The 3.5 level of the 40 & over division of USTA League finished up their Nationals today and the women's title was won by Southern California and the men's by the Pacific Northwest. See the 2014 National Champions page for the full list of 2014 champs.While the Dynamic NTRP rating is not necessarily intended to be a predictor of match results, I do periodically look at how my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings do predicting matches.
In the case of the men's title, it went pretty much as expected. I wrote earlier predicting the semis and pointed out PNW looked the strongest and they beat Intermountain as expected. The other semi was too close to call and was a 3-2 win for Hawaii. In the final, PNW was again the favorite on paper and came through to win while Intermountain was the favorite in the 3rd/4th place match and they won.
I will write more about how the ratings do predicting as Nationals wrap up.
This has to be the first time in the history of the USTA National Championships, where a team loses its first match 0-5 and advances out of its pool to win it all.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure Kevin can do the analysis here, but it is almost statistically impossible to lose 0-5 and advance from a four team pool so we (PNW) were lucky to be in the five team pool with each team being very competitive (both So Cal and Caribbean could have won this thing, and possibly even Florida). The chain of events is amazing (PNW needed all of these things to happen, else we were out). A Texas team (who PNW later beats 5-0) beats the Caribbean 3-2 (for their only win in pool play). Friday afternoon, PNW beats Florida 3-2. On Saturday morning, an 0-2 Florida team beats So Cal 3-2. At noon on Saturday, PNW beats the Caribbean team 3-2, who at that point is 1-1 and in control of their own destiny. Then at 3:30 on Saturday, the Caribbean team, with only pride to play for, beats So Cal 3-2 with wild celebration, making PNW the winner of the pool. Viva la Caribbean!
It did require a lot of things to happen right. It certainly isn't unheard of for a flight winner to have 1 loss, but having a 5-0 loss puts one at a disadvantage on the tie-breakers. Being in the 5 team flight certainly helped.
DeleteIn prior blog post, you talk about 40+ 3.5 men's team that appears to have sandbagged.
ReplyDeletehttp://computerratings.blogspot.com/2014/09/do-you-have-to-sandbag-and-have-self.html
Is this the PNW team?
Haven't you noticed? Everyone cheats except PNW on this blog
DeleteI actually don't recall which team that was. I didn't identify where the teams were from and didn't keep track. But what I wrote doesn't fit the profile of the PNW team (they didn't have 4.0s that got bumped down like I wrote) so don't think it was the PNW team.
Delete"Everyone"? Really? There are lots of cases of questionable things that go on that I could write about in most every section including the PNW, but I only write about situations that are actually unique or exceptional. If you see one that is actually unique or exceptional, bring it to my attention and I'll look into it and write about it if it is justified regardless of section.
Delete