SoCal 18 & Over Sectionals may be another unflighted round-robin disaster

It is the time of year that Sectionals begin to be played, and some sections elect to use the the unflighted round-robin format to identify the teams to advance to a single elimination bracket.  In this format, each team plays the same number of matches against random opponents, and then the top-2 or top-4 teams advance to a final or semi-finals.  USTA National began using it several years ago, and more sections are using it for Sectionals when the number of teams they have doesn't nicely fit into an even number of sub-flights.

The major problem with the format is that when not done correctly, there is a chance of a team going undefeated and not advancing.  The way Nationals is run with 17 sections and each team playing four matches, there is usually a very small chance of it happening, and it has come close to happening twice but hasn't yet.  However, the way some sections implement it there has been a far higher chance of it happening and it has happened at least once in NorCal.

The typical problem is having too many teams not playing enough matches.  In NorCal's case they've had over 20 teams in some flights and played just three matches.  That is a recipe for disaster and a 5th place team that was undefeated got sent home.

Well, it appears it may happen again this weekend.  SoCal is holding its 18 & Over Sectionals and is using unflighted round robin with too many teams and not enough matches.  Specifically, using my simulation of the round-robin, the problematic levels are:

• 3.0 Women - 14 teams playing 3 matches for 4 spots - More than 3% chance of 5+ undefeated.
• 3.5 Women - 17 teams playing 3 matches for 4 spots - More than 5% chance of 5+ undefeated before the event, part way through it is now over 42%!
• 4.0 Men - 10 teams playing 3 matches for 4 spots - Less than 1% chance of 5+ undefeated, but there is a chance.

The other levels are either in sub-flights or don't have too many teams.

The 3.0 women and 4.0 men have very slim chances of it happening, but we will see how the 3.5 women finish up, but I think there is a good chance an undefeated team is sent home!

WTN lookup now available on ITF's site with additional features

After many e-mails from the USTA about it, the ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) was rolled out on usta.com about a month ago, and today I got an e-mail that it is now available on the ITF's worldtennisnumber.com site.

The player search page has a footnote that it is currently only showing USTA players.  I'm not sure why this is as the LTA launched WTN about six months ago so you'd think those players could be available too, but at least for now they aren't.

The search is interesting in that it seemingly only lets you search by surname (last name) or a tennis ID.  The type ahead last name search isn't terribly useful as there are often many players with the same last name and the player you are looking for may not be in the four they show.  So you have to finish your search and get the full list which can then be filtered by gender, country, and singles or doubles WTN.  This is an interesting way to search as if you knew the WTN, you probably wouldn't be looking!

But you can put in a range and narrow it down and presumably find who you are after, at which point you can click on them and get a page that is similarly branded to what the USTA sites shows, but with more detail!  The same animated WTN widget is there with singles and doubles WTN and Game zONe numbers, but on the overview page you additionally get:

• Match activity with a count of unique singles opponents, average singles interval, and average doubles interval
• Rating range that can show the range for singles and doubles for all time or the past year
• A chart of "player tournament matches" showing the count of wins and losses by month, filterable by singles or doubles, although it does appear to include USTA League matches too, not just tournaments
• A results summary with the win-loss record which can be filtered by singles/doubles/both and different time periods

Based on the results summary, it does appear it includes matches, for me at least, that were played in 2016, so I'm guessing that is roughly when the data starts the USTA provided to the ITF, which is consistent with what we've seen/heard elsewhere.  In fact, one can go to the Results tab and there, the date filter goes back to July 1st, 2016 so that appears to be the start date for WTN.

The Results tab is also where you can see more details with the specific matches including the players, their WTN, and the score.  They are actually grouped by event/league which is kind of nice, but oddly had a a stray match that wasn't in the right league.  The WTN shown does seem to be the WTN at the time of the match, so you can see how it changes.

Then there is a Head to Head tab where you can search for another player and see a head to head comparison of WTN ratings and if they've played, the records.  It seems to only do this for singles matches though so you can't find your stats with a partner or against a doubles opponent.  It will also show competitors in common which may be useful if you are scouting a future opponent.

All in all it is a nice presentation and it does provide more information than the USTA's site does and adds some additional useful context to help understand more about your WTN and playing history.