for the last spot.  Right now, there are 10 teams at 2-1 or better, just three at 3-0, so there will be a 3-1 team advancing and the tie could be big and close.  Right now, the updated simulation says the most likely size of the tie is five (5) teams and it could be as many as eight (8)!

The 8.0 level had six (6) undefeated after one day with a real chance of five (5) finishing that way, and right now, five still are, but because PNW lost to Midwest, it can't finish that way as IM and Florida still play each other.  We could have a tight tie at 3-1 though.

The 6.0 level still has four undefeated teams but it won't remain that way so a good chance of a close tie for this flight.

The 9.0 level still has four undefeated teams but it also won't remain that way, a good chance of some tie-breakers.

So look for the tie-breakers to come into play.  Hopefully they pick the most deserving teams.

Weather Update 2: Six hour delay and short format for day 1 of 40 & Over Mixed in Orlando

I wrote earlier than rain had arrived and there would be delays.  They ended up not starting play until early afternoon, around 1pm, and using a short format with no-ad and sets to 4 rather than 6.

Even with these steps in place, it still appears it will be a late night as as of the writing of this (9:45pm EST) according to TennisLink, there are:

• Seven 6.0 matches to play, one team hasn't played yet
• Five 7.0 matches to play, two teams haven't played yet
• Four 8.0 matches to play
• Five 9.0 matches to play, two teams haven't played yet

Sounds like it will be a late night for some teams, while others have their two matches done for the day and are relaxing.  Perhaps they are delayed entering scores, but I'm told they enter them promptly.

Simulation 2019 USTA League Nationals - 40 & Over 7.0 Mixed

As I did last year, I will be doing simulations of each Nationals to predict who the most likely four teams are to make the semi-finals, and also look at other interesting things that may occur.  Last year, the simulations did a pretty good job predicting who would advance to the semis including having all four teams predicted correctly several times.

Why do these simulations you ask?  The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents.  This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used.  The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen.  Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.

Nationals have entered the seventh and final weekend of competition, the 40 & Over 8.0 Mixed event being held in Orlando.  Here is what the simulation says is likely to happen.

As a reminder, my simulations are done using my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and looking at the average rating for the top group of players on each team, the actual schedule each team will play, and then doing a million simulations of the matches with some random variation in each team's expected result.

With 17 teams at the event the USTA never creates a schedule that can avoid more than four undefeated teams, and there is a  less than 1% chance of five undefeated.  There is just an 8% chance of four undefeated, so this means a competitive event and a good chance of teams at 3-1 vying for the last advancing spot.

That chance is 92%, that there will be a tie for the last spot (4-0 or 3-1) and it come down to tie-breakers.  The most likely size of the tie is a healthy 4 at 37%, but three is pretty high at 23%, and five is 21%.  The chances of larger ties diminish pretty quickly, but a 10-way tie is theoretically possible, but it appears a multi-way tie is a very high probability and it could be reasonably large.

Should there be a tie on team record, it comes down first to who has the best court record, then head-to-head (if applicable), then to who lost the fewest sets, then who lost the fewest games, and finally percent of games won.  There is a 50% chance it comes down to the sets lost tie-breaker, and there is a 48% chance that is between two teams and a healthy 37% chance it is between three teams,  If the controversial tie-breakers are going to come into play, this is the likely spot.

The schedule strengths do vary a bit, the team with the easiest schedule having an opponent average of 3.45 while the team with the toughest schedule having an opponent average of 3.73.  This leads to an easier road for some teams than others, one of the predicted semi-finalists getting there due to an easier schedule.

So who is most likely to come out in the top-4?  NorCal, Mid-Atlantic, PNW, and Hawaii are solid choices, NorCal the most likely by just a bit.  Southern is really close to joining the fray and Intermountain and Texas will be there too, SoCal also lurking.

For those interested, I offer a variety of reports to make Nationals more fun and help captains prepare.  I have a Simulation Report that has all of the details of the simulation including the average ratings for each team, each team's schedule strength, the most likely record for each team, and the chance of each possible record for each team.  I also offer reports to help teams scout opponents in more detail, both a Flight Report with full roster averages, top-8 averages and played by court averages for each team, as well as full Team Reports with detailed ratings for each rostered player and stats who who plays with who and on which court and how they do together.  Contact me if interested in any of these reports.