The 40 & Over 2-2 tie - How often is it happening in 2022?

The USTA switched the 40 & Over league at the National level to be a 4-court format a few years ago meaning matches could end in 2-2 ties and have the winner of the team match be determined by a set of tie-breakers.  There has been angst and criticism of this format, some by me, but it remains with us today.

While this is the format used for Nationals, sections are free to use alternate formats for league play, or even their playoffs through Sectionals, and some have.  Some have chosen to use a points per position (PPP) format where the team win doesn't matter, and others have elected top play three courts (one singles / two doubles) or five courts (one singles / four doubles or 2 singles / 3 doubles) to have an odd number of courts and avoid the possibility of the 2-2 tie.  And this isn't just for local leagues, a recent Sectionals used the 1S / 4D format to not have to deal with 2-2 ties.

As a reminder, should a 2-2 tie occur, the tie is first broken by:

• The team that lost the fewest sets - This is the equivalent of the team that won the most sets in a head-to-head situation, so if all the courts were straight-sets for one team or the other except for one that went to a match tie-break, the that got the loss to a match tie-break wins the tie-breaker because they won an extra set, or hung an extra set loss on their opponent.
• The team that lost the fewest games - Given the above, this is self-explanatory, whoever lost the fewest games (or won the most games) wins.

Now, this is where the issue occurred in the original rule.  The next tie-breaker was game winning percentage.  The USTA apparently thought this would always break the tie.  Ummm, if the teams both won/lost the same number of games, game winning percentage will always be 50% for both teams so this is in fact a meaningless tie-breaker to include.  So what next?

Originally there was no stated next tie-breaker, although TennisLink may have been programmed to give the win to either the home or away team at this point, or perhaps even the team with the better game winning percentage in the league to date, it was never clear, and obviously any of these aren't terribly equitable or satisfying.

After initial reaction (I may have said something to some at the USTA ...), it was finally cleared up and documented that the last tie-breaker would be the team that won court one doubles.  This at least cleared it up, and in a way provides an anti-stacking incentive as you wouldn't want to throw court one doubles only to have that decide the winner in your opponent's favor.

Now, some may say these ties requiring the court one doubles tie-breaker will never happen.  Well, that would be wrong.  It certainly doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen.

I took at look at the 2021 40 & Over Nationals and that showed that 32% of the matches were 2-2 ties, of which 59% were decided by sets lost, leaving 41% to go to games and yes, there were two (3%) that had to be decided by the court one doubles winner.

I also did a what-if analysis of 2019 and it also showed that 3% of 2-2 ties would have gone to the court one doubles tie-breaker.

What about 2022?

Looking at just recent 40 & Over playoffs, I show that there have been 36 matches tied 2-2 requiring the court one doubles winner tie-breaker.  Of those, 14 occurred at Sectionals, and all of the 40 & Over Sectionals are not complete yet!

I'll post again once Sectionals are complete, but I've also heard some interesting 2-2 tie stories and I'll share some of those too.  But if you have a story, please let me know (e-mail ratings@teravation.net if you don't want to leave a comment).