Guys, I have really enjoyed reading these threads from the stands, but after attending 4.0 nationals I would love to provide some perspective. I captain the 4.0 Southern Men that went to Surprise - and I'm by no means a USTA lifer. I have 4 whole seasons of USTA under my belt as a captain. I am very literally the opposite of the captain of the Utah Intermountain Team we played in the finals. I coach high school tennis as a volunteer here in the Atlanta area, and have what I consider a very good feel of what level players are based on skill set (I've sent multiple kids over 9 years to D1-D3 Universities). The problem with what we experienced down at Nationals is more than simply "Old man loser is so obsessed with winning meaningless recreational league he pays for kids lessons and travel." Because what he does is not technically against the rules, despite it being VERY against the spirit of play. The problem USTA faces with a guy like him is 2 fold.
1. The rating system is pointless. If I wanted to add my best 18 year old high school players to my Winter 4.0 roster here in Atlanta, there is absolutely nothing stopping me. And frankly, I wouldn't be lying on any of the questions. None of the kids have signed any LOI yet, they're technically not college players - despite the fact that some have been heavily recruited and might already have offers pending. To give you an idea how different Atlanta and Lindon clearly are though: If I added any of them, there would be complaint after complaint in any match they played in. I would have men in their 50s scouring Instagram and Facebook to see if they've won tournaments, if they have done any college visits, etc...aside from screen shots of their tennisrecruiting pages. These kids out in Utah are clearly not complained about. Which brings me to point 2:
2. Sections are not even. We played 20+ matches in order to compete at nationals for the southern region. Utah played like 9. Apart from the obvious difference in matches and the sheer difficulty in winning more: comes in the USTA computer ratings. 20+ matches gives the computer ample chances to disqualify players. We had one after sectionals - a guy who did not play high school tennis and is currently in his 50s. Yet, Utah plays 9, many of which are meaningless walk overs - and the kids only have 2 matches on the biggest stage before nationals and cannot possibly face disqualification. You basically can hide your studs when the match count is that low. It is exactly what Utah's captain does. Not only does he do that to perfection, he apparently has loads of kids for the next few seasons geared up to run it back.
Those are the two basic issues: and that doesn't even get in to all the things others have discussed. Team Texas had a player at 4.0 nationals that HAS VICTORIES at 5.0 Nationals. I can't even begin to understand how a guy like that is not disqualified from 4.0 tennis. Hell, I played one season of 4.5 and I lost all 3 matches and got bumped to 4.5 before I appealed. The lack of uniformity is bizarre. I get you can't change some circumstance: for instance, the rest of the state of Georgia hates Atlanta tennis. The records of ATL teams at state paints a pretty clear reason for that. But what USTA can control is equal match count. You don't have enough teams to play a full 20 slate? Play everyone 5 times. And mandate higher match counts for players so the computer can get a feel for this. The two kids on Utah I played at 1 Doubles in the finals are college level players - High level D2 caliber. Particularly the taller kid - who served over 120 regularly. Sure, Northern had high level players, so did we - but check our scores, they're largely competitive and representative of the apparent need to have that kinda team to even compete at national events. And frankly, most the teams there were just happy to be at nationals, we met a ton of good people - we went in expecting nothing. We were told by some (cough guys on here cough) we wouldn't finish top ten - and why would we not believe that? None of us are USTA experts and we truly don't have elite singles players. But I learned real fast there are teams who scout, and build teams to win this thing annually. Guys who drive across big states to play for certain teams who have a shot to win. I play with my friends - our team undoubtedly had the best time out there (aside from the one Jersey Shore kid from Eastern who maintained drunk for 72 hours). Our team might be "flawed" in the eyes of many via ratings, but I didn't recruit - the majority of our team played junior tennis together or ran into one another in singles leagues in ATL, and we play more outside of USTA than we do in the leagues. Frankly ALTA is more fun because we can just go play and don't have to worry about old regular USTA men threatening us to report players. Clearly the largest problem with the system is that people are WAY too wrapped up in these leagues. Whether it be to police teams, or create unbalanced ones. I don't pretend to know how to fix it, again, I'm new here - but I don't plan to be back at nationals anytime soon: and I'm cool with that. We made a final, knowing nothing, and I'm damn proud of our guys - loads of clutch tie break tennis played out there. But if USTA doesn't address guys like Utah, just know we are all playing for second.