Well, it happened, TWO undefeated teams are left out at Florida Mixed Sectionals

I wrote two days ago that there was a chance an undefeated team in the Florida Mixed Sectionals 9.0 flight would be left out and not have a chance to advance.  I wrote an update yesterday saying things were on track for it to happen.  Well, unfortunately it ended up happening.

With four teams all 2-0 after yesterday's matches and none of them playing each other today, it was primed to happen.  After one match today, the four teams were all 3-0 with court records ranging from 8-1 to 6-3.

Two teams won quickly and they were 4-0 with one 11-1 on courts and the other 10-2, but I think there was a rain delay and matches moved indoor to complete so we had to wait to see if we had more undefeated teams.  The team that was 3-0/6-3 was already eliminated, even winning their last match 3-0 would only get them to 4-0/9-3 (which they did) and there were already two teams ahead of them.  The other one ended up winning and ending up 4-0/10-2.

The final standings were:

Miami-Dade - 4-0 / 11-1 / 22-5
Sarasota - 4-0 / 10-2 / 21-6
Hills - 4-0 / 10-2 / 22-7
Broward - 4-0 / 9-3 / 18-8

Miami-Dade was in as the first place team, but it took the sets lost tie-breaker to select Sarasota as the second place team, leaving Hills and Broward out.

While the flawed tie-breakers didn't come into play here, the sets lost tie-breaker was still used to break a tie between two teams that didn't play each other or the exact same schedule which feels a little unfair.  But that is the way it is and everyone knew the situation up front.

That is brutal for both Hills and Broward, but especially Hills as they only lost two courts across four matches and that wasn't enough to advance to the final.  I can't imagine what it would be like to have that performance and not have a chance to continue playing.

I was half wondering if they would ad lib and take all four teams and play two semi-finals instead of just taking the top-2 to the final, but TennisLink shows Miami-Dade and Sarasota in the final, so it appears that won't happen.

As much as I like writing about these topics and this was clearly fodder to do so, I really hoped this wouldn't happen and and would never wish this on any team.  And it was avoidable.  With 10 teams, they could have had two flights of five and have everyone play the same four matches and have two flight winners advance.  Or they could have used unflighted round-robin but with an actual random assignment of matches and a verification it was sound beforehand.

If nothing else, perhaps this is educational for Florida and other sections and even National to avoid scenarios like this in the future.