This weekend has five events, 40 & Over 3.5 in Orlando, and then 18 & Over 2.5W and 5.0 in Scottsdale, 3.0 in San Diego, and 4.0 in Surprise.
I've been doing simulations since 2018 and have found that the four semi-finalists are usually in the top six to seven projected teams, and more often than you might think, I project the four semi-finalists perfectly. There are surprises sometimes and a mid-pack team overachieves and advances, that is why the matches are played on the courts and not on a computer. Still, it is interesting to do these simulations and see how the projections do.
Why do these simulations you ask? The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents. This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used. The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen. Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.
Because of the more compressed schedule, I likely won't have the time to do previews/simulations of all events, but will try to do a few. Let me know which you'd like to see!
Like I did last year, I'll be primarily just giving the data from the simulation and not writing a bunch of words. Most of it is self-explanatory, but the favorites and contenders will be listed in alphabetical order. The strengths are based on top-10 averages. Contact me if you want to learn more.
On to the projections from the simulation, starting with the 18 & Over 4.0 women.
Chance of 4 undefeated: 5%
Chance of 5 undefeated: <1%
Chance of tie for last spot / most likely size: 91% / 4
Strongest / weakest team strength: 4.02 / 3.81
Toughest / easiest schedule: 3.96 / 3.89
Favorites: Eastern, Florida, Midwest, Southern, Texas
Contenders: Caribbean, Intermountain, New England, Southwest
The simulation likes the top-5 teams, the most likely records being 4-0 for just one and 3-1 for the other four. One of the contenders is likely to go 3-1 as well, so could be a decent size tie-breaker there.
What do you think?
Hi Kevin! I played for Intermountain this year, and I think we would have made it to Sunday but for the fact we lost to Mid Atlantic, who just won the whole thing today. They barely edged out Eastern 3-2. Mid Atlantic had two 2️⃣ incredible self rated 4.0 players at doubles that were just impossible to beat at the 4.0 level. Glad they won it all, though, since they defeated us. Looking forward to your 40+ report before we head to Orlando next weekend.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on doing well.
DeleteI'm sure they were great players and probably have little business playing at 4.0, but one of them did lose 2x at nationals. Looks like they were always split up, which their captain probably realized it was unnecessary overkill to put them together.
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