Who's silly idea ? Too many age divisions

[Nostradamus]

What is this ? 18-40, above 40, above 50, above 60, and these are also broken down to 2.5 to 5.0 levels each. Is this stupidity ? They are going to have either too many teams in one division and only few teams in another. if you have 2 teams in 40 and above in 4.5 age division, then i supposed your chance of going to the playoff might be good but this is way too diluted down.

[Jack the Hack]

The USTA has had Adult, Senior, and Super Senior divisions for years. All they did is move the age brackets down so the Senior division starts at 40, and modify the format so that singles could be played instead of doubles only. This gives more people more opportunity to play. In my area, the 40+ division is going to be very, very popular - and a lot of the players will play both 18+ and 40+ for twice the tennis.

What's the problem?

[tenniscasey]

It'll work to some extent in California and the south... but I can't see this growing the game anywhere else. May even have the opposite effect.

[Nostradamus]

Originally Posted by Jack the Hack

The USTA has had Adult, Senior, and Super Senior divisions for years. All they did is move the age brackets down so the Senior division starts at 40, and modify the format so that singles could be played instead of doubles only. This gives more people more opportunity to play. In my area, the 40+ division is going to be very, very popular - and a lot of the players will play both 18+ and 40+ for twice the tennis.

What's the problem?

Are you sure ? i still see the 55 + division in there.

[goober]

Originally Posted by Nostradamus

Are you sure ? i still see the 55 + division in there.

Same number of age divisions they just changed the cutoffs

Previously- 18+, 50, 60, 70

Now- 18+, 40, 55, 65

[Nostradamus]

Originally Posted by goober

Same number of age divisions they just changed the cutoffs

Previously- 18+, 50, 60, 70

Now- 18+, 40, 55, 65

this might work, you don't see too many over 70 guys playing.

[aniretake]

My problem is as a captain and a player that now with all this age division crap most players play 40+ and we, the young ones, are left with now teams and no players ( we are a small town).

[West Coast Ace]

Originally Posted by aniretake

My problem is as a captain and a player that now with all this age division crap most players play 40+ and we, the young ones, are left with now teams and no players ( we are a small town).

First piece of advice: list your city (no one's going to stalk you) in your profile - you might drum up some players from these boards. Use the internet to network. Depending how small your 'small town' is you might not have enough players for a league - but you can probably still set up a decent ladder and a few tournaments.

I usually rip the USTA - but I don't see a problem with this change.

[southend]

Currently our league has two opportunities for say a 30 year old man to play: eg 2011 Adult Division in Spring with 2 singles and 3 dub format and 2011 SCTA Doubles in Fall with 3 dub format. With the reformatting, will say a 30 year old only have one playing opportunity. Up to local USTA coordinators??

[bezerker]

I think it's about revenue. First, we went to split adult seasons, fall and spring. Now, we're going to age splits. Here in our league at least, a 45 year old used to sign up for one adult season usta team. Now, that same person is potentially going to sign up for four.

[Nostradamus]

Originally Posted by bezerker

I think it's about revenue. First, we went to split adult seasons, fall and spring. Now, we're going to age splits. Here in our league at least, a 45 year old used to sign up for one adult season usta team. Now, that same person is potentially going to sign up for four.

i can sign up for over 40 and over 18 division but can't sign up for 4 leagues. who has time to play that much tennis. lol

[goober]

Originally Posted by Nostradamus

i can sign up for over 40 and over 18 division but can't sign up for 4 leagues. who has time to play that much tennis. lol

Well some people do-

I have a guy on one of my teams that played 10 teams last year. He is in his 60s and semi-retired

40 something housewife I know played on 6 teams at the same time. I am not sure if she did that for the whole year, but that would have been 12+ teams for the year.

[emilyhex]

I agree with the OP. I think this might work in a few select markets, but I too feel it will dilute the competition. It will be interesting to see what actually does happen. But, I hope the USTA has enough sense to go back to the old way if it doesn't work out.

[southend]

Originally Posted by bezerker

I think it's about revenue. First, we went to split adult seasons, fall and spring. Now, we're going to age splits. Here in our league at least, a 45 year old used to sign up for one adult season usta team. Now, that same person is potentially going to sign up for four.

What about the 18 to 39 year olds --- limited to one men's and one mixed only?
As I mentioned earlier, at least someone in that age bracket would be able to play twice -- Spring and Fall.

And I do agree there are some real tennis holics that play multiple leagues in nearby sections so they could easily play more than four plus.

[floridatennisdude]

I'm still a couple years under 40 and am not excited about 2013. This may be my last season of leagues for a few years.

[NTRPolice]

Remember that 3.0 and 4.5 represent small fractions of the tennis players out there. 2.5 and 5.0+ are even smaller.

You really have 75% of the people at 3.5 and 4.0 (guessing) and most people who are 4.5's will never go down and people who are 2.5/3.0 are new players who will "settle in" to 3.5 and 4.0 down the line.

Very few people actually manipulate their scores to be a 3.0 or lower for life. Contrary to popular belief, some people actually belong in 3.0 or lower.



It would be nice to see an under 40 bracket actually. This way any "older folk" who are playing in the "all" bracket are somewhat confident in their skill. TBH, im tired of seeing fat old ladies playing 3.5 and 4.0 involuntarily because they cannot keep up at all with the 18-25 fresh self-rated crowd. Im playing a 7.0 mix league starting up in a few weeks and they have some tough combos there.

Several high quality 3.5 and 4.0 players aged 18-25. One is just out of high school!

[Jack the Hack]

Originally Posted by floridatennisdude

I'm still a couple years under 40 and am not excited about 2013. This may be my last season of leagues for a few years.

What would be different for you in 2013 compared to the past 10 years of USTA League?

Moving the senior league minimum age down from 50 to 40 should have no effect on the regular 18+ adult league. In every section I've looked at so far, the 18+ and 40+ leagues are played at different times of the year. So what's the big deal?

[SlapShot]

I'm actually feeling a little miffed by this as well. In Northern, they moved the 18+ 4.5 from Monday night to Wednesday, and Monday night is 40+ 4.5. My team is about half and half split in the age groups, and I just got an e-mail last night that we only have 6 committed to Wednesday nights, so we don't yet have a full team. Due to the fact that I'm currently in grad school and working FT, I had to rearrange my schedule as it was in order to be able to play tennis one night a week, and now I might not even have a team....a little frustrated with the compulsion to shake things up and create an extra (and frankly, mostly unneccesary) age group.

[goober]

Originally Posted by Jack the Hack

What would be different for you in 2013 compared to the past 10 years of USTA League?

Moving the senior league minimum age down from 50 to 40 should have no effect on the regular 18+ adult league. In every section I've looked at so far, the 18+ and 40+ leagues are played at different times of the year. So what's the big deal?

How many sections have you looked at? Actually I think it would vary by district not section. We are running 40+ and 18+ concurrently- southwest section.

[LuckyR]

The change makes sense for the USTA but not necessarily from a purely logic standpoint. What I mean is that the number of players who learned tennis during the Golden Age of American tennis (the 70's during the Evert, Connors and into the MacEnroe eras) is much higher than before and after those years. Thus the old system of 18 - 49 was very unevenly distributed. By putting current 40 - 54 year olds together, that "bulge" is playing each other, not a bunch of 20 year olds with Modern strokes.

Of course one can argue (successfully) that since we are talking about NTRP divisions, this should already be compensated for and that the only reason for age divisions is to compensate for physical issues (which the old system did better since there are plenty of fit 41 year olds).