Men's 3.5 National Champs = self raters??

kylebarendrick

Professional
After reading the constant threads from "he who shall be left nameless" I can no longer resist the urge to post a few facts for the sandbagging discussion.

FWIW, I'm not writing this as a "whiner and complainer". I've played on two teams that won my section and have won a flight at nationals. I also have friends that played on the Norcal team that won 3.5 nationals in 2006. Keeping some of this stuff in mind definitely helps me to have more fun on the tennis courts.

1) Virtually everybody that plays at nationals is ready to play at the next level.
2) Winning nationals at the 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, or even 4.5 levels means that you suck. A good 5.0 player would clean your clock - heck a good 12-year old girl would make a 3.0/3.5 look like a fool on the court.
3) Your winning team will be merely average at the next level.
4) Any team that wins their league, section, or nationals will likely be accused of cheating/sandbagging. Deal with it.
5) If your players self-rated according to the guidelines and everyone played every match to the best of their abilities, then you don't need to worry about those accusations - you played by the rules and someone has to win.
6) Some people really do cheat - they drop games/matches to keep their ratings down and hide during the regular season. The result? See #2 above.
7) Nobody outside of your team really knows if you played fair or not. No amount of explanation will change that. Again, deal with it.
8) Winning is fun. Losing should be also, if you have the right attitude.
 

heavyballa

New User
dude, stop hating.
if you can't compete, your losses will repeat.
just bring the heat, knockin' down volleys,
like spraying bugs with deet.
 
REGARDING SO CAL MENs 3.5
I do not know the team nor any of the players. But checking TennisLink it looks like a lot of teams were competitive with them at Nationals. So CAL beat Inter-Mtn 4 -1 in the finals but only beat Southern 3 - 2 in the semi-finals. In their round robin they beat Nor CAL only 3 - 2 and they beat Hawaii only 3 - 2. That's pretty competitive.

My guess is that Sou CAL put together a strong team and got better as the year went on. They also got some breaks along the way. To call them cheaters is just a cheap shot. It is always easier to criticize the winners than to be successful in your own right. The name callers are largely ignorant individuals who have never been successful in their own right.

NEW KID,
Grow up and get a life of your own. Try to be successful at something yourself. Stop the whining and the name-calling. When another team is successful have the COMMON DECENCY to congratulate them.


Let me just put it this way, you are an idiot. I could give a rats ass about So Cal and their tainted trophy. What ever fills their egos. They blatenly cheated. Saying they had competitive matches is a joke. If you are a team playing with even three out of level players you are cheating. In their case both their singles players were compeletly cheating. OK so they started every match winning two courts our of five. So if they win 1 of the other three the match seems close, but they have two in the bag. CONGRATULATIONS SO CAL you manipulated the system to play against weaker guys so you could win a Plate, you are an embarrassment.

And Raider or whoever you are probably from California, why dont you play in the handicap league, you can replace Johnny Knoxville in the ringer. What a bunch of Pussies.
 
fe250,
I'm not sure. I play but I do not captain. I attended one tryout and I think both computer and self-rated players were there. My guess is most were self-rated. I was told the tryout was for level 3.0 players and if I thought I was better than 3.0 the captain said he would help me find another team.

I don't know how he handled ratings nor what discussions took place. But I think most guys were going to self-rate 3.0 anyway. Most guys that did not make the cut ended up on other 3.0 teams. Personally, I had a second team that would have taken me but I wanted to play for this captain. He did get a lot of good players for the team and he made them better as the season progressed.

I don;t think that's sandbagging. I think it is building a strong team and then driving guys hard to improve. Also, I can also tell you I never had so much fun on a tennis team.


You call yourself a tennis player, you might as well be in the handicap league if you are going to play 3.0. Backboard you must really be a spas.
 

max8176

Rookie
After reading the constant threads from "he who shall be left nameless" I can no longer resist the urge to post a few facts for the sandbagging discussion.

FWIW, I'm not writing this as a "whiner and complainer". I've played on two teams that won my section and have won a flight at nationals. I also have friends that played on the Norcal team that won 3.5 nationals in 2006. Keeping some of this stuff in mind definitely helps me to have more fun on the tennis courts.

1) Virtually everybody that plays at nationals is ready to play at the next level.
2) Winning nationals at the 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, or even 4.5 levels means that you suck. A good 5.0 player would clean your clock - heck a good 12-year old girl would make a 3.0/3.5 look like a fool on the court.
3) Your winning team will be merely average at the next level.
4) Any team that wins their league, section, or nationals will likely be accused of cheating/sandbagging. Deal with it.
5) If your players self-rated according to the guidelines and everyone played every match to the best of their abilities, then you don't need to worry about those accusations - you played by the rules and someone has to win.
6) Some people really do cheat - they drop games/matches to keep their ratings down and hide during the regular season. The result? See #2 above.
7) Nobody outside of your team really knows if you played fair or not. No amount of explanation will change that. Again, deal with it.
8) Winning is fun. Losing should be also, if you have the right attitude.

Hey who do you know on the Fremont TC team? I know the captain and couple of guys well on the team as well. I think you are so right on in what you said. Pretty much if you win Nationals you should play in the next level next year but that does not mean that you are that level when you started. Like the 2006 Nationals team, they have practices every week and they do a lot of drill during those practices. In the end they playoff because they are not sandbaggers but they work hard to win. People always drop to conclusion that people cannot improve during the course of just a single season and automatically think these players are sandbaggers. There are those people though will cheat to win like people losing on purpose (there was some players in one of the teams in my 4.0 flight last year) to drop down their rating or misrated theirselves "purposedly". There are also players who will accuse someone of cheating in the first place to distract people and officials in looking at them carefully like one off the Bay Area combo team last year. I see it all.
 

Kenpatchi11

New User
New kid on the block

hahaha you're a joke! there are only two types of teams. National Champions and those who wish they were. Bringing down the integrity of the 3.5 national champions to meet your level wont solve anything. So either live with it or continue crying like a little wuss... suck it up! Anytime you're in socal let me know so i can give you a good spanking on the court
 

kylebarendrick

Professional
Hey who do you know on the Fremont TC team? I know the captain and couple of guys well on the team as well. I think you are so right on in what you said.
I'd rather not post names on a public board, but several of the players were on my 6.5 combo team the previous season. Definitely a good group of guys.
 

JavierLW

Hall of Fame
New kid on the block

hahaha you're a joke! there are only two types of teams. National Champions and those who wish they were. Bringing down the integrity of the 3.5 national champions to meet your level wont solve anything. So either live with it or continue crying like a little wuss... suck it up! Anytime you're in socal let me know so i can give you a good spanking on the court

(Loading team with self rating hired guns) != Integrity

A plastic trophy, a tshirt, and a photo behind some big banner maybe....Integrity, no.....

And that's just my opinion, if you feel sad about that, suck it up!
 

Backboard

New User
New kid on the block

hahaha you're a joke! there are only two types of teams. National Champions and those who wish they were. Bringing down the integrity of the 3.5 national champions to meet your level wont solve anything. So either live with it or continue crying like a little wuss... suck it up! Anytime you're in socal let me know so i can give you a good spanking on the court

Well said Kenpatch. There are way too many whiners posting on this site. Most of them, like NewKid, have never been successful at anything in their miserable lives so they sling mud at those that are successful. If they had even a shred of decency they would congratulate all the teams which made Nationals!
 
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JavierLW

Hall of Fame
Well said Kenpatch. There are way too many whiners posting on this site. Most of them, like NewKid, have never been successful at anything in their miserable lives so they sling mud at those that are successful. If they had even a shred of decency they would congratulate all the teams which made Nationals!

And remember, Backboard says: "You'll get the shaft at Best Buy".


(at least the Best Buy guy lost $30, Backboard is whining over words)
 

kylebarendrick

Professional
Well said Kenpatch. There are way too many whiners posting on this site. Most of them, like NewKid, have never been successful at anything in their miserable lives so they sling mud at those that are successful. If they had even a shred of decency they would congratulate all the teams which made Nationals!

Backboard, justy out of curiosity, how did you personally play at nationals?
 

Applesauceman

Semi-Pro
Yet again, another post?! Some congratulations are in order!

So has everyone congratulated you to your hearts content? Let congratulate the winners, congratulate the losers, congratulate the sandbaggers, congratulate the self-raters, congratulate sportsmanship, and most of all let's congratulate the USTA for putting up with all of our ****. Grace and peace to us all.
 
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