USTA League rule changes for 2017

Every year, the USTA publishes a new set of regulations and usually makes a few tweaks or changes to some of the rules.  Here is a summary of what is changing for 2017.

To start, and this is not new news, but to reiterate, Early Start Ratings are gone.  They were not published in 2016 for 2017 early start leagues and players simply played on early start teams based on their 2015 year-end NTRP level.  However, these players will not be eligible to play at Nationals at that level if they are bumped up at the end of 2016.  Each section gets to decide how long a bumped up player may continue at the lower level and some will let them play through Sectionals and others won't.

Something I've written about before are the rules regarding seniors for being (or not as the case may be) bumped up.  The prior rules said players 65 year of age or more simply wouldn't be bumped up.  This was a bit crazy, it was arguably discrimination to not allow a player to have their improvement be recognized and thankfully for 2017 this has changed.  Now players will be bumped up, but allowed to appeal down rather than simply not being bumped up.  Note if they do appeal, they will be subject to strikes and disqualification now.

Also regarding appeals, in the past, anyone that played in a championship (playoffs, i.e. Districts, States, Sectionals, Nationals) was not eligible to appeal their rating down.  The rule has now changed to say that only players that play at Nationals will be ineligible to appeal down.  Players that played in earlier stages of playoffs will be eligible to appeal down, but of course must meet the appeal criteria for it to be granted.

Note that I gleaned these changes from a draft of the 2017 regulations from earlier this year, so this is not the final regulations, but it is the currently linked document on TennisLink.

What sections did the best at 2016 USTA League Adult Nationals?

With the completion of Adult Nationals, we can now look at how the sections did.  I've kept track of of who won by division, gender, and level and tallied up points based on the semi-finalists and how they finished.

Southern easily won the 18 & over division more than doubling up the second place Pacific Northwest section.  And they did it in both men and women with two titles each.  Caribbean, Texas, Intermountain, and NorCal also did well.

In 40 & over, Florida accumulated the most points with three titles, with Middle States and Pacific Northwest a few points back.  Southern, Southwest, and Texas also did well.

The 55 & over division found Southern Cal running away with the points title nearly tripling Florida and Southern due to their four titles.

Putting it all together, the three leaders in each division also had the highest totals, Southern well ahead of Southern Cal and Florida very close.  Pacific Northwest and Texas complete the top-5 just a bit back.

The USTA uses the results of Nationals to try to normalize ratings between levels, so it is often the case that players from sections that do well get bumped up more than those that didn't.  So this may be an early warning that Southern, Florida, and Southern Cal may see a lot of bumps up this year.

And this weekend's new National Champions are?

The last weekend of Adult Nationals is complete and here are the new champs.

The 18 & over 4.5 women's champ is Intermountain with a 3-2 win over Southern, Caribbean winning third with a 4-1 win over Northern.

The 18 & over 4.5 men was won by Eastern with a tight 3-2 win over Southern Cal, third was won by Southwest with a 4-1 win over Mid-Atlantic.

The 40 & over 4.0 women found the Pacific Northwest beating Mid-Atlantic 3-2 for the title, while Middle States beat Northern Cal 3-2 for third.

The 40 & over 4.0 men's title was won by Florida with a 3-2 win over Middle States, Eastern took third beating Hawaii 3-2.

The 55 & over 7.0 women's champ is Southern Cal with a 2-1 win over Eastern, Florida beating Missouri Valley 2-1 for third.

The 55 & over 7.0 men saw Northern beat Southern Cal for the title 2-1 while Texas beat New England for third 3-0.

The 55 & over 9.0 women found Southern beating Texas 2-1 for the title and Eastern beating Missouri Valley 3-0 for third.

The 55 & over 9.0 men's title was won by Southern Cal over Mid-Atlantic 3-0 and New England beat Northern Cal 3-0 for third.

Congrats to all!

This is the last weekend for matches to count for 2016

A common question I get this time of year is to ask when the cut-off for matches to count for year-end ratings is.  Well, the clock is ticking down, as this weekend is it!

I mention this in questions 4 and 5 on my FAQ, but here is how it works.

The USTA year typically ends when the Adult Nationals are completed.  This is normally the last weekend of October or the first weekend of November.  They use the last weekend of Nationals as the year-end calculations and benchmarking, and any adjustments they elect to make are based off the results at Nationals.

Now, the actually year-end ratings are typically released the week after Thanksgiving, I would expect November 28th or 29th this year.  Why the gap between the cut-off date and the release?  The USTA does need to perform their year-end calculations and I'm sure there is review done and consideration of doing any regional or national adjustments to ratings, and this takes a little time.

What the USTA does to make things a little interesting, is to associate the year-end ratings with a date of 12/31/2016, i.e. if you look up someone's rating on TennisLink and it is a year-end rating, it always has a 12/31 date.  That makes sense in that the rating is for the end of the 2016 year, but the rating comes out a month or so before that and is for matches played through a month earlier than that!  And matches played in November and December of this year will count towards the 2017 year-end rating.

Note that I don't think the Mixed exclusive ratings follow quite the same schedule.  They are typically released at the same time, the week after Thanksgiving, but their cut-off date is likely the end of Mixed Nationals which would be November 13th.  This only makes sense since you'd want Nationals results to be included!

So if you have a match this weekend or are playing at Nationals, make the most of it!  And of course, if you don't want to wait for the USTA to release ratings, I can do a report for you giving you an accurate estimate of where your year-end rating will end up.  Contact me if interested.

A preview of the last weekend of 2016 USTA League Adult Nationals

This weekend finds the last Adult Nationals for the 2016 USTA League being contested, here is a preview of a few levels.

As usual, the seeding I mention is all done based on the top-8 averages from my flight reports.  And I can still generate these for any teams/individuals that are interested.

The 40 & over 4.0 women has a tough flight in flight 4 having the 1, 3, 5, and 14 seeds, flights 2 and 3 are similar having the 4, 6, 7, 12 and 2, 8, 10, 15 seeds respectively, and flight 1 is the weakest with the 9, 11, 13, 16, and 17 seeds.

The USTA actually ended up with pretty balanced flights for the 40 & over 4.0 men.  Flight 5 is probably the toughest having the 1, 2, 8, 11, and 14 seeds, but flight 7 isn't far behind with the 3, 5, 9, and 17 seeds, flight 6 just a tick back with the 4, 10, 13, and 15, and flight 8 the weakest but still pretty balanced with 6, 7, 12, and 16.

The 18 & over division is playing the 4.5 level and the women's flights are pretty balanced, flight 3 perhaps being the toughest overall with the 1, 6, 8, and 11 seeds, but flight 1 being top-heavy with the 2, 3, 12, 15, and 16 seeds.  But flight 2 has the 5, 7, 9, and 13 seeds while flight 4 has the 4, 10, 14, and 17 seeds.

The 4.5 men are also reasonably balanced, but flight 8 will be hard fought at the top with the 1, 3, 12, and 13 seeds, flights 6 and 7 are similar with the 2, 6, 15, 17 and 4, 5, 9, 14 seeds.  Flight 5 is perhaps the weakest but very competitive with the 7, 8, 10, 11, and 16 seeds.  Just 0.06 covers the top-8 averages of the flight 5 teams.

Good luck to all!

The last weekend of 2016 USTA League Adult Nationals is nearly here - 18 & over 4.5, 40 & over 4.0, 55 & over 7.0 and 9.0

As we get to the end of October, we also get to the last weekend of Adult Nationals.  The 18 & over 4.5 men and women are in Rancho Mirage while the 40 & over 4.0 men and women are in La Quinta.  Arizona is where the 55 & over 7.0 and 9.0 levels wrap up in Surprise.

While the matches commence in just another day, it isn't too late to get reports to help scout opponents or plan your line-ups.  Contact me if interested.

On a personal note, my 40+ 4.0 team was beaten 3-2 at Sectionals by the PNW team headed to Nationals.  I'll be following them to see how they do and think "what if we'd won that last tie-break" :)

Good luck to all playing this weekend!

2016 USTA League Nationals Champions Crowned in 40 & over and 55 & over

Another weekend of Nationals is complete, just one to go for the Adult divisions.

This weekend, the 40 & over 3.5 men and women played along with the 4.5+ level, plus the 55 & over started with the 6.0 and 8.0 levels.

The 3.5 women saw Florida take the title beating Southwest 4-1, Southern taking third over Midwest.

For the 3.5 men, Hawaii beat Pacific Northwest 3-2, both making the final with 3-2 wins, Intermountain taking third over Southern.

The 4.5+ women saw a chorus of 3-2 wins with Southern beating New England, and Florida beating Middle States for third.

The 4.5+ men's champion is Southwest who beat Texas 4-1, Southern Cal beating Northern for third.

The 55+ 6.0 women's champ is Southern who beat Pacific Northwest 2-1, New England beating Florida for third.

The 6.0 men had Southern Cal beat Missouri Valley for the title 3-0, and Northern beat Midwest 3-0 for third.

The 8.0 women saw Intermountain win over Florida 2-1, and Southern Cal take New England 2-1 for third.

The 8.0 men's result had Southern Cal beat Midwest 3-0 and Florida beat Middle States 3-0 for third.

Congrats to all!