USTA League Tri-Level Invitational is on for 2021!

I did not see an announcement or e-mail from the USTA on this, and I otherwise missed seeing it, but I learned today that the Tri-Level Invitational, that has typically been held in March at Indian Wells Tennis Garden, is scheduled to be played in March 2021 in Surprise, AZ!  The event is officially called the Tri-Level National Invitational and will be held March 5-7.

This is good news in general, it is good to see events being held and a little bit of "life as normal" reappearing, but especially for those players and teams that have qualified.

The location change is due to a few factors I think, namely restrictions in California likely precluded holding the event there, but I also understand the Tournament Director who championed the event in the past is no longer at IWTG so even if it could have been held, it may not have been a priority.

So what else has changed other than the location?

First, selection of invitees likely has to be a little creative this time around.  With the 2020 shutdown of league play for several months, many sections likely didn't have Tri-Level leagues, or if they did may not have made it through to Sectionals, so who gets to go?  My guess, and what I believe PNW is doing, is to offer spots to the teams that qualified from 2019 and did not get to play at the event in 2020.  But check with your Section Coordinator for specifics.

Second, with no ATP/WTA event going on immediately before/after the Invitational, is there a perk?  It appears tentative plans are in place to have complementary tickets to a Spring Training baseball game as Surprise is the Spring Training home to the Texas Rangers and Kansas City Royals.  That of course is dependent on MLB not delaying Spring Training and a variety of other factors I'm sure.

Third, the event is being run by the USTA.  In prior years, it was an invitational run by IWTG and just happened to invite Tri-Level winners from each section, but the event was not a USTA sanctioned event and results did not show up on a player's record.  As a USTA run event, I understand TennisLink will be used to manage the event much like Nationals, meaning results will show up on a player's record, and there is a chance the matches may count towards a player's rating.

Fourth, in the past, I understand that self-rated players were not eligible to play at the Invitational.  The USTA's rules however appear to allow for up to 3 self-rates, appeals, mixed-exclusive, or tournament-exclusive rated players per team to appeal to be allowed to play.  The appeal will be reviewed by the tournament. committee, but the player must also have played four matches in an advancing league during calendar year 2020.

I actually liked self-rates not being eligible for this event in the past, but can see the USTA's desire to be a little flexible.  Let's hope they are very strict with the appeal review and only allow players to play if their match results really do indicate they are at the right level.

Fifth, I don't know if this is a change or not, but the format will use the un-flighted round-robin used at recent Nationals where a team will play four matches against random opponents, with the top-4 teams in the standings using standard TennisLink tie-breakers, will advance to the semis.  Yes, this means the broken tie-breakers of sets lost and games lost continue to be used and may result in the wrong team advancing, or an undefeated team not advancing.

There is a long list of COVID related rules and guidelines in the tournament handbook, but it does not list players as having to wear masks, but spectators will be required to wear them.

It is great to see the event being held for 2021, good luck to all the teams headed there!

How much USTA League play is taking place in 2021? Is participation up in some areas?

As January 2021 comes to an end, we are far enough into the new year to take a look at how much USTA League is actually being played as various areas of the country deal with the coronavirus pandemic in different ways.

For reference, I'll be using last year, play was not suspended at all in January, and looking at league matches in the 18 & Over, 40 & Over, and 55 & Over divisions, as those schedules year to year are generally the same when there is no pandemic affecting schedules.

Using this criteria, in January 2020, there were 11,461 team matches scheduled and 10,554 played.  The difference of around 900, or about 8%, is likely due to matches needing to be rescheduled due to weather or various other reasons and is not to be unexpected in January.

In January 2021, there were 6,389 team matches scheduled, down 44%, and 5,486 played, down 48%.  Let's take a look at why these numbers are down.

The obvious answer on the scheduled matches being down is the pandemic and some leagues simply not being played.  This is certainly true, play in PNW is postponed until at least March, league play has not started in either California section, and Northern has not started play.  But there has been league play in other sections, somewhat to significantly lower than last year in Eastern, Hawaii, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and New England, and near or normal match counts for January in other sections, with a few are even up slightly including Florida, Intermountain, and Texas.

Florida and Texas are both warm weather areas that generally are able to play outdoors in the winter and haven't had the restrictions other states have had, so the play being slightly up in these sections would seem to indicate strong interest in league play, perhaps even a slight bump from folks getting back into tennis last year as it was an allowed activity.

Intermountain is interesting as the main leagues are played outdoors and don't start until Spring in much of the section, but Nevada can play outdoors in January so the modest bump would seem to be attributed to that district and again, may be to be due to increased interest in tennis.

Southern is also a warmer weather area, but much broader area and population so more subject to restrictions or delays in some states and is down about 17%.

But Southern is likely an indicator of another factor in the decreased play, that being areas where leagues are able to play at normal levels, some players are choosing not to play.  This may be because they didn't play much last year and feel they are rusty and don't want to spend league fees to play yet, or they may be cautious and don't want to play until the COVID numbers drop more or the vaccinations are more widely available and administered.  The long term question for USTA League is if these players will come back or not.

A good way to look at this factor is to look at the number of teams and players registered for a league.  An area that started later than normal in January will still have teams and players registered even if matches scheduled/played are down.  And teams/players in a league isn't affected by leagues not being played.

Here is a chart by section showing the percent increase/decrease in the teams per league and players per league.  Note, just 12 of the sections have played in January so that is why only they are shown.  I've also included the percentage increase/decrease in scheduled team matches and leagues as well.

Here we can see some pretty dramatic changes between 2020 and 2021.

Just four sections have shown any growth in the teams/players registered in a league, just Southwest and Intermountain showing significant growth, and Intermountain is represented by a single league in Las Vegas where play is up.

However, there are a full eight sections showing a significant decrease in the teams and players per league.  The greatest decrease is in Mid-Atlantic where participation is down over 75% for each metric, and Middle States, Eastern, and Texas are also significantly down.

Middle States is also interesting in that the number of leagues is up a bit, but matches and teams/players per league are down.

I should note that while comparing the same month from 2020 to 2021 does mean that generally the same leagues are being compared, but they aren't necessarily exactly the same, and that can be seen in the chart above with the leagues played in January increasing or decreasing so some differences can be attributed to differences in the leagues being played in January.

Does this mean USTA League play in several sections is dying, while a few sections are growing?  One certainly shouldn't make that leap based on comparing a single month from 2020 to 2021, but it reveals some trends that it is worthwhile following the remainder of the year.

What are you observing in your are?

PNW Seattle 40 & Over USTA League on track to start March 5th

Back in early December, the Pacific Northwest section of the USTA announced that leagues scheduled to begin in January would be posted until at least March.   This was a result of coronavirus restrictions in much if not all of Washington and Oregon being in phase 1 and not allowing indoor play at all at the time, and the likelihood that the restrictions would not be lifted in days or weeks.

Thankfully, early January did bring a modified phase 1 in some areas that did allow for play indoors with restrictions including wearing masks while playing, but no tournaments or leagues allowed.

Late this week, it was announced that the greater Seattle area would be moving to phase 2 this coming Monday, and with it our area League Coordinator sent an e-mail out to captains saying that our 40 & Over league would indeed be starting on March 5th.

Now, this does not mean league play will be fully back to normal when play begins in 5 weeks.  As I understand it, wearing masks will still be required during play, and as a result some players not comfortable with that may opt not to play, so players and captains need to be clear on this before joining teams.

I also expect that in order to help adhere to strict court times and minimize interaction between players coming/going/watching, we may still be using timed matches and facilities will ask that players leave promptly when play on a court is finished.

Here are important dates for this league:

• 2/1 - Teams must be registered
• 2/8 - Teams must have at least 7 players registered
• 2/19 - Schedule published
• 3/5 - 4/25 - Regular season of 6-7 matches per team
• 4/30 - 5/2 - Local playoffs
• 8/27 - 8/29 - Sectionals

All of the above is subject to change of course should the coronavirus situation change, but my fingers are crossed we can stay at or progress from phase 2 and continue to be able to play.

I have not heard if other areas in PNW are similarly moving to phase 2 and on track to begin league play in March, but I'll update as I hear more, or readers can leave a comment with what they've heard.

USTA League Captain's Corner and new team types available to recruit players

I received USTA League Survey e-mail this morning, and in answering it I was reminded that the USTA added a team type in TennisLink recently and I hadn't written about it.

What is a team type?  It is a feature in TennisLink intended to help captains fill their roster.  Specifically, a team can be marked as one of three types:

• Closed - This is essentially the status quo and how teams have operated in the past, where a captain gets a team number and shares it with those players they want to sign-up, and the player uses it in signing up on TennisLink.
• Closed but Seeking - This provides captains a way to receive an e-mail when a player seeking a team signs up with the USTA and the captain can elect to contact them if desired, giving them the team number to sign-up.
• Open - This allows players to find a team and sign-up directly without needing the team number.

In my area, our League Coordinator has done a great job of effectively offering "Closed but Seeking" by having a list of players looking for a team she regularly sends out to captains, but the "Open" type is brand new and so may be useful in some situations.

In my experience, in PNW at least, I've observed that many teams are a carry over in some way from a prior year and are made up of players who have played together and often are formed in advance by the captain.  These teams will stay "Closed" and operate as they do now I expect.

But there are some teams that may be short on players and need depth, or need a singles player, and for these the other two teams types may be useful.  I would think a captain would need to be pretty desperate to use the "Open" type, but perhaps there are some scenarios where it will be useful so it nice to have it as an option.

I should add that an introduction and link to the PDF above is on a page entitled Captain's Corner where other information for captains appears and perhaps this will be a hub for this type of information going forward.

What do you think?  Will these new team types help captains fill rosters and new players find teams?

New USTA League Survey from the USTA

This morning, I found an e-mail in my inbox from the USTA with a new survey about USTA League.  The survey link may be specific to a player, so I won't post mine here, but look for an e-mail with the subject "USTA League Players - We Want to Hear From You!".

This follows a survey in December in an e-mail titled "Your Opinion Matters" that wasn't much to mention as it didn't really ask anything of substance, but this new one does ask a number of things of note.

The survey starts off asking some basic demographic and location questions, oddly including each of section, state, zip, and ends these with asking if one captains or not.  I answered yes and it appears the few captains questions are then asked, but there aren't specific questions for non-captains.

For a captain, it then asked if I knew about a new feature on TennisLink for indicating a team is open to or looking for more players (I was), then asked some questions about other tools a captain would like to have to making captaining easier.

It continued with questions about how often I play, drills, lessons, etc., and what leagues I play in.  There were a few questions to rate things but it didn't specify that "1" was the best or the larger number was, I assumed "1".  It finished asking what I liked about USTA League and what I would change.

All in all a reasonable survey, but as with any survey, it will only be useful if a representative set of players respond, and the USTA then takes relevant action as a result.  Since it is harder to justify complaining if you don't give feedback, I encourage any USTA League players to answer the survey if you are so inclined so your voice can be heard.

Some of the feedback I gave was regarding not publishing 2020 year-end ratings, problems with sandbaggers and thrown matches, and the need for better tools to manage teams.

Did you take the survey?  What did you think?

Update: Survey link here.

Looking for the Polar Bear tournament in Austin this weekend? It is on TennisLink!

I've written recently about the new Serve/Play Tennis site, tournaments for 2021 being on it and not TennisLink, and the progress of tournaments showing up on the new site.  I wrote all this in an effort to educate my readers on where to find tournaments for 2021, i.e not on TennisLink, and the progress on them showing up on the new site, all in support of enabling players to find, follow, and get out and play the tournaments.

To that end, today's update is that a tournament to be played in Austin this weekend has had its draws published on TennisLink!  Here is the link to the tournament on TennisLink so if you are looking for draws you will find them there.  The Play Tennis site has several links (more below), but the main one is here and while you can navigate and see the players in the tournament, the draws section of the site appears to be empty.

Why did this happen?  I'm not sure.  I saw a Junior tournament from New Years weekend using the new site and this tournament in Austin seems to be the only one on TennisLink for 2021, so it must have been something specific to this tournament.  But I'm guessing it was an issue with the Mixed Doubles events as that is where things look strange on the new site.

The new site link I gave above is to an event named "Level 5 Open - 2021 CATA Polar Bear Adult Doubles", which is the same as the name on TennisLink, and the events listed include various Men's and Women's ages/levels as well as some for Mixed.  The new site lists just Open Mixed and Husband/Wife Mixed while TennisLink. also lists NTRP Mixed for levels 3.0 thru 4.5.

However, on the new site, there are also four tournaments named "Unsanctioned - x.y NTRP Mixed Doubles CATA Polar Bear" for levels 3.0 thru 4.5, so I'm guessing the new site had issues including these in the main tournament and they had to be split off, but then players playing in both were having to register for two, or more, different tournaments and draws would have to show up in separate places, and perhaps other challenges, and they just decided it wasn't working and needed to use TennisLink.

I'm glad they (apparently) got it all working so they can hold the tournament, but it is a bummer TennisLink had to be used.  There are always growing pains with a new site/system so for now we'll chalk this up to that and hope the USTA doesn't have to fall back to using TennisLink again.  But if you are looking for this tournament in Austin, that is where it is!

Happy New Year! It is 2021, where are the tournaments?

Hallelujah, 2020 is over!  Here is hoping for a much better 2021.

2021 will hopefully mean that USTA tennis gets back to normal, or at least something more like normal.  Some sections are planning to play a normal USTA League schedule, but some areas like mine (PNW) and NorCal and SoCal are postponing the start of play a couple months due to continued state imposed restrictions.

Delays in starting league play does not mean leagues will be canceled again.  I know PNW is willing to be creative to adjust schedules to find a way to get seasons in and be able to advance teams to Sectionals to determine who will go to Nationals.  But like happened last year, at some point too many delays may result in Nationals being canceled.  My guess is that if a few sections are unable to send teams, Nationals will go on, but at some point too many sections are missing and they are called off.  I'd also expect sections to focus on getting the 18 & Over league in as that has the largest number of players and teams, perhaps at the expense of 40 & Over or 55 & Over.  I hope it doesn't come to that, but that course of action would make sense if it does.  I did some analysis of when matches are generally played to get an idea of when things start to become dire.

With the cancellations of leagues and tournaments last year, there is likely some pent up demand for players to find events to play in, and that presents an opportunity for the USTA to offer events to meet that demand.  Players that typically only play USTA League may even be interested in playing USTA Tournaments as a way to get on the court in a competitive environment more.

The good news is the USTA has launched a new site for finding tournaments.  The challenge is it has had some growing pains and tournaments have been slow to on-board.  Since it is now 2021, it makes sense to take a look at how the site is doing.

First, the on-boarding has continued with more tournaments now on the site.  When I checked just over 3 weeks ago, there were 773 tournaments, with 105 of those for adults and the rest predominantly Junior tournaments.  As of the writing of this blog, there are now 1,658, so the total has more than doubled.  For the adults, the total is now up to 226, also more than double.

However, more than half of these Adult tournaments are in just two states, Florida and Texas.  After their combined 114, only Georgia (16), Arkansas (13), Alabama (10), and New Mexico (10) even have double digit Adult tournaments on the Serve Tennis site now.

I'm sure a big part of this is tournaments in those states with COVID-19 restrictions not putting their tournaments on the site yet.  But there are a lot of states across the south without restrictions and many of those seem to not be on-boarding their tournaments yet.  Whether this means they aren't going too hold the tournament, or are just slow to add them to the site, I'm not sure, but I'd hope to see more Adult tournaments listed by now.

What about the distribution of Junior tournaments?  There is more balance, Georgia and Florida both have over 100, and another 10 states all have more than 50 tournaments, so it just appears the focus of the new site has been juniors and not adults so far.

Second, the new Tournaments site had some changes, perhaps in response to some of what I wrote, but more likely feedback from players trying to use it.  Notably, you can select a category, enter a location, and specify a date period before searching now, whereas it used to be just a location was provided.  Just the location is required, the other fields default to all categories and it appears the current month.  I think this change helps, but I'd probably default the date range to at least the next two if not three months as just the current month is pretty short.

After the initial search, the other attributes can be used to filter the results similar to before.  One of those attributes is distance from the location searched on, and previously this had odd gradations of something like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, or unlimited.  I commented this wasn't terribly useful and suggested 10, 50, 100, 500, and unlimited as the options that made sense.  Well, either someone is reading my blog or I just had a premonition as the options are now 10, 25, 50, 100, and unlimited.  Not exactly what I proposed but close.  I'd still contend something between 100 and unlimited is needed, as someone may be willing to travel a couple hours for a tournament, and right now there is a big gap between <100 and unlimited.

I'd also commented that sorting on date didn't work, and tada, it now works!

Something that is oddly missing is the ability to search by tournament name.  This would seem to be a common way to search as you may know or heard someone talking about the name of the tournament, but so far, this way of searching is not available.

When you find a tournament and navigate to its page, there is now a place to see the players that have entered, which I know many players like to look at, so that is another good step in the right direction.

So Serve Tennis is getting there.  In a way perhaps, COVID restriction in some areas may allow it to get through its growing pains before the number of tournaments grows significantly.

What do you think?  Will you be playing USTA tournaments any time soon?  What are your thoughts on the new site?