I highlighted a number of concerns in what I wrote above, and I know a group of players in PNW have lobbied the Section Coordinator to rethink the position, but I have not seen an official reply or response with any planned changes.
That doesn't stop me from speculating what might be done though.
Update 11/13 9:30pm: It appears my speculation was correct as the standings on TennisLink for the upcoming league now show the standings using Points Per Position.
If there really is a shortage of singles players, a 1 singles and 4 doubles format could be used to actually increase playing opportunities (9 players rather than 7 or 8) and avoid the issue with 2-2 ties. But that isn't happening for 2020, so let's move on.
And the 2-2 ties is an issue with the 4-court format as the traditional team wins/losses for standings falls apart should there be 2-2 ties that can't be broken by the published tie-breaker rules. And yes, it could and would happen.
One approach if a 2-2 tie really happens after the tie-breakers are exhausted is to just give the teams a "half win". The challenge here is that TennisLink doesn't support it so it would have to be manually managed/tracked. I believe this has been done in at least one section where a 4-court format was used in 2019.
Perhaps a better solution is something I noted could be done, that being to use a Points Per Position (PPP) format for standings. For those not familiar with it, rather than standings being based on team wins/losses, they are based simply on points, where a team accumulates points for winning courts throughout the season. This effectively removes the team win issue as teams wins are not something that is used for standings.
The PPP format allows for the points per position to be whatever is deemed appropriate by the section/district/area implementing it. The format has been used in several sections for several years with different points allocations, for example, in the Eastern section where PPP has been used for a few years, a 3-court 5.0+ flight uses 2 points for 1S and 1D, and one point for 2D (221), but 5-court flights use a 5 for 1S, 4 for 2S, 6 for 1D, 4 for 2D, and 3 for 3D (54643).
A simple approach for my section (PNW), or any section adopting this new 4-court format for the first time, would be to use PPP with a single point for each court. This effectively just makes the standings based on courts won/lost record rather than team wins, but does make it so a 2-2 team result is not an issue. You don't get the satisfaction of the "win", both teams just accumulate 2 more points towards their total in the standings.
An alternative that is subtle but perhaps addresses a few issues is to assign 1 point to all courts other than 1D which will be worth 2 points. This means each team match will have 5 points up for grabs. While the team "win" no longer matters, this would result in two teams splitting the four courts having the team that won 1D accumulating 3 total points and thus getting the "win" which lends a little more satisfying resolution to the team match.
This approach also has the benefit of discouraging stacking if you think that is an issue. In fact, PPP is often used with points allocations to discourage stacking as noted above. So not only does 1D being worth 2 points create the allure of a "win", but it would help ensure players play their better players on 1D to go after the 2 points.
Also, in 4.5+, by making 1D worth two points, a team may play their 5.0 on 1D some and not only 1S which may open up singles playing opportunities for 4.5s where they may not have had them before if the 5.0 always played singles. This at least partially addresses the concern that 4.5 singles opportunities will disappear with the 4-court format.
I think there are pros and cons to PPP where court 1 is weighted more heavily. It does discourage stacking to a degree, but also takes away a strategy for captains to use to try to win the team match. It could lead to a captain being less willing to play lower rated players at all as they can no longer lose that court and win the team match, losing the court is just lost points now and points accumulation may be at a premium. I'll be honest, I'm on the fence on this one until I see it in action or do some more research.
Regardless, while I still don't agree with the decision to move to 4 courts for 40 & Over, a move to Points Per Position would address some of the issues. It does not address the reduced playing opportunity in general, and the cutting in half of the singles playing opportunities, and this is really the bigger issue, but it is at least a step in the right direction and better than the original plan.
Note that an alternative to PPP as I outlined above would be to just make the winner of 1D be the tie-breaker in the team-match if the courts split 2-2. The problem with this is that this isn't an approved format that TennisLink supports, and unfortunately I think whatever is selected needs to be "TennisLink approved", and Points Per Position is.
If you are from PNW, what do you think? Would you like to see Points Per Position adopted for the 40 & Over league since we appear locked in to the 4-court format?
If you aren't from PNW, is what I've outlined above something you'd like to see your section do should they adopt the 4-court format?
Voice your opinion and vote in the poll.
Given the 4-court (1S/3D) format for 40 & Over, what is your preferred approach for flight standings?
Created with PollMaker
Note: Added another option to the poll a few minutes after posting.
Look at the app for 2020 40+. The column headings have changed. They now show MP, P, SL, GL. Looks like PNW is headed towards some sort of points system.
ReplyDeleteMaybe my "speculation" was right :)
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