In the past, Fed Cup was played over three weekends throughout the year with four pairs of teams facing off one weekend early in the year with one of the countries being the host, the the winners advance to the semis two pairs play with one country being the host, and the winners then play the final near the end of the year with one of the countries being the host. The format for each tie was two singles matches on day 1, then reverse singles on day 2 followed by a double match to potentially determine the winner if the singles matches split 2-2.
In its new form, there are 12 countries that compete, and the whole competition is played over the course of one week all in one location. Instead of having an elimination bracket, the 12 teams are split into four groups of three countries each where each country plays two round-robin ties against the other two teams in their group. Each tie is two singles and one doubles match. The winners of each group advance to the semis where an elimination draw is then played.
For those that follow USTA League, this format probably sounds familiar, as Nationals uses round-robin play to determine four teams to advance to the semis to play an elimination draw. One of the issues I've identified in the past is how the USTA determines the standings if there are ties on wins/losses, so naturally I wanted to see how the ITF did this for a group based format to see if similar issues existed.
With round-robin formats, it is possible, and often happens, for teams to tie on win/loss record. When this happens, the event determines how to break the tie using other finer-grained criteria than wins and losses. In the case of the USTA, they use:
- Individual match/court record
- Head to head
- Sets lost
- Games lost
What the ITF uses is:
- Head-to-head
- Percent of matches won
- Percent of sets won
- Percent of games won
The criteria look similar, but there are some key differences.
First, the ITF places head-to-head ahead of the other criteria. One can debate which approach is the best, but there are some that think the USTA should do the same.
Second, individual match/court record and percent of matches won is effectively the same, so the next difference is sets lost vs percent of sets won. These may sound similar but are in fact different, and the ITF gets this right while using sets lost is one of the flaws in the USTA's tie-breakers. Using just sets lost ignore actually winning sets, while percent of sets won includes the won and lost sets and is more comprehensive and equitable.
Third, if teams do happen to still be tied, the USTA uses games lost while the ITF again gets it right and uses percent of games won. Using just games lost is a huge flaw in the USTA's approach as this criteria rewards losing a set 6-0 (six games lost) over losing a set 7-6 (seven games lost) which is clearly inequitable, but the USTA has stuck with their criteria despite feedback and a regulation change proposal to fix it.
Before you say, it isn't a big deal, the tie-breakers never go this far or the scenario is unlikely, this flawed tie-breaker has reared its ugly head numerous times including a few weeks ago at 2021 Nationals. Even if it had never happened, it is silly to have a bad rule and pass it off as unlikely, but it has happened, so USTA, pay attention to the ITF and get this one right!
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