The USTA sent out a survey last week asking for people's thoughts on a "Points Per Position" scoring proposal for USTA League team matches.
The short summary on the proposal is that rather than each court counting equally and there being a winning team based on who won the most courts in a match, the lower numbered courts will have more points allocated to them and team standings would be based on total points accumulated rather than team wins/losses. The idea is that by doing this, teams will be encouraged to play their best players on the courts that are worth more points resulting in more consistently competitive matches.
Apparently, the USTA has received complaints from players about uncompetitive matches and/or "stacking". What happens with stacking is that a team tries to steal a team win by playing weaker players on court 1 in order to try to assure that they get wins on courts 2 and 3. In a normal 5 court match, by throwing courts 1 and winning courts 2 and 3, the team can get a 3-2 team win.
This is great unless you are the good player on the team playing things straight up. You may be a strong 4.0 and have to face a so-so 3.5 playing up on court 1. This isn't a competitive match and not a lot of fun for either player. It can also wreak havoc with ratings as having players that are rated far apart play each other is hard to properly rate.
The issue originates in the misconception that there is meaning to the court number, e.g. court 1 is supposed to have the best player(s) and higher numbered courts are supposed to have the weaker players. The USTA actually states that court numbers don't carry that meaning, they could just as easily be name red, white, and blue. If there is no meaning to the court number, players shouldn't expect to play court 1 and get a tough opponent. You might or might not.
But let's humor the USTA and consider what happens with a Points Per Position scoring system.
Given that some courts will be worth more, this results in two things.
First, there is even more pressure on captains to get the ringers and stud players that they can play on court 1 and be reasonably assured of a win. There are already complaints about teams that recruit players to self-rate too low or manipulate ratings to get bumped down so they can be a ringer, and the pressure to do so would be even greater with this scoring system.
Second, the higher numbered courts will be worth less, effectively telling the weaker players on the team that they are less important. One can do the math and see how a team might just have studs that always win courts 1 and could accumulate enough points that it doesn't matter if they ever win courts 2 or 3. This effectively means teams don't need depth.
And if the original issue was uncompetitive matches, the problem may still not be solved. Consider a team that has several exceptional players for their level. Their opposition will probably know this and if they have several very good players that are still going to be underdogs, the prudent move may still be to play these players on the higher numbered courts rather than wasting your best players in losses on court 1.
If this is the case, we just changed the system to one that rewards top-heavy rosters and sandbagging and didn't in fact help reduce the stacking that was the original complaint.
So while I understand what they are trying to do, I don't think this is the right approach.
There are other approaches that might be better solutions.
First, while the USTA says the court number doesn't matter, it actually does a bit. If there are defaults, they start at the highest numbered court, so there is some meaning to the courts today and you wouldn't want to put your best doubles team on court 3 only to have the other team default that court and your best players don't get to play.
An extension of this that gives a little more meaning to the courts would be to have a rule that players playing up are not allowed to play on a lowered number court than players at level. This would avoid the scenario where a team throws a court by playing their player playing up on court 1 and avoid the biggest case of uncompetitive matches.
Another that the USTA will never do is to publish actual dynamic ratings and requiring that a team have their highest rated players on the lower numbered courts. Or if they don't want to publish the ratings, have an app that lets you put in your line-up and it tells you which court the players must be on to have the right ordering.
Now, both of these would essentially ensure that the stronger team/line-up usually wins. We'd be taking away the ability of a captain to manage their team into the best position to get the 3-2 win. If the USTA wants to take the drama out of some of the matches and reduce the upsets, either of these could work.
What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know.
The other thing that you didn't mention is that loading up on singles (or doubles) is no longer a good strategy. There are many cases where you might want to put your two best players at singles to get 2 court wins. Or conversely, load up your strength at doubles because you know the other team is very strong at singles... With the weighted courts, this is no longer a good strategy because the second singles court is devalued.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that this might actually encourage *more* "stacking" and, in general, would not improve the quality of the match-ups. I have been saying for years that the best change would be to do away with the numbering of the courts and instead use colors (e.g. red, white, blue as you suggested). The problem isn't "stacking". Stacking is a term manufactured by the losing team as an excuse for why they lost 3 out of 5 courts.
Good point, but in a way, not encouraging loading up on singles or doubles actually forces a team be more balanced and have both singles and doubles players.
DeletePersonally I believe either line-ups will encourage one form of stacking or another. The true fact of the matter is if my #1 singles has no chance against my opposition, there is no way I can send him on court without the possibility of a point. The point per position only encourages me to move him to 2singles as I should get at least one point out of him. You can only squeek so many points out of a crafty line-up as talent has to be at parity on at least 3 courts for a win. Personally, I have won many matches due to my line-up and knowledge of the oppositions players ability, where straight up my team would of likely lost. Considering both captains have the same ability to set their line-up, I feel there is no injustice done. Furthermore, I feel this only adds to the competetive nature of the game. How else can a captain compete when coming across a stacked team. There is no true solution except for the aforementioned dynamic ratings being published and lineups set for us, which ruins the captains ability to actually be a captain. The main thing for parity is stricter rules on self rating, and tighter rules for splitting up teams with sectional experience, at an earlier level than Nationals. I am only guessing but it appears more often than not that the same teams are appearing at sectionals year after year(or at least core group of guys) Seattles 4.5 mens have a few players with back to back to back National appearances. With tighter rules things like this might not happen.
ReplyDeleteThe rules on splitting up teams are already pretty strict. And as long as players aren't manipulating ratings to get bumped down (or not get bumped up), I don't have that big an issue with players making playoffs on a regular basis. If they are indeed the best at their level but not quite good enough to get bumped up, you'd expect them to continue to do well.
DeleteAs a sr player whose captained at least 16 teams in the last 15 years, stacking is a major problem and should be done away with. Unless you have a team of 8 players all playing at the same level, asking one partnership to play up on court 1 and take a hit for the team creates a great deal of animosity among teammates. I believe the big problem with the current system at least at the 3.5 sr level is the enormous spread between the dynamic ratings within a given level. Our state has had interim leagues and we've found the matches to be much more competitive. I don't know if other states have this. I like your idea of the app which tells the captain where her players can play. There are always going to be ringers and players who self-rate too low but if their dynamic ratings were used to establish court positions, I believe that would help.
ReplyDeleteBut if you are the captain playing a lower rated team on court 1, fixing the stacking problem is easy, don't play them there. I think the complaints would come from the opposition who has their best player having to face the weak team and having a non-competitive match.
DeleteBut you are right, the spread within a given range can be larger than you'd expect such that blowout wins/losses are actually expected. I don't know if the USTA goes out of their way to do things to make this worse for Seniors, perhaps the rules about Seniors not getting bumped up after a certain age contributes to this disparity.
I hear what you're saying about not playing them there but I've found that may very well be your team's only chance to win. At least one team here stacks all the time and that's how they win. If they played it straight up, they would not. Seniors not getting bumped up is really going to add to the problem. We have a partnership here who win everything at 3.5, got bumped up to 4.0, lost everything and are now back at 3.5 and will never be moved up because they are both 65+ What??? USTA is really throwing seniors under the bus to the point where a lot of us are saying we're done with USTA. Too bad - we all love the competition but everything is stacked against us seniors.
DeleteSounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too... You're saying the only way you can win is if you "stack", but you're also complaining that another team wins because they "stack"?
DeleteI agree that Anonymous seems to be trying to play both sides. Perhaps he doesn't like the conundrum he is put into having to try to guess what a "stacking" opponent will do and gets bit when he guesses wrong by having a weaker team get routed on court 1.
DeleteBut back to my original post, given the current USTA rules, the only reason anyone thinks there is stacking is because they are under the misconception that court numbers indicate strength of team. Once you understand that they don't, by definition there can't be stacking as there is no presumption of what strength of team will be on what court.
As others have noted, part of being a captain is playing the "who to play on what court" game and those that do it well can get wins for their team that they perhaps otherwise wouldn't. One might say the problem is the teams that blindly put teams out as if court 1 is the strongest and 3 the weakest as they are setting themselves up to be beat by captains that take notice.
Like Kevin says, as a captain knowing how your players line up is way more important than simply the best players being set in order. I have had singles players who are definitely number one on our team, however they have a nightmare and usually lose when playing a pusher. Knowing the other teams number one is a pusher, I feel switching positions to match styles puts my player in a better position to win. Without the ability to use this information renders a captain as a pointless position. In our league and every league I am sure, we have a huge parity in levels of players at the top and bottom with the same rating. The blowouts will always be there, as will the endless third set tiebreakers. It all balances out, especially in the playoffs. The last possibility is to simply do a blind draw before the match starts and pull the names out of a hat so to speak, making the line up fall completely on luck of the draw.
DeleteAs a captain and also a numbers guy, I was interested in this survey and the possibilities. After thinking about it a while, I think I have come to the same conclusions as you. I tried to work up some possible scenarios for the point values, and decided that it puts a premium on recruiting a few super ringers in an effort to get the higher point value courts. You now have a path to winning by having a few out of level players(this is true already, but you need fewer ringers with the point system). Also, running through some scenarios of different types of teams, I did find that it creates another level of strategy for the captains and stacking could become more prevalent.
ReplyDeletePart of why I say stacking could become more prevalent is because of something I haven't seen mentioned much yet. The idea that the standings are based on a running tally of points. If you are trying to get into a playoff and need to finish in the top 4 teams, the difference very well could come down to how well you manage your points against the top teams. You don't go for wins, you would stack to try to get a few guaranteed points. Another issue I have with the running tally of points, it puts some pressure on the captains to play their top lineups all year because the difference between first and second place could come down to who pummels the bottom teams the most. Also, I have never played in a league where the won/loss record was meaningless and I not sure my team would enjoy that format.
There are some other interesting ideas that float around. First is the idea of not using match numbers(such as red singles and blue singles). My only issue with this is that it really doesn't help at all in getting the best possible matches. My spring team would have 12 possible lineup combinations and the other team would have 12 possible combinations as well, which almost guarantees that the match is not going to be played "best vs best" and "worst vs worst". One other idea I have heard is the app that spits out your lineup based on the DNTRP ratings. It seems to me like a great idea, but it creates a lot of different strategies and even more headaches for captains. The captains are going to be going nuts inputing different lineups and basically creating their order of ratings. Pretty sure some captains would be manipulating lineups also so that they can get favorable lineups when needed(such as playing my best singles player at doubles all year to drop his rating so that when we go to states, I have now stacked my singles lineup).
I am not really for new rules that create the possibility of chaos and make things more difficult. One rule I think could work very well is saying that players playing up have to start at the higher numbered courts(3 doubles or 2 singles). It would get rid of the largest blowouts we have and also give a little protection to those guys that are afraid to tell their captains "why did you ask me to play on the team and then sacrifice me every match?"
Excellent points.
DeleteYou are right for pointing out the effect of the running tally of points. Depending on the weighting, you can come up with lots of scenarios where teams win or lose a sub-flight due to how the courts are managed, probably more than with the current system. So it actually makes the captains job harder and leaves the door open to more chaos like you say.
If you simply want to eliminate the perception that court 1 is supposed to be the "best" which in a way eliminates stacking, go with courts being colored rather than number. But like you say, this doesn't help ensure competitive matches. If that is the goal, then at a minimum not allowing players playing up to play on a lower numbered court than players playing at level should be put in place, but doing more than that is difficult without introducing other issues.
I know this a relatively old thread... but the issue of 'stacking' never goes away!
ReplyDeleteOur Suncoast Tennis League in Sarasota, Florida is a senior mens league with 50's, 60's, 70's, 75's and 80's divisions and it appears the older we get the difference in playing standard at a certain age is more palpable.
Matches comprise three courts of doubles and at the moment each court win is worth one point.
80's players do not want to travel up to an hour to win 0 and 0 or lose 0 and 0 because their opponents have stacked the team.
We are considering awarding 3 points for a Court 1 win, 2 points for a Court 2 win and 1 point for a Court 3 win.
So, a win on Court 1 and losses on Courts 2 and 3 would result in a tie; 3-3
Any comments?
Old or not, thanks for the comment.
DeleteSome PPP leagues have just done away with W/L and just accumulate points to determine standings. Would you do the same? You mention "tie" but I don't know if that is significant.
And on the playing standard, do some players only play in the older age leagues, do they actually get new year-end ratings? The gap in abilities may be due to players playing with ratings that no longer reflect their ability, and no way to get a new rating if they play a division that isn't counted for ratings?