3.5 Texas

[jamn73]

Is anybody out there playing 3.5 in the Texas area? My team went to sectionals and we didn't see too much sandbagging like the 4.0 teams are claiming. I hear a lot that the San Antonio teams sandbag. They had some ringers up there, but didn't win it.

One of my buddies said his son quit the 4.0 team in SA because they were trying to make him fix matches. He also said that people played matches for him. It strained relationships with his tennis friends.

[BigJEFF]

Originally Posted by jamn73

Is anybody out there playing 3.5 in the Texas area? My team went to sectionals and we didn't see too much sandbagging like the 4.0 teams are claiming. I hear a lot that the San Antonio teams sandbag. They had some ringers up there, but didn't win it.

One of my buddies said his son quit the 4.0 team in SA because they were trying to make him fix matches. He also said that people played matches for him. It strained relationships with his tennis friends.

I guess Texas just get's to do what ever they want. Does anyone have any control over this our cordinators watch us like hawks. If you get caught putting in the wrong scores you are banned for a year.

[BiGGieStuFF]

I plan on playing 3.5 this year. It will be my first time playing competitively in USTA. Should be interesting.

[Roforot]

As a Texan, I'm embarrassed by these stories. I live in Austin and while every team seems to have it's strong 3.5 player on the way to 4.0, I have yet to come across blatant misranking or "fixed" matches. As an aside I haven't had to deal w/ poor line calls or SOBs either.

[freelancer]

I was on the 3.0 team that went to nationals from Texas this year, and I know a lot of the guys that represented Fort Worth in 3.5. Most everyone on that team got bumped to 4.0 (and most of them were on a mixed 7.0 team that went to nationals) and they still didn't do very good in sectionals. I'm playing 3.5 this year and I'm a little nervous about the kind of competition I'll be seeing.

In 3.0 we got a lot of complaints from people that we were sandbaggers (except for North East Texas who was doing the same thing), but most all of us have been playing USTA league and tournements for 3-4 years and the computer never bumped us up. I think something needs to be done about the computer ranking. You can't really blame a guy for playing the level that he's been told he belongs in.