Well, it happened - An undefeated team misses the semis at USTA League Nationals!

Ever since the new format for USTA League Nationals came out, I've written about the possibility of more than four undefeated teams leading to a team without a loss missing out on the semis and being sent home.  It very nearly happened two weeks ago, an upset in the last match prevented it, and it has nearly happened several times at prior year's Nationals.

And in fact it has happened at a "National" event in the past, it was just 55 & Over Mixed 7.0 in April of 2022 at what is technically an "Invitational", but it uses the same format of Nationals so it effectively is a Nationals.  At that event, Eastern was 4-0 and tied on courts with two teams ahead of them, but lost more sets so lost the tie-breaker.

Well, it happened again, and this time at "real" Nationals, the 40 & Over 3.0 men's event.

I wrote in my simulation of the event that there was perhaps the largest chance of it occurring we'd seen, 16%, and after one day my updated simulation said the chances were now 34% as the five 2-0 teams didn't play each other on Saturday, so if they all just won, it would happen.

Each team won their 3rd match and each one faced an 0-3 or 1-2 team in their final match, so there was a strong probability it would happen at this point and it did.

The final standings were:

Middle States - 4-0 / 15-1
NorCal - 4-0 / 14-2
Southern - 4-0 / 14-2
PNW - 4-0 / 13-3
Texas - 4-0 / 12-4

The tie-breakers were clear, the 4-0 teams that were 13-3 or better on courts advanced, which mean Texas who won each of their matches 3-1 would not go the semis.

There are a few unfortunate things here.  The main one is that the format allows for a team to go to Nationals and not lose a team match, but not advance.  That has to be tough for the team and I hope they knew it was a possibility and this wasn't a surprise.

But another is that the criteria used to determine which team doesn't advance isn't exactly equitable.  Yes, Texas had the worst individual court record of the five teams, but the format used for Nationals doesn't have teams play the same opponents, and it is even possible that the teams tied at 4-0 don't play any common opponents.

This means one team could have a really tough schedule and eke by going 4-0 while another has a really easy schedule on their way to 4-0.  The team with the tough schedule will likely have more close wins and a worse individual court record, and as a result fare worse in the tie-breaker and not advance.

In this case, Texas played 1-3 Southwest, 2-2 Intermountain, 1-3 New England, and 1-3 Midwest, a combined 5-11.

PNW just ahead of them played 1-3 New England, 3-1 Caribbean, 2-2 Florida, and 1-3 Eastern, a combined 7-9, perhaps a tougher schedule.

But Southern got 0-4 Hawaii, 1-3 Midwest, 0-4 SoCal, and 1-3 Southwest, a combined 2-14!  This is clearly an easier schedule than Texas and likely contributed to Southern's individual court record being 14-2 to Texas' 12-4.

And NorCal got 0-4 SoCal, 2-2 Florida, 0-4 MOvalley, and 0-4 Hawaii, also a combined 2-14, a very weak schedule.

Middle States opponents were 4-12, so a bit tougher than Southern's and NorCal's, but not exactly tough.

My preview highlighted the schedule strengths to be:

• Middle States - 3.05
• NorCal - 3.05
• Southern - 3.08
• PNW - 3.05
• Texas - 3.07

So NorCal, Middle States, and PNW had easier schedules than Texas.

If we look at who actually played, the played schedule strengths were:

• Middle States - 2.99
• NorCal - 2.99
• Southern - 3.03
• PNW - 3.05
• Texas - 3..05

Here Texas had the toughest schedule, NorCal and Middle States the easiest.  So there is something to the theory that Texas may have missed out on the semis simply because they had the toughest schedule.

This makes it especially tough for a team to lose out by one court when they had one of the two toughest schedules and the other teams they were in a tie with had easier schedule.

With a random round-robin schedule, it is hard to create similar schedules, but I'm not sure any attempt is made to make more of an equitable schedule and perhaps there should be.

To be fair, I've written about this for years and I have to hope everyone involved knew of this possibility going in, so everyone knew the rules and the possibility of this and what they may need to do to win the tie-breaker.  If so, them is the rules everyone is playing by so you have to accept it.

Stay tuned, I'll be posting my suggestions on how to fix this soon.  But what do you think?  Is it a problem that a 4-0 team can miss out on the semis?  Are the unequal schedules an issue?  Or everyone knows the rules going in so it is what it is?

Update: See my suggestions on how to avoid this happening again.