Lower rated player playing line 1 singles

[schmke]

Originally Posted by g4driver

One guy just committed to losing weight last year which really helped his movement on the court. To drop from 240 to 200 has made him better just from a speed perspective.

He still has a weak backhand, but his net game and serve overcome his biggest weakness.

The other guy got divorced and simply starting playing more last year.

Both guys are still on 3.5 teams, but the reality is there are a lot of bottom dwellers at all levels that don't get bumped down when they clearly don't challenge people at their current level.

I can name a lot of 3.5, 4.0 and 4,5 players who should be bumped down.

These two guys are misrepresenting themselves as much as both oh them worked hard to get better and their improvements are paying off while some of these 4.0s don't play much and really don't challenge strong 3.5s on the way up or 4.0s are playing and improving.

One has to think this is fairly common, someone improves their game since the last time they played USTA and are then playing above their rating. The improvement may be due to playing more, lessons, getting fit, whatever.

I and many others don't have issue with this type of scenario and I don't think one can reasonably assume that a rating system should know in advance that these players improved and should be bumped up, nor would it seem fair to bump anyone that improves mid-season, although improvement above a certain significant level, perhaps should result in a mid-year bump which doesn't happen today unless someone is self-rated.

What many people have issue with is not these "natural" above rating players but those that deliberately try to manipulate their rating to get it lower than it should be so they can play at a level below their skill level.

Regarding your comments about lower end players that don't get bumped down, the USTA does seem to err on the side of not bumping players down. This is perhaps in response to concerns about sandbaggers and manipulators, not wanting someone that just ekes below a threshold to get bumped down only to dominate the lower level the next year. But the side-effect of that is that genuinely weaker players that don't play enough to really get their rating low enough get stuck at the level they are at. Since they are weaker, they may not get in that many matches the following year which means they again don't move down enough, a vicious cycle.

[Govnor]

You can put me in the camp that would want to play the sandbagger ahead of the guy who's playing up. Much prefer a challenge.

[asimple]

On a slightly ironic note, I played in a USTA match last night where the team was playing up, and definitely put their best players at #2 doubles in the hope of winning one match. That turned out to be a close match, but the #1 doubles that I was playing was far from close. I guess I now better understand the frustration as this was a waste of time, but league play is far from perfect so I guess I will take the good with the bad.

[beernutz]

Originally Posted by asimple

On a slightly ironic note, I played in a USTA match last night where the team was playing up, and definitely put their best players at #2 doubles in the hope of winning one match. That turned out to be a close match, but the #1 doubles that I was playing was far from close. I guess I now better understand the frustration as this was a waste of time, but league play is far from perfect so I guess I will take the good with the bad.

It was a waste of time for you but maybe not for the team playing up as they got the opportunity to play against better competition than they usually face. Depending on the DNTRPs of the participants and the scores they might even improve their ratings when losing both sets.

[Govnor]

Originally Posted by beernutz

It was a waste of time for you but maybe not for the team playing up as they got the opportunity to play against better competition than they usually face. Depending on the DNTRPs of the participants and the scores they might even improve their ratings when losing both sets.

I'm sure asimple is reall happy for them!! haha.

[OrangePower]

Originally Posted by beernutz

It was a waste of time for you but maybe not for the team playing up as they got the opportunity to play against better competition than they usually face. Depending on the DNTRPs of the participants and the scores they might even improve their ratings when losing both sets.

Depends on the actual score. If the team playing up got bagels and breadsticks, then most likely there is not going to be any significant change to the DNTRP of anyone involved.

But if it was closer, then you're right, the losing team could have improved their rating at the expense of the winning team.

If not close, then it is a waste of time and not the reason why we play USTA. We play / should be playing for competitive matches not for one-sided affairs.

Actually I must admit that when I come across a much weaker player in USTA (and I play mostly singles), I tend to lose focus and/or get bored and/or work on my 'B' game, so the score ends up being less lopsided than it should. Probably this hurts my rating but doesn't really matter since I'm resigned to staying 4.5 without any chance of ever getting to 5.0.

[asimple]

I'm not sure that they gained too much in terms of play as we won 6-0, 6-1 pretty easily. Given my low rating they probably also didn't gain too much in rating. It wasn't that bad of a match though as they were nice guys, and I had a practice match after anyway. It could have been much worse.

I agree it is fun to play up a bit, but there is a certain level where it goes from fun into being a ball boy. I've had that experience twice and do not want to repeat it.

[schmke]

Originally Posted by asimple

On a slightly ironic note, I played in a USTA match last night where the team was playing up, and definitely put their best players at #2 doubles in the hope of winning one match. That turned out to be a close match, but the #1 doubles that I was playing was far from close. I guess I now better understand the frustration as this was a waste of time, but league play is far from perfect so I guess I will take the good with the bad.

The USTA does have provisions for rules on the level make up of the players on a roster, but I think it is at a section's discretion to implement it. In the PNW section, for Adult 18+ and 40+ leagues, at least 50% of a teams roster must be "in level" at the time of each match.

This of course doesn't stop a team from having a roster of 16 or more, 8 of which are playing up, and running out those 8 for a given match, as I don't believe there are rules for who from a roster can or must be played (except for the "plus" leagues of course).

[asimple]

Originally Posted by OrangePower

Actually I must admit that when I come across a much weaker player in USTA (and I play mostly singles), I tend to lose focus and/or get bored and/or work on my 'B' game, so the score ends up being less lopsided than it should. Probably this hurts my rating but doesn't really matter since I'm resigned to staying 4.5 without any chance of ever getting to 5.0.

Due to my improving fitness, I have had a lot of lopsided matches recently. I have made a huge effort to not play my 'B' game, and instead try to focus on losing as few games as possible while practicing my weaker strokes. If not I just don't have motivation to play the next time. I've also noticed that when I start with this style sometimes the weaker player completely implodes making the match go much quicker.

[dizzlmcwizzl]

Originally Posted by schmke

The USTA does have provisions for rules on the level make up of the players on a roster, but I think it is at a section's discretion to implement it. In the PNW section, for Adult 18+ and 40+ leagues, at least 50% of a teams roster must be "in level" at the time of each match.

It has happened a couple times on these boards where a team needed another at level player so they could meet this criteria. At least twice I can remember a TT player signed up to be on the roster of a team that he never expected to play for, just so that team could meet the roster requirements.

I think it would be cool to be on the roster of a team in Hawaii, Las Vegas, Boston and Puerto Rico all in the same year.

[NLBwell]

The person was a 2.5 last year and is still a 2.5 this year? That's pretty sad.
Well, she's on the team and the captain has to play her somewhere to keep her happy (probably a friend of hers). A lot of times, none of the women on the team want to play singles. From the opposing captain's point of view the solution is to play her where no one else wants to play. Not really fair to you, but that's the breaks. Go have fun in your next match.

[dpg]

The simple way to prevent stacking is to add weight to each courts. Section of USTA in NJ has a scheme. I forgot exactly how, but something like, S1 for 3 points, S2 for 2 pts, D1 for 3 pts, D2 for 2 pts, D3 for 1 pts. You can stack if you like, but a team with most pts win the match.

[NLBwell]

Originally Posted by dpg

The simple way to prevent stacking is to add weight to each courts. Section of USTA in NJ has a scheme. I forgot exactly how, but something like, S1 for 3 points, S2 for 2 pts, D1 for 3 pts, D2 for 2 pts, D3 for 1 pts. You can stack if you like, but a team with most pts win the match.

Good way to prevent stacking, however, it will encourage sandbagging even more, by making the best sandbagger even more important.

[OrangePower]

Originally Posted by NLBwell

Good way to prevent stacking, however, it will encourage sandbagging even more, by making the best sandbagger even more important.

True, but at least then you'd know where (what line) the sandbaggers are

[asimple]

I'll make one last post so I don't turn this thread into my personal match reporting. I played my second 4.0 league match yesterday, and I'm not sure exactly how the team knew but they clearly sacrificed the singles match I was playing. My opponent was an extremely nice guy so the match was somewhat enjoyable, but I would have preferred to sleep in.

Sadly, as much as I tried I did end up playing my B game. The victory was still extremely lopsided, but ended up pushing the ball in and not hitting my real strokes.