Some USTA districts are using un-flighted round-robin for 2019 playoffs - Beware of the standings tie-breakers!

Last year, USTA League Nationals used a brand new format, un-flighted round-robin, instead of having three or four flights of teams each playing a round-robin.  This meant that rather than four flight winners advancing to the semis, the top-four teams in one big flight would advance.

This format was great in that it guaranteed each team four instead of three matches, and gave a team, that was really good and just got a bad draw and lost early, a chance of still making the semis, but did introduce some new factors in deciding the top-4 teams.   Specifically, how do you compare teams that didn't play each other at all, to decide a top-4.

This meant some rarely used tie-breakers got invoked a lot, and unfortunately, in my opinion at least, these were flawed and choose the wrong team to advance several times.  I felt strongly enough about this that I proposed changes to the regulations to fix the tie-breakers, but alas they were not adopted, yet at least.

What is new for this year though is that this un-flighted round-robin (UFRR so I don't have to keep typing it) appears to be being used for more playoffs.  I've heard of at least two districts employing it later this month, and there very well could be more.

In most cases at the district level, I'm guessing the prior format was two flights of four teams, each team playing three round-robin matches and the flight winners facing off in a final.

In a UFRR, all the teams are put into one eight team flight and everyone plays four matches.  The fourth match is considered a perk to the teams as is the ability to advance to the final if you would have otherwise finished second in your flight in the old format.

The problem is, we still have the old tie-breakers that are going to be used.  And, depending on how the schedule is done, it is possible for three teams to all go undefeated but only two of those teams can advance to the final, and the current "challenged" tie-breakers will be used to determine those two teams.

I won't go into the details of what the problems are with the tie-breakers yet again (read this for a good summary), but I hope they don't come into play and pick the "wrong" team to advance.  My fear is that given the use of this format and tie-breakers enough times, it will happen again.

What format are your playoffs using?  Is a UFRR being used and if so, how many teams and how many matches?  What do you think of the format?

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Update: NorCal used the format for 40 & Over Districts and it resulted in a team that went undefeated not advancing to Sectionals.  Read about it here.