The dreaded 2-2 tie at USTA League Nationals - Texas loses a semi spot because of it

The second weekend of Nationals this year had 40 & Over events start with the men's and women's 3.5 and 4.0 levels playing.  Since 40 & Over uses a 4-court format (one singles and three doubles) this means there is the possibility of matches being tied at 2-2 and having to be decided by tie-breakers.

As a reminder, the tie-breaker is first to look at sets lost and whomever lost the fewest gets the team win.  If sets lost is tied, then it goes to games lost, and if that is tied, then whichever team won court 1 doubles wins the match.

Those that follow my blog know I'm a critic of the format for a number of reasons, but it is what we have so it has to be used.  The question is, how often does it occur, and how deep into the tie-breakers do things go?

Through the round-robin of the four events, 136 matches have been played and 34 (25%) have ended in 2-2 ties.  Of those 34, 11 have been tied on sets, and then of those 11, two have been tied on games.

One was Caribbean vs Midwest for the 3.5 men and Midwest won it due to their win on court 1 doubles.  Caribbean finished 1-3 and Midwest 3-1 so this didn't factor into who made the semis.  But one game different and Caribbean wins and they are both 2-2 and Caribbean moves ahead of Midwest in the standings.

The other was also a 3.5 men's match between Northern and Hawaii.  Here, Northern won court 1 doubles so they got the win.  Northern finished 2-2 and Hawaii 0-4, so it didn't affect the semi-finalists, but I'm sure Hawaii would have loved to have a win.

There were several other matches that were almost tied on games, and these were more meaningful.  There were four matches that went to the games lost tie-breaker and were within two games.

In one in the 4.0 women's event, Southern won a 2-2 match versus Northern by winning two more games.  Southern went 4-0, but even had they lost they still would have made the semis as the third seed instead of the second.

In the 4.0 men's event, Texas lost a 2-2 match to Eastern and finished 3-1 and in fifth place.  The lost the match on games lost having lost two more games than Eastern.  If they had managed to lose two fewer games, because they won court 1 doubles they would have won the match and been 4-0 and have been the #1 seed!  Further, Midwest who was fourth would have fallen to fifth and they were 4-0 so an undefeated team would have been sent home.

It seems awfully tough for this much to be decided by so little.  An even number of courts and having to break ties to determine a team match winner on minutiae like this seems a little arbitrary.  Yes, all the teams know the rules going in, but I'd much rather see a team match decided by court wins.  USTA, please bring back a five court format for 40 & Over!

Hopefully we don't see a bad scenario decide an even more important match tomorrow or over the next few weeks.