Pull up a chair for sure – Some good USTA drama.
Here is the sub-plot from what I can tell
Sectional Team A was originally captained by a person who has been sanctioned/banned by USTA NorCal for improper recruiting, score fixing, rating fixing, etc (this had been going on for years). A large group of captains/players filed and won a grievance against him this year. The grievance email got sent/forwarded to pretty much every captain in Norcal (it’s spectacular and long). The banned captain argued in part that it was his training regimen that made his teams so good and not his recruiting. USTA NorCal disagreed gave him a multi-year ban on a whole bunch of stuff somewhere around mid-40+ season.
The Sectional Team A he put together with a lot of 4.5A players was allowed to switch captains during the season (banned captain was listed as a co-captain for a while then removed completely) and team avoided sanctions.
It gets better as I hear – it was actually the banned captain who showed up at Sectionals and was the one coaching and distracting at the clinching match (rumor was he was filmed by Team B and that was part of the grievance).
I will say USTA NorCal let Team A switch captains and get to Sectionals so it seems strange to grievance the team on the last day.
Also curious to see if anyone can beat them at Nationals. They can basically field a full five line 5.0+ team for 4.5+ Nationals. If they don’t win look out for the NorCal 4.0As at Nationals next year.
Here is the sub-plot from what I can tell
Sectional Team A was originally captained by a person who has been sanctioned/banned by USTA NorCal for improper recruiting, score fixing, rating fixing, etc (this had been going on for years). A large group of captains/players filed and won a grievance against him this year. The grievance email got sent/forwarded to pretty much every captain in Norcal (it’s spectacular and long). The banned captain argued in part that it was his training regimen that made his teams so good and not his recruiting. USTA NorCal disagreed gave him a multi-year ban on a whole bunch of stuff somewhere around mid-40+ season.
The Sectional Team A he put together with a lot of 4.5A players was allowed to switch captains during the season (banned captain was listed as a co-captain for a while then removed completely) and team avoided sanctions.
It gets better as I hear – it was actually the banned captain who showed up at Sectionals and was the one coaching and distracting at the clinching match (rumor was he was filmed by Team B and that was part of the grievance).
I will say USTA NorCal let Team A switch captains and get to Sectionals so it seems strange to grievance the team on the last day.
Also curious to see if anyone can beat them at Nationals. They can basically field a full five line 5.0+ team for 4.5+ Nationals. If they don’t win look out for the NorCal 4.0As at Nationals next year.