A few of the gaffes include NorCal having too many teams (22) and too few matches (3) leading to undefeated teams not advancing, SoCal doing something similar, and Florida using a mindless implementation of it (missing the "random" part) also leading to two undefeated teams being sent home.
It appears Florida may be at it again, this time having the 18 & Over Sectionals with what appears to be some flawed unflighted round-robin set ups.
Specifically, the 4.5 men this weekend appears to have seven teams all playing four matches, so every team doesn't play every other team, and they are only taking the top team as the Sectionals winner! If every team doesn't play all the others, obviously two teams could go undefeated, and if you only take one team as the winner ... duh?
Hopefully what I'm seeing on TennisLink is wrong, but for every other flight going on this weekend, it shows flights/round-robins and then a finals to be played, but for the 4.5 men there is just the round-robin with no final.
If they do indeed take just the top team in the standings as the winner, they may luck out as the top teams do play each other. Still, it is possible, and using such a format is just plain dumb.
I also see the 2.5 women with 10 teams and no final, but I don't think that event is this weekend so perhaps TennisLink just isn't fully populated. Similarly the 4.0 men and women don't show finals, hopefully those get fixed.
Updated: I've been told there is indeed a final between the top-2 teams that just hasn't been added to TennisLink yet. Apparently there was a late withdrawal and change to seven teams and unflighted. Phew! See this update.
The Nationals format has a semis and finals. I have participated in unflighted where there is only a finals, meaning only the top two teams have an opportunity to win it. I feel this is not a fair way to do it since some teams may get an easier draw. I feel Nationals included the semis for this reason and everyone should also use their format.
ReplyDeleteGood point, but I think it depends on the number of teams and number of matches played.
DeleteIn this case of the Florida 4.5 men, with 7 teams and 4 matches, you could have two undefeated teams that beat everyone else and in that case, taking the top-2 to a final probably makes sense. Adding two more teams to have semis where the added teams already lost to one or both of the undefeated teams doesn't make a lot of sense.
With just 7 teams and 4 matches, if there was a scenario where three teams could all be 3-1, or a tie at 3-1 for 2nd where the teams didn't play each other, a case could be made for semis I suppose.
But even semis at National is arguably not sufficient as there are 17 teams there, and you can end up with big ties at 3-1 for the last spot.