What will sections do with 4-court formats come playoffs? National has weighed in, has your section? PNW has

After several months of confusion and incorrect teams being awarded wins using undocumented rules, USTA National finally addressed the issue of 2-2 ties not being broken with the documented tie-breakers for Adult 40 & Over leagues using the 4-court format.

Well, sort of.

As far as I can tell, there has been no communication to players or regulation change by National about the modified tie-breaker.  It appears to only have been communicated to sections as something that is now an approved tie-breaker and one that TennisLink will soon support, and some section coordinators are letting players know.

I suppose they figure that for National, the change only affects Nationals and they'll just document it for that event.  But this change, to have the court 1 doubles winner be the final tie-breaker to determine a team win, really does belong in the 2020 regulations document and not just something communicated to sections.  But updating the 2020 regulations at this point might be a bit embarrassing and perhaps can't be done at this point according to the USTA rules.  Maybe it will happen, but it is likely to just appear in the 2021 regulations.

Anyway, with this tie-breaker now an option, what will sections do?  There are already several sections changing their rules mid-season to use it and asking captains to wait to enter scores for a week while TennisLink is changed and the change seemingly won't be retroactive (which seems wrong).  But what may be more interesting is what happens in playoffs, particularly for leagues/areas that are using Points Per Position (PPP) for the regular season.

For what it is worth, the Pacific Northwest Section was on the ball and got ahead of this one by making the change to PPP well in advance of the season, which was a change in itself, but far better than the confusion that has reigned in other sections that are still using team wins for standings.  But PNW was even more on the ball by already documenting what will be done in playoffs and Sectionals.  Thanks Adam and team!

As I understand it, in playoffs, PPP will continue to be used:

• If there is flight play for the playoff event, point accumulation and not wins/losses will determine flight standings and who advances, just like the regular season.
• If there is a single elimination draw, whoever has the most points in the match will be the winner and advance.

This all makes sense and is consistent with the regular season, the change from prior years to use points rather than wins is just a change to be aware of.  It is possible that a team could "win" their three matches at Sectionals 3-2 and get to 9 points, but not win the flight if a team they "beat" happens to win their other two matches 4-1 or better, as that would get them to 10 points.

Note that for those sections that use team wins for standings and adopt the new 1D as the last tie-breaker, it may seem like it is just like PPP that gives 1D the extra point, but it is subtly different.

With a PPP format giving an extra point to 1D (1211), court 1 doubles is effectively the first tie-breaker in a match where the teams split the four courts.  In a team win format, court 1 doubles is the last tie-breaker and only comes into play if the teams are also tied on sets lost and games lost first.

What is your section going to do for playoffs?  Have they documented it yet?  Ask questions and see that they do, otherwise there is the risk something is done wrong or they make things up as they go.