The USTA has a variety of leagues for different ages and genders including Mixed leagues where Mixed doubles are played with each doubles pair being a man and a woman. Mixed is very popular in some areas and with some players due to the playing opportunities it offers.
In its advancing league format (can progress on to Nationals), the format is to use combined NTRP levels on the ".0", e.g. there are flights for combined levels 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, and 10.0. This means that players at the "mid" levels can play in three different flights at the same time.
For example, a 3.5 player, man or woman, can play 6.0 (with a 2.5 partner), 7.0 (with a 3.5 partner), and 8.0 (with a 4.5 partner) in the same league. Similarly, a 4.0 can play 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 at the same time.
Now, this can create can only be called interesting tennis with what are quite unbalanced pairings and players on a court. Consider an 8.0 match with a 3.5 woman and 4.5 man on one side, and two 4.0s on the other. Conventional wisdom is that since NTRP levels are not gender neutral and there is in fact roughly a 0.5 gap between a male and female player of the same ability, we could normalize this by adding 0.5 to the men's levels and say this Mixed match is really a 3.5/5.0 pair vs a 4.0/4.5 pair. This means we have what is supposed to be a competitive recreational match with players from four different levels on the court and one pair three levels apart.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it does make for a different game of doubles than is customarily played in same gender leagues. Due to the disparity between the 3.5 and "5.0", a competitive opponent is going to mercilessly target the 3.5 as they are clearly the weaker player. As a result, the 3.5/"5.0" pair may do things like position the 3.5 right on top of the net guarding the alley to dissuade the opponent from targeting her and allow the "5.0" to get all the balls.
Now, part of the reason some people like Mixed is not just because one player can play in three different flights, but because of the range of levels that can be on a team, it allows friends and spouses at different levels to be on a team together that they wouldn't normally be able to. This tends to make Mixed more of a social league in general, but some take it seriously and deploy the tactics described above to maximize the chances of winning.
I've often thought that Mixed flights should be on the ".5", e.g. 5.5, 6.5, 7.5, 8.5, 9.5, with the max allowed difference being 0.5, thus a 7.5 flight would have 3.5s and 4.0s, which would result in less disparity in ability being on a single court, but still allow a fairly diverse set of players to be on a team.
Some areas actually do have "Combo Mixed" leagues on the ".5", but these are only local leagues and don't advance to Nationals.
What do you think? Should Mixed be on the ".5"? If you play in a Combo Mixed league on the ".5", how has it worked out?
The other observation about Mixed is regarding ratings. The USTA publishes a single rating/level for each player. If a player plays at least three applicable Adult (same gender) matches, their rating is based solely on those results and no Mixed matches that are played count. It is only if a player plays just Mixed (three or more Mixed and two or fewer same gender Adult) matches that their Mixed matches are used for their rating, and then only the Mixed results are used and they get an "M" rating/level at year-end rather than a "C".
Part of the reason Mixed matches are kept separate is that, due to the format with the broad spread of abilities, it really is a different game, and/or the USTA does consider it to be more social league and the results to not fairly represent a player's ability. This is supported by the fact that a player that gets an "M" rating is required to self-rate again to play Adult, so the USTA doesn't really trust Mixed results to reflect a player's ability.
Or they don't want players to tank their Mixed matches in order to manage their rating to prevent being bumped up from their Adult matches.
For many players, this isn't a big issue. Most players play a fair amount of Adult matches, and more importantly, their results in Adult and Mixed indicate a similar ability, so even if the USTA used Mixed matches along with Adult matches, players likely wouldn't have their year-end level change.
However, there are some that really get into Mixed and play all the levels they can and get on teams with aspirations of going to and winning Nationals. If these players only play Mixed, they'd get an "M" rating based on these matches and all would presumably be fine. Unfortunately, some will play Adult also, but only the bare minimum, and they get a "C" rating based on just a few matches. For those players that really focus on Mixed and that style of game, or worse, those that will not "play their best" in their Adult matches, this "C" rating may not really represent their ability in Mixed.
What this allows is for a player to clean-up in Mixed, perhaps unfairly, while their opponents who play both Adult and Mixed and go all out in their Adult matches, are at a disadvantage comparatively.
It this an issue? Someone thought so as there is a petition on change.org, "Close the NTRP Rating System Loophole in USTA Leagues", that asks for the USTA to not ignore Mixed match results in calculating year-end ratings.
The petition simply asks for Mixed matches to be included. I'm sure that could be done, have a single year-end rating that factors in Adult and Mixed, but would that really accomplish what they are after? Someone could still play Adult to manage their rating down which would offset their excellent Mixed results. And there might be unintended consequences where someone is bad at Mixed and including those pulls their rating down and they get an artificially low rating for Adult.
Other alternatives would be to:
- Keep calculating Adult and Mixed separately, but have a player's year-end level be the higher of what is calculated for each.
- Keep calculating Adult and Mixed separately, and give a player two levels, one they use to play Adult and one they use to play Mixed.
Both of these options address using one discipline to sandbag to get an artificially low rating for the other, one just forces the player to play at the higher of the levels for all matches.
What do you think? Is this even a problem that needs to be addressed? If so, in way?
