Sunday, October 10, 2021

Results from the second weekend of 2021 USTA League Nationals - How did the predictions do?

The second weekend of 2021 USTA League Nationals is complete, and it is time for the summary and check on how the predictions did.

I didn't do any previews/predictions of the 18 & Over 2.5 women simply because ratings are so unpredictable at the 2.5 level, but a summary is in order and that is that three 4-0 teams made the semis in PNW, Southern, and Eastern, and Intermountain made it as well as the sole 3-1 team.  It turns out my simulation would have had the first three teams all advancing or in a tie for the last spot, just Intermountain was the surprise.   The semis PNW beat Intermountain 2-1 and Southern beat Eastern 2-1, setting up the final where Eastern won 3-0.

The 40 & Over 4.0 women found Texas and Southern advancing as 4-0 teams, with a six team tie at 3-1 for the last two spots.  Middle States and Midwest were the only two teams with 11-5 court records and got the spots.  Three of those teams were in the simulation's top-8, so just an ok performance there.  The semis and final had "2-2" matches galore as Midwest won losing one fewer set and Middle States also won losing one fewer set.  The final had Midwest winning losing one fewer set.

The 40 & Over 4.0 men had Southern and Intermountain advance at 4-0, and then a four team tie at 3-1 with Middle States taking the third spot alone with an 11-5 court record, but Midwest taking the 4th spot over Mid-Atlantic on the sets lost tie-breaker with both having 10-6 court records.  The simulation had three of these teams in the projected top-5 so a pretty good showing here.  The semis had two 2-2 matches, Midwest beating Southern losing two fewer sets, and Middle States beat Intermountain where the teams lost the same number of sets, but Middle States lost two fewer games and advanced as a result.  Good thing, as they won 4-0 in the final.

The 18 & Over 4.5 women had a nice clean set of semi-finalists all going 4-0, those being Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, Northern, and Intermountain.  The simulation did not do well here, these teams all being projected to be mid-pack.  The semis had Midwest romping 5-0 and Northern winning 4-1, and then Midwest won the final 3-2.

The 18 & Over 4.5 men had two undefeated teams in Southwest and Texas advance, and a four team tie at 3-1 had Southern and MoValley advance, the latter based on their head to head win over SoCal, otherwise SoCal would have advanced on fewer sets lost.  Just one of these teams, MoValley, was projected to make the semis, the others were all projected at 2-2 so did well.  In the semis MoValley took out Southwest 3-2 while Southern did the same to Texas, before MoValley won the final 3-2.

Congratulations to this weekend's champs.

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