I do wonder though, as it is used more and more, if it is going to make it harder for captains to manage their player's egos and create more drama?
Without PPP every court is just a single court contributing towards the team's total for that match. Win more courts than your opponent, you win the team match and notch a win in the standings. Each court being worth the same amount went along with the USTA stated position that there was no requirement to roll out a line-up in order of strength, there was no inference that the best players were to be on court 1 rather than court 3.
Given this, a captain could fall back on that statement and when someone complained about being on court 2 or 3, the captain could reply that court doesn't matter, and he thought the opponent would play their strongest pair there and that is why he played the player there. It basically gave the captain an out to halt any discussions and turmoil regarding who was better than why Bob or Sue gets to play court 1 and Jim or Tammy doesn't.
With PPP though, this simply isn't a true statement anymore. In nearly every PPP scenario, the courts are not equally weighted, court 1 is often worth more than court 2 is more than court 3. So now, unless a captain is still doing a tactical sacrifice (harder to justify now), who the captain thinks is the best players is exposed by the line-up that is used. They can no longer fall back on "all the courts are the same".
Is this going to cause for drama for captains? Will they have more players griping about the court they play on?
For those that have used PPP, what is your experience? Does it increase or decrease the burden on the captain to establish a pecking order and manage egos?
good points that Captains will now be on the spot to name their "#1 team". I'm not a captain. This also comes with a lot of extra pressure for the players that play in the #1 position! Will be interesting to see how that plays out
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