Simulating the bonus week of 2026 USTA League Nationals

This weekend is the bonus weekend of Nationals.  Due to the hurricane in the gulf during week one of Nationals, the events in Mobile were postponed to this weekend.

There are five events going on, 2.5 women, 4.5 men and women, and 5.0 men and women.  Because there are so many, I'm going to do a brief post on simulations for all five.

I've been doing simulations since 2018 and have found that the four semi-finalists are usually in the top six to seven projected teams, and more often than you might think, I project the four semi-finalists perfectly.  There are surprises sometimes and a mid-pack team overachieves and advances, that is why the matches are played on the courts and not on a computer.  Still, it is interesting to do these simulations and see how the projections do.

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.

I am listing each group in probability order of making the semis with the team most likely to win it all bolded.

2.5 Women

Favorites: NorCal, Intermountain, PNW, Southern
Contenders: Midwest, MOValley
Have a chance: Mid-Atlantic

4.5 Men

Favorites: Florida, Eastern, Texas
Contenders: PNW
Have a chance: Middle States, Intermountain, Midwest, MOValley, SoCal

4.5 Women

Favorites: Texas, SoCal, Florida
Contenders: NorCal, Midwest
Have a chance: Northern, Southern, Intermountain

5.0 Men

Favorites: Southern, New England, PNW
Contenders: Mid-Atlantic, Florida
Have a chance: NorCal

5.0 Women

Favorites: PNW, Florida, Southern, NorCal
Contenders: none
Have a chance: Intermountain

There are some smaller fields for these as the reschedule caused some teams not to go, but should still be some good action and I'll be following.

Submitting a USTA League line-up? Make sure you get it right!

All of my readers that play USTA League know that part of the process for matches is exchanging line-ups.  In playoffs, and definitely at Nationals, this is done by turning line-ups in to the tournament desk or via the Match Tennis app.  It goes without saying that getting your line-up correct, and sending out the players in the line-up is also important, lest a court get defaulted.

Well, remarkably, a line-up snafu appears to have happened at a Nationals this weekend.  I won't identity specifics so I'm not calling anyone out, but if one goes a looks, you can probably find it.

Apparently a team, team A, had two players with similar names, and one was listed in the line-up, but the other one went out to play the match.  The match was played in good faith by the players, so the score was recorded and will be used for rating purposes, but the match is marked as defaulted.  I am told you could see the first player in the line-up on the Match Tennis app, but then TennisLink now shows the second player, the one that actual played, in the result.

I have no reason to believe anything underhanded was being attempted here, both players were the same level and both players were eligible, it was just a mistake, and everything appears to be handled by the book.  What is a little unique is the implications of it.

Team A had won the match 2-1 on the court with the incorrect player picking up one of the court wins.  When this was discovered and the rules applied, that court became a default win for team B and as a result they won the match.  That is all normal.  But the implications of that match flipping were significant.

This was team B's only loss and had the match stood, they were 3-1 / 7-5 and in a tie for fourth place with team C that they would have lost on the standings tie-breaker on sets lost.  Instead, they were the second place team in the standings and team C got left out of the semis through no fault of their own.

The lesson learned is get your line-ups and players synched up!

2026 USTA League Nationals Week 4 Day 2 Update - We have (co) champions!

As day two of 2026 USTA League Nationals wraps up, we have National Champions!

What you say?  Isn't Nationals a 3-day event with semis and the final on Sunday?  Well, normally yes, but this weekend due to weather wreaking havoc with schedules, two of the locations decided to determine their champions on Saturday.

In Mobile, they accelerated the schedule Friday to get three matches in for most teams, leaving just the fourth match of round-robin for Saturday leaving time to get the semis and final in.

And they pulled it off with the 18 & Over 9.0 Mixed having Southern go 4-0, then MOValley, Mid-Atlantic, and Intermountain went 3-1 to make the semis beating out NorCal also 3-1 but 2 courts behiind on court record.  Southern and Mid-Atlantic faced off in the final, a rematch of a round-robin match Southern won 2-1, but Mid-Atlantic won the final 2-1 to take the championship.  Remember this scenario ...

The 18 & Over 7.0 Mixed also got everything in with Southern, NorCal, and Texas all going 4-0 with SoCal joining them at 3-1 beating out Hawaii on the games lost tie-breaker by two games.  The final found SoCal and Texas face off with Texas winning 3-0.

In Surprise, the 40 & Over 6.0 and 8.0 Mixed was played, and Friday was nearly a complete rain-out, the 6.0 level only getting a few matches completed and 8.0 got none in.  With the forecast for Sunday not looking good, the decision was made to try to fit all of the matches in on Saturday.

For the 6.0, NorCal went 4-0, and was joined in the semis by 3-1 Eastern, Midwest, and Florida.  There were three other 3-1 teams (6 total) but they lost the tie-breaker on court record.  In the semis ...  There apparently were no semis as it started to rain, and there will be no semis apparently.  I believe, but have not confirmed, NorCal will be declared the champion being the only 4-0 team.  I say this because ...

For the 8.0, Southwest, Texas, and SoCal all went 4-0, and PNW joined them in the "semis" at 3-1 beating out 3-1 Southern, who PNW had lost to, on court record.  Yes, court record is used before head-to-head in the standings tie-breakers.  Here, I was told it was announced there would be three co-champs, the three undefeated teams, leaving PNW out.

I have a few observations.

First, I understand the forecast for tomorrow is for rain, but when I checked a few minutes ago, there was actually a couple hour window where it might not rain.  Yes, it very well may rain or not dry enough, but why not try?  All the players went there believing the semis and final would be played on Sunday, so they were planning to be there.

Second, on the surface I get why you'd declare the undefeated team(s) the champion(s), but we just saw (above) how a team that went 3-1 in round-robin avenged their loss to beat that team in the final.  How can you assume the undefeated teams are the only ones worthy of being declared co-champs?  That is tough for 6.0 Eastern, Midwest, and Florida, and 8.0 PNW.

In other news, it appears the 55 & Over 7.0 and 9.0 will get their play finished on Sunday.  There were thunderstorms forecast all weekend there too, but an accelerated schedule to get matches in and the option of indoor courts gives them some flexibility.

For the 7.0 women, NorCal and Texas finished 4-0 and were joined by 3-1 PNW and Midwest the latter beating out Hawaii on head-to-head.  Midwest and Texas won the semis and I expect the final will be played tomorrow.

The 7.0 men had 4-0 Middlestates and Mid-Atlantic joined by 3-1 SoCal and Florida, Eastern also 3-1 but behind on court record.  Florida and SoCal won the semis (see, 3-1 teams can beat 4-0 teams!) and will play the final tomorrow.

The 9.0 women had a single 4-0 team, Mid-Atlantic, along with 3-1 Southern, PNW, and MOValley with three other 3-1 teams as well, but the closest, NorCal, had more sets lost than MOValley.  MOValley and Southern won the semis and should play tomorrow.

The 9.0 men had three 4-0 teams, Midwest, New England, and SoCal, and two 3-1 teams with NorCal advancing on fewer sets lost.  Midwest and SoCal won their semis and should play tomorrow.

So there you have it, your recap on a weather affected week four of Nationals.  I think the USTA did well in accelerating schedules and shortening the format to get matches in, but I would have tried to get the semis/final in in Surprise.

What do you think of how it was all handled?  Should they have waited to see if they could play Sunday in Surprise?  Or if the forecast looks unlikely to be favorable, might as well call it so players can leave?  And should the co-champs only include undefeated teams?

Simulating 2026 USTA League Nationals - 55 & Over 9.0 Women

It is that time of year!  We are into week 4 of USTA League Nationals for 2026, and with that, it is time to publish the summaries of my simulations.

I've been doing simulations since 2018 and have found that the four semi-finalists are usually in the top six to seven projected teams, and more often than you might think, I project the four semi-finalists perfectly.  There are surprises sometimes and a mid-pack team overachieves and advances, that is why the matches are played on the courts and not on a computer.  Still, it is interesting to do these simulations and see how the projections do.

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.

Like I've done in recent years, I'll be primarily just giving the data from the simulation and not writing a bunch of words.  Most of it is self-explanatory, but the favorites and contenders will be listed in alphabetical order.  The strengths are based on played averages.  Contact me if you want to learn more.

Here is the 55 & Over 9.0 Women.

Teams: 14

Chance of 3 undefeated: 10%
Chance of 4 undefeated: <1%
Chance of 5 undefeated: <1%

Chance of 6 undefeated: 0%

Chance of tie for last spot / most likely size: 70% / 4

Strongest / weakest team strength: 4.37 / 4.09
Toughest / easiest schedule: 4.29 / 4.20
Favorites: Florida, PNW, Southern
Contenders: Eastern, Mid-Atlantic, MOValley, NorCal, Texas

Have a chance: Intermountain

Record to make semis: 3-1 / 7-5

Teams with >20% of winning it all: 2

Smaller flight with just 14, so smaller chances of a lot of undefeated teams, and perhaps a chance (7%) of a 2-2 team making the semis.

Of the three favorites, two have a good chance of taking it all, and of those, Southern is the favorite.

What do you think?  Will Southern win it?

Simulating 2026 USTA League Nationals - 40 & Over 8.0 Mixed

It is that time of year!  We are into week 4 of USTA League Nationals for 2026, and with that, it is time to publish the summaries of my simulations.

I've been doing simulations since 2018 and have found that the four semi-finalists are usually in the top six to seven projected teams, and more often than you might think, I project the four semi-finalists perfectly.  There are surprises sometimes and a mid-pack team overachieves and advances, that is why the matches are played on the courts and not on a computer.  Still, it is interesting to do these simulations and see how the projections do.

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.

Like I've done in recent years, I'll be primarily just giving the data from the simulation and not writing a bunch of words.  Most of it is self-explanatory, but the favorites and contenders will be listed in alphabetical order.  The strengths are based on played averages.  Contact me if you want to learn more.

Here is the 40 & Over 8.0 Mixed.

Teams: 16

Chance of 3 undefeated: 6.4%
Chance of 4 undefeated: 0.5%
Chance of 5 undefeated: <1%

Chance of 6 undefeated: <1%

Chance of tie for last spot / most likely size: 78% / 4

Strongest / weakest team strength: 4.06 / 3.89
Toughest / easiest schedule: 4.01 / 3.92
Favorites: NorCal, Texas
Contenders: SoCal, Southwest, Hawaii, Midwest

Have a chance: Eastern, Florida, Intermountain, Mid-Atlantic, Middle States, MOValley, New England, PNW

Record to make semis: 3-1 / 7-5

Teams with >20% of winning it all: 0

This appears to be an incredibly balanced and even event.  Never before do I recall there being eight teams that have a chance, and only two teams are not given a chance.  While the most common top-4 records are all 3-1, there are a whopping 10 teams with most likely records of 2-2.

As a result, there is very little chance of another disaster with undefeated teams being sent home with only a 6.4% chance of even three 4-0 teams.

Also, there is no teams that stands out as a big favorite, but instead five teams have 11.6% to 19.1% chance of winning it all, that group led by Texas.

But this is so close, anything could happen, especially with rain forecast and short sets being played.

What do you think?  Will Texas win it?

Weather is affecting week four of 2026 USTA League Nationals - Short sets, altered schedule

I wrote earlier today that there was likely to be thunderstorms and delays at each of the locations hosting Nationals this weekend.  Well, it appears the USTA is proactively adjust schedules and playing format to try to ensure the events can be completed.

In Mobile, the 18 & Over Mixed 7.0 and 9.0 will have the schedule adjusted to try to play the entire event in two days with three rounds of matches on Friday and then finish round-robin Saturday morning with the semis and final Saturday afternoon/evening weather allowing.  For now, they are trying to avoid going to short sets.

I Surprise, the 40 & Over Mixed 6.0 and 8.0 are moving to short sets (first to 4 rather than 6) and no-ad to try and get matches in given expected delays.  If weather improves, they may go back to normal format.

Good luck everyone!

Weather check for week four of 2026 USTA League Nationals - more rain

Week four of USTA League Nationals is this weekend with play in Orlando, Mobile, and Surprise.  After the postponement of the week 1 events in Mobile, and some minor to moderate delays from showers and rain wreaking havoc in Surprise the second week, weather was largely a non-event week three except for perhaps some very short delays in Surprise.

This week, Orlando's forecast is mid-80s, but each day there seems to be a chance of a shower or thunderstorm, with an 80%, 55%, and 98% chance of precipitation each day.

In Mobile, Friday should be 80 and dry, but then an 88% chance of precipitation Saturday and Sunday with showers and thunderstorms.

Then in Surprise, yes, just to be consistent, there is a good chance of thunderstorms Friday and Sunday, 98% each day, with a smaller chance on Saturday.

It may not rain a lot at or constantly at any of the locations, but there very well may be delays.  Let's hope it doesn't alter the format.

Is this year's Nationals cursed when it comes to weather?