In any case, after a two hour delay, they elected to use the two indoor courts in the city, I believe those at the convention center on effectively indoor carpet with taped seams and all! And because of having just two courts, they changed to single set matches. Here is what the court looked like being laid down (thanks to a reader for sharing the picture).
Starting with the 6.0 level, they used one court each for each semi playing the courts sequentially. After 6.0 was complete then they moved on to 9.0, 8.0, and 7.0.
Playing single sets on a strange court is certainly not the ideal way to decide a National Champion, but so it is this year. At least they were able to finish for the 6.0, 7.0, and 9.0 levels it appears, but the 8.0 level shows the semis complete but the final not being played (as of my writing this at least) so I suspect we have yet another co-champion like happened earlier in Mobile.
Note that in order to finish, and since they were playing matches sequentially, if one team was up 2-0 after two matches they called the match and moved on, so everyone in the line-up didn't even get to play. This happened once for 6.0, twice for 7.0, once for 8.0 (and the final wasn't played), and once for 9.0.
So changed venue/courts, the surface being carpet with taped seams, playing single sets to decide it, and not getting to play all the matches. All in all, seems like a pretty awful way to decided and finish Nationals.
Hopefully the USTA has learned their lesson and won't be going back to Mobile for Nationals next year.
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