The 18 & Over 3.0 women saw NorCal beat PNW and SoCal beat Eastern, both by 4-1 scores, with NorCal winning the California battle 5-0. NorCal was the overwhelming favorite in the simulation and they came through, and could have a double bump up or two.
The 18 & over 3.0 men, Southwest lost to Eastern 4-1 and NorCal lost to Texas 3-2, and then Texas won the final 4-1. Texas was one of the favorites, and with a host of self-rates won it all. It isn't uncommon to have a lot of self-rates at the 3.0 level, but all but one of the players who played at Nationals was a self-rate and many will be clear bump ups.
The 40 & Over 4.5 women saw Northern beat Texas 3-1 and Intermountain beat Middle States 4-0 before Northern won the final 4-0. Northern was a contender and came through with four players appealing down from 5.0 and another just bumped down.
The 40 & Over 4.5 men saw Florida and Texas each advance 3-1 over Eastern and Southern, then Florida "won" the final 2-2 when they were tied on sets and managed to win 2 more games. This was perhaps the closest final we've seen. Florida was one of the favorites and won it with five players rostered who were 5.0s last year.
Congratulations to the new Nationals winners.
Thanks for raising the 3.0 self rate issue, Kevin. It's different than the sandbagging that you called out for the 3.5s but impacts the competition just as much. Sadly it wasn't just Texas, the other finalist Eastern also used 6 or 7 self-rates in each match. In fact, you can correlate the outcome of the round robin with the percentage of self-rated players each team used. There's a clear strategy for teams to self-rate players below their level and then dominate. Shame for people who have been playing for a few years and come to nationals with hopes of actually competing. USTA believes their algorithm absolves them of actually having to do anything about this but it is clearly broken.
ReplyDeleteYour suggestions of lower threshold for strikes is good, we also need some actual transparency also to have confidence the system is working as designed (even if it's after the season to avoid issues with captains gaming the system). One other idea I had was to require each team to have a required number of computer rated players in their lineups once postseason begins. It allows self rated teams to form and get experience but precludes the all self rated teams from cheating their way to a national championship.
Kevin. You forgot to mention that in the case of the 4.5 40+ men, Florida also won it in 2022, and had to rebuild the team using only three members of the winning team, making it a rare back to back victory.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point!
DeleteI was copied on this email from the SoCal captain today to a few USTA contacts, sure des not sound happy, although I'd say her team did really well...anyway, all related to what appears to be sandbagging complaints.
ReplyDeleteDear Maria and Marilyn,
We recently had the pleasure of going to Surprise, Arizona for 3.0 League Nationals. Our team from SoCal was a finalist and we are so proud of what we have accomplished in the past 2 years. Our ladies decided to play to win and we set out on our mission to turn our 3.0 USTA team from one that usually ended up at the bottom of the team standings to going to sectionals 3 times in the past 2 years. I took on the role of captain during covid and have had the best experiences and made new friendships with other teams and captains in our league. My fellow captains texting me during Nationals and supporting our journey every step of the way. We had a great experience at Nationals and the staff and facilities were great……..even the weather couldn’t dampen our experience. We lost a few players from our roster who couldn’t be qualified and trained almost daily (as much as our bodies could handle) to prepare for Nationals. We set aside other family responsibilities and priorities to do whatever we could to prepare to play the best tennis we could and represent our team, club and SoCal. So it was very disappointing when after all the effort, preparation and money we spent to participate in Nationals, we had to play a team that was not playing at the right level. I know it is difficult to prove but we have done some research and I am sure that you all at USTA can see the “signs” of a team that is cheating and gaming the system. I know for a fact that there are players that tank games in order to get bumped down. I also know that this team captain has won Nationals in all 3 levels of mixed (7.0, 8.0 and 9.0). I know that there is a very complicated algorithm to calculate correct levels but I also know that if you saw the level of play from the NorCal team, you would understand that they were not 3.0 level players.
This blatant “cheating” in USTA leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and it makes me question if I really want to participate in USTA. Why work so hard when it doesn’t really matter and cheaters win? Why would I captain a team and put in all this effort if I am sending out my players to be crushed by players playing below their levels? And this is recreational tennis! We are not pros making our living from our tennis prowess. We are women who want to feel some accomplishment from the efforts and sacrifice we put into our passion for tennis and the game. We love playing tennis and that is not going to change. But what might change is where we put our effort and if we even participate in USTA when in the end, the cheaters win. I would love a response to share with my team. I would like them to decide whether or not to participate in USTA so that we can manage our expectations from all the effort we put in.
Best,
This is a common refrain from captains/players who go to Nationals and find there are players better than them. I don't disagree there are shenanigans that go on that should be rooted out, but if SoCal hadn't run into NorCal and won it all, the other teams may have been complaining about SoCal players being out of level. The question becomes, at what point are players above level and how can you determine that in an objective way applied to all.
DeleteA quick look at my Shenanigan Score for both teams, they both had self-rates, in fact SoCal had two more (8 to 6) and SoCal had an appeal down. They both had players DQ'd during the year and players who had self-rated at a higher level in the past. All in, SoCal had a higher total, but a slightly lower score per rostered player. So they were very similar.
I did not look to see if there was tanking of matches, so can't speak to that.
Hi! I am one of the SoCal players. We had a blast/ are SO proud of our run. We know 'everyone complains' about level in USTA, we get it -
ReplyDeleteBut the NorCal team was something else entirely. A 3.0 team that performed better than the 4.0 women we practice against.
We have since learned that multiple players of the NorCal team recently played 4 years of Varsity tennis, line 1. Another played Junior College. Their tennis history is online (and other places) - all very provable.
According the the USTA rating rules - these facts require one to rate as a 3.5 at minimum. We have alerted USTA.
Because -- do the rules matter or not?
We aren't ones to stir up drama. But we do know BS when we see it. Or as my Grandma used to say - "I may be blind but, Honey I can smell a turd in the punch bowl."
I hope going forward USTA enforces their own rules that were clearly broken.
And for full disclosure, your subtle accusation that we were playing fast and loose with rules ourselves is incorrect. We did have a player who got good quick (never played a tennis match before our team) - so good she was also playing 3.5 and winning - so she need up DQ'd while we were at Sectionals. Once we read/ learned the rules - we understood it was USTA enforcing their fair play rules. Live and learn.
We had a former 3.5 player appeal down b/c she's now 60 years old playing in 18+ - she didn't play at Nationals.
We have a Self rated player join in Jan - so she has not gotten a C rating yet bc that happens in DEC, but as of today, she'd be rated a 3.0.
The PREVIOUSLY APPEALED DOWN PLAYER - might be me? Ha. I started playing tennis in June of 2021 and signed up for 3.5 bc I thought hitting w/ better players would make me better. Our 3.5 team took one look at me and were like 'Do you know your serve is supposed to land in this box?' - and never spoke to me again. I appealed down b/c I made the obvious mistake of rating myself too high. It wasn't some hustle. If you google me, you will not find any record of my high school varsity wins - state tournament reports - or college newspapers covering my on court exploits-- because I was not playing tennis.
We have to be careful not assume bad faith in every self rate/ appeal - and even if *some* do game the system (hard to prove).
Personally, I LOVE that some players get good fast - on my team and on other teams. We saw them at Nationals. It's exciting! Fun!
My issue is people who are dishonest about their tennis history and level in order to play down. Ateam put together that way. Where the players lie to your face about their experience - "I just started playing!" - and then you look online and discover a whole different story.
Do people not know the internet exists??
No matter what - I am SO proud of my team - proud of what we built from the ground up together - we weren't some mercenary team of all stars (we've met those teams along the way too) - we are a homegrown group of ladies who became all stars together. We supported each other on and off the court - we sweated - cried - overcame injuries - laughed our asses off - made A LOT of mistakes, but then learned and got better - we inspired each other to play BRAVE - to go for our shots in tiebreaks -(don't be scared to lose, play to WIN.). And that's why our scores look so damn good.
It doesn't matter what NorCal does - we know who WE are. How we got here. Learning to play and compete together in just a handful of years - and we were the best at our level. I could not be prouder.
Thanks for the comment, I appreciate the additional background and color.
DeleteI was not aware there were self-rate violations and had slipped through and were never grievanced, that is a clear gaffe on the part of the USTA and other captains in NorCal that could have filed grievances too. Having tennis backgrounds that would require self-rating as 3.5s would clearly give them a leg up on other teams, and I agree that is wrong.
My earlier comment should not be interpreted as saying SoCal cheated too, I was simply pointing out that on the surface looking at the number of self-rates, the teams were similar and so that alone couldn't be a reason to say they were cheating.
The unfortunate thing is that simply having self-rates, or appeal downs, or other things my shenanigans score looks at are simply an indication there "might" be something amiss, but are not a smoking gun and in this case may very well have two teams looking the same but one played fair and the other not.
I'll say again, the error here appears to be that captains didn't file grievances, and either the USTA didn't know or look into things, or knew and choose to do nothing when they could have fixed it early on by filing grievances themselves. Unfortunately the section may have a desire for teams from their section to do well at Nationals and be willing to ignore some misdeeds. I'd like to think that isn't the case, and don't know anything specific about NorCal, but have heard other stories of preferential treatment by those in power.
And congratulations to your team on the great result regardless of what NorCal did.
I think it's a big problem if grievances are required to find 'problem players,' but I think you're right that this is what it comes down to usually. The USTA in every district and section should just automatically be monitoring this stuff. And every grievance committee handles it differently, which is also a problem. There needs to be consistency. Unfortunately, it does seem that the sections will let certain teams/players slide through the cracks so they have a better chance of winning, but not all team/players for whatever reason. There does seem to be preferential treatment sometimes and I suspect it happens in most sections.
DeleteFor this example, if the player(s) that should've been required to self rate at 3.5 minimum were dishonest, that's obviously a problem. But, maybe they weren't dishonest and appealed down to 3.0 and it was granted? The guidelines are just guidelines. For example, every male player playing even just D3 college tennis is supposed to self rate at 5.0 minimum, but some of these players are only 3.5 or 4.0 in ability in reality in some instances.
Great points above, I also believe that sections do not follow through with dynamic disqualifications of self rated players consistently. My understanding is that USTA National provides a report to sections on dynamic disqualifications but its up to the sections to follow through.
DeleteWhat do you mean by that? Are you referring to the 3-strikeout rule?
DeleteYes
DeleteThat's hard to believe as striking out is already set in stone and there's no wiggle room around it. I wouldn't think the report would come from National either, but I suppose possible.
DeleteKevin, have you heard of this happening before? Players striking out but somehow not getting DQ'd and remaining at level?
I have seen curious scenarios where I'd expect a DQ and one hasn't happened. But every time I ask anyone about it, they insist no one sits on the DQ report and doesn't act on it.
DeleteI believe the report is generated out of TennisLink or by National, but section/district/area staff are responsible for checking the report and doing the notification.
That'd be quite odd and not good if a strikeout happened and not followed through on, but sounds like it could be possible. National or someone in charge hopefully is double checking all the DQ's are followed through with.
DeleteI traded emails with USTA national last month and they said there is no process to verify the DQ is processed, but “should a concern be brought to our attention regarding NTRP DQs we will look into it”. It’s a system with both no transparency and no accountability. Not great!
DeleteRegarding the question of dishonest NorCal self-rate players “slipping through the cracks” because they were never grieved: I know of inquiries filed against several of them, and in every case the response was that “the player filed an appeal of their initial self-rate which was granted”.
ReplyDeleteWhat good are the experienced player guidelines if every appeal against them is granted?
I agree.
Delete