Difference between Applicant and Competitor on Tennislink

[BiGGieStuFF]

What is the difference?

I'm looking at a tournament coming up that I might want to play in but when I look at the applicant list there is 84 people but when I look at the competitor list there is only 38.

Which is the accurate count?

http://tournaments.usta.com/tourname...t.aspx?T=56702

[Geezer Guy]

I think the applicant list contains everyone that has entered, and the competitor list contains everyone that's been put into a draw. Eventually, everyone in the applicant list will be in the competitor list. It may take awhile, though.

[MasterTS]

People that register online are put in the 'applicant' list by the system.

People that register by mail or entered directly by the director are in the 'competitor' list.

The director eventually moves people from the applicant list to the competitor list, but this is a manual process. If you go to a tournament site, you may see this move happen every few days.

To get a sense of how many people are in the tournament at the current time, you would do a union of the two list.

[MasterTS]

Originally Posted by Geezer Guy

the competitor list contains everyone that's been put into a draw

Not quite right, because once the draw is made they usually do not take anymore applicants.

[Geezer Guy]

Originally Posted by MasterTS

Not quite right, because once the draw is made they usually do not take anymore applicants.

Yeah - that makes sense.

[Pusher]

Originally Posted by BiGGieStuFF

What is the difference?

I'm looking at a tournament coming up that I might want to play in but when I look at the applicant list there is 84 people but when I look at the competitor list there is only 38.

Which is the accurate count?

http://tournaments.usta.com/tourname...t.aspx?T=56702

Tournament director here.

Its just a timing difference.

The applicants are everyone that has entered the tournament. The applicants are moved from the applicant list to the competitor list by the T-director when he/she gets around to it. Eventually they will all be moved to the competitor list.

Of course if the draw is limited then some on the app list may not make it to the comp list.

[goober]

BTW the NTRP section that tournament looks pretty meager given that entries close on 1/10. I hate tournaments that mix age group/open events with NTRP. What's the point? Either do one or the other. Now they are going to have a pretty good size applicant pool but the draws will be small in each category.

Mixing with juniors is ok though except for some of the tennis parents...

[DANMAN]

The terms can also refer to who is accepted into the draw. In the Southern Bullfrog tournaments, just because you apply for the tournament does not mean that you are entered into the draw. They take the players in ranking order so not all applicants become competitors.

[oldguysrule]

Originally Posted by Pusher

Tournament director here.

Its just a timing difference.

The applicants are everyone that has entered the tournament. The applicants are moved from the applicant list to the competitor list by the T-director when he/she gets around to it. Eventually they will all be moved to the competitor list.

Of course if the draw is limited then some on the app list may not make it to the comp list.

Thanks for the clarification. btw, what does "FMLC" mean?

[DANMAN]

Originally Posted by oldguysrule

Thanks for the clarification. btw, what does "FMLC" mean?

FMLC is First Match Loser's Consolation

[goober]

Since you are a tourney director- can you tell me how you seed NTRP events? There appears to be no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. Do you actually look at past results especially with out of area players? The couple tourneys I have been seeded in I had to play the eventual tourney winner in the first round who was unseeded but had very good results previously.

[Pusher]

Originally Posted by goober

Since you are a tourney director- can you tell me how you seed NTRP events? There appears to be no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. Do you actually look at past results especially with out of area players? The couple tourneys I have been seeded in I had to play the eventual tourney winner in the first round who was unseeded but had very good results previously.

I only do Jr tournaments. Generally in a tournament you will have some out of state (or area) players. In juniors, I would then look to sectional rankings unless it was apparent that the results would not be reflective of the players' success. The tournament dir along with the USTA official have fairly wide lattitude in seedings.

The process is certainly not perfect and I have seen unseeded players run away with a tournament-usually because they are out of state but play in much stiffer competetion. For example, the number 150 ranked boy in junior16 in California may be better than the 20th ranked player in Maine. Throw in the the obvious abuse of the NTRP sytem and it's not surprising that seedings could be way off the mark.

[oldguysrule]

Originally Posted by goober

Since you are a tourney director- can you tell me how you seed NTRP events? There appears to be no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell. Do you actually look at past results especially with out of area players? The couple tourneys I have been seeded in I had to play the eventual tourney winner in the first round who was unseeded but had very good results previously.

In my area if you are playing a 4.0 event, the TD looks at the USTA 4.0 rankings for our state and seeds according to that. This is fair but will always miss a couple of good players. For example, you may have a player that plays lots of tournaments and accumulates points vs. a player that only plays the tournaments in his city. The local player may be much better but there is really no way to know.

If you look at the winners of the major zones in Texas, you will usually find that they come from the city that the tournament is held in. Those winners may not travel to other cities though.