ALTA City Finals

bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
Anyone else going?

My A6 team made it. We're playing at Blackburn TC @ 1pm.

We had a some challenging matches in the playoffs. During the semis, our 4s won in a 3rd set TB to clinch it, while our 5s were up a break in the 3rd about to clinch.

I'll be playing line 5 with my 5th different partner for this season. :shock::shock::shock:
 
S

spot

Hall of Fame
I'll be at Blackburn as well for our A2 team. Because there were only 3 divisions we have only had to play 2 rounds of playoffs so far which has made it a decently easy run so far. I believe that this is the first match that we will ever have our full lineup for a playoff match- there is almost always someone who has a conflict. We dodged a bullet- a couple guys ended up selling UGA/Auburn tickets so they could be available otherwise we would have been toast.
 
G

Gemini

Hall of Fame
I'm assuming the finals are on Sunday? If so, I'll probably come out to watch a little bit. I'll be hard to miss as I'll be the guy on crutches with the walking cast on his right leg.
 
C

CSquared

New User
I'll be there too for A8. Interested to see the level of competition. Our 5's have yet to see the court this postseason
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
So, we took home the small plates, no thanks to the other team's line calls at line 3.

You know the line calls are bad when the director of the facility AND two coordinators were standing there saying "Wow, they're really making bad calls." Alas, there was nothing any of them could do about it.

They took lines 1 and 2 in 2 sets (both good matches) ,we took line 4 in 2 sets, and my partner and I were rolling 6-1, 0-1 at line 5 when the 3s finished their 3rd set tiebreak.

The first bad call was at match point for us in the 2nd set with the other team serving at 4-5 and 15-40. It didn't get any better from there.

The worst part is that some of their teammates apologized to our captain about the bad calls...

Oh well, apart from that it was a great season.

We (The Georgian) played CC of the South, if anyone was wondering.
 
Last edited:
thejuice

thejuice

Hall of Fame
bcart1991 said:
So, we took home the small plates, no thanks to the other team's line calls at line 3.

You know the line calls are bad when the director of the facility AND two coordinators were standing there saying "Wow, they're really making bad calls." Alas, there was nothing any of them could do about it.

They took lines 1 and 2 in 2 sets (both good matches) ,we took line 4 in 2 sets, and my partner and I were rolling 6-1, 0-1 at line 5 when the 3s finished their 3rd set tiebreak.

The first bad call was at match point for us in the 2nd set with the other team serving at 4-5 and 15-40. It didn't get any better from there.

The worst part is that some of their teammates apologized to our captain about the bad calls...

Oh well, apart from that it was a great season.

We (The Georgian) played CC of the South, if anyone was wondering.
Click to expand...

Hey bcart, what were some of the calls? I ask because I notice when people cheat, it is because of certain types of calls they feel they can get away with (serves and calling shots wide come to mind).
 
hcb0804

hcb0804

Hall of Fame
thejuice said:
Hey bcart, what were some of the calls? I ask because I notice when people cheat, it is because of certain types of calls they feel they can get away with (serves and calling shots wide come to mind).
Click to expand...

Someone PLEASE tell me that the Creel Park team did NOT win the Ladies A-2 City champ!!
 
C

CSquared

New User
Our A8 team lost 3-2. My partner and I played a 3 hour match at the 1 spot and took it 7-5 in the third. Our 2's lost a close 2 setter. Our 3's stomped them and their 4's stomped us. Ended up losing a 3 setter at 5's. Looking forward to even better competition in the spring. I'm interested to see our placement for next season. We should be adding about 4 players that are 5.0 or high 4.5. Would expect a 2-3 level jump without the new additions.
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
thejuice said:
Hey bcart, what were some of the calls? I ask because I notice when people cheat, it is because of certain types of calls they feel they can get away with (serves and calling shots wide come to mind).
Click to expand...

Yup. It all started with a slice on the sideline (on match point) that was called wide. Later, a few serves, and a lob that was actually inside the baseline, an overhead that was close, etc.

I really wish ALTA would consider granting line judges (if requested) in the finals. It could keep situations like this from occurring again.
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
CSquared said:
We should be adding about 4 players that are 5.0 or high 4.5. Would expect a 2-3 level jump without the new additions.
Click to expand...

WTF are they doing playing A8?!? Sandbaggers. ;) ;) ;)

I saw a few guys I played at 4.0 state last year playing A1 yesterday. Most of them were bumped up though.
 
C

CSquared

New User
Our top 3 lines are all solid, but it gets dicey real quick after that. I think we could be competitive at low A with the new additions. My partner and I went 11-0 at 1's this season and should be playing the 2 or 3 spot next season
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
Any legit 4.5 and up should be playing A1 or higher. I played line 1 at A3 last season and had a winning record. I consider myself a mid-high 4.0.
 
P

philxor

Rookie
We have a team out of our subdivision which plays 4.5 USTA and played AA-4 in Alta. They are kind of middle of the pack in both, so if you are adding high 4.5 and low 5.0 players to the team you should have no issue if you are getting bumped to like A4-A5...

Our team won the B5 title and was moved up to B1, should be interesting next season!
 
P

philxor

Rookie
bcart1991 said:
Any legit 4.5 and up should be playing A1 or higher. I played line 1 at A3 last season and had a winning record. I consider myself a mid-high 4.0.
Click to expand...

I agree, I'm a middle-rung 4.0 player and have played A-2/A-3 players in singles in k-swiss and been very competitive with most of them, but the guys we have playing AA-4/4.5 USTA is a whole nother league. If I was a 5.0 playing on an A5/A6 team it wouldn't be very much fun.
 
S

spot

Hall of Fame
We won it yesterday. We hadn't dropped a set in playoffs up until city finals. Of course we go out right away and drop the first set of line 1. It was a really tough match- but our guys stepped up and won it in 3. Our line 2 was undefeated this season- lost badly in straight sets. Our line 3 was the line we were most confident about. They also lost in straight sets.

Our line 4 has a guy who would normally play higher for us, but he has a torn meniscus and 40 or so extra pounds on him so he can't move at all. We put him with a good net player that he has experience with in the past. Of course they go out and lose the first set. Its looking bad. We know if we can just get it to line 5 we feel really good- one of our guys just won for us at line 1 the previous week in the playoffs. (I'm a big believer in balanced lineups... line 1 and line 5 count the same) Our line 4 got a break in the second set and made it hold up so we split sets right around when the 5's started off.

Our line 5 started rolling which put some extra pressure on their line 4. We got a break in the line 4 match and our injured guy was serving for the match. His knee problems and weight hadn't hurt his serve at all and he hadn't been broken all day so we were confident. But he got broken- the other team got a couple weak returns crosscourt but with his limited mobility he couldn't get there. We broke them right back the next game- the opposing guy that was serving got pretty upset about a line call that from the sidelines didn't look bad (even according to his teammates) and he was definitely affected. SO we have a chance to serve it out again. At 30-0 the opposing guy misses a return of serve and get so frustrated that he hammers his racquet into the ground and keeps doing so until it is absolutely shattered. He goes and get a backup racket, and our server proceeds to double fault. We won it 2 points later.

Line 5 was a little anticlimactic- they had one strong player but our guys were just better and we rolled straight sets.

Our team already split once as the level got too high for the lower line guys. So we have 2 teams that pretty much operate as one. (the other was at A6 this season) With the team going to AA we are talking about adding a third team. We'll see what happens.
 
Last edited:
S

spot

Hall of Fame
Keep in mind that USTA ratings and Ultimate Tennis ratings are different. You can have someone who plays 5.0 Ultimate Tennis and that doesn't translate to being a 5.0 USTA player by any stretch. We have 5.0 Kswiss players who can't crack the lineup.
 
P

philxor

Rookie
spot said:
Keep in mind that USTA ratings and Ultimate Tennis ratings are different. You can have someone who plays 5.0 Ultimate Tennis and that doesn't translate to being a 5.0 USTA player by any stretch. We have 5.0 Kswiss players who can't crack the lineup.
Click to expand...

That was kinda my point in a roundabout way. I play 4.5- in Ultimate Tennis against some guys who play on an A3 Alta team, and we are all 4.0 in USTA.

The guys I've played who are legit 4.5/5.0 players are much better and I can't see a legit 4.5/5.0 wanting to play at A5 in Alta, but to each their own. One of the guys who played on the AA4 team in our subdivision plays 6.0- in Ultimate Tennis.
 
S

shubydoobydo

New User
Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a "Georgia" forum so all the people from ga could talk about alta and such. They could even have forums from the other states as well.
 
AutoXer

AutoXer

Rookie
Spot, how did you get around the line movement rules or are they suspended during the playoffs? Line 1 last week to line 5 this week, should have cost you line 5 on a movement violation and the match? Unless he played 2 matches last week, line 1 then line 3 and finally line 5 this week?

"We know if we can just get it to line 5 we feel really good- one of our guys just won for us at line 1 the previous week in the playoffs. (I'm a big believer in balanced lineups... line 1 and line 5 count the same)"
 
Last edited:
S

spot

Hall of Fame
Movement rules do not count for playoffs- its only about playoff ratings. And your playoff rating doesn't include any playoff matches so him winning at line 1 didn't raise his rating at all.

Our line 5 actually did have a higher rating than our line 4 but they were within .2 so we could flip them. It wasn't at all trying to sandbag- we didn't want to play the other guy anywhere other than line 5. He is a lefty with a big serve and we figured that they just wouldn't get broken at line 5 but may have been vulnerable higher up.
 
Last edited:
S

spot

Hall of Fame
Supposedly ALTA removed guys from the roster of an A2 team because they had players who play 6.0 kswiss because technically they play in a league where there is prize money awarded. To me thats pretty much BS- no one plays Kswiss for the money. I did think that was interesting. If we didn't win City finals this season we were going to request AA anyway just to make sure we wouldn't get burned by a technicality like that.
 
S

spot

Hall of Fame
We have guys who play 4.5 Ultimate tennis who can't get above line 4 on a middle of the pack A6 ALTA team. Skill in singles and skill in doubles are often very different.
 
C

CSquared

New User
philxor said:
I agree, I'm a middle-rung 4.0 player and have played A-2/A-3 players in singles in k-swiss and been very competitive with most of them, but the guys we have playing AA-4/4.5 USTA is a whole nother league. If I was a 5.0 playing on an A5/A6 team it wouldn't be very much fun.
Click to expand...

Thats why I'm interested to see where we will be placed. Spoke to an ALTA official and he suggested that we would prob get bumped to A5 with our existing lineup. I would expect the addition of 4 to 5 players to the top of our lineup would land us right around the A/AA threshold.
 
S

spot

Hall of Fame
CSquared- what are the mens ALTA ratings of the new guys you are adding? If they haven't played ALTA in the last year then ALTA considers them to be beginners and adding them won't raise your team up at all.
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
Congrats, spot. I'm a believer in the balanced lineup, too (so is our captain). Our 2-5 lines were all pretty evenly matched.

In fact, in that line 3 match Saturday, my partner and I would have fared better, since the sun was definitely a problem on one side of the court. My lefty-ness would have nullified that. By the time we were on, the shadows had taken over.
 
P

PushyPushster

Rookie
Played on our B-6 team at the Finals Saturday and, unfortunately, we took home the salad plate instead of the dinner plate. It came down to the 5's in a 3-setter. I know you're supposed to have an aggressive attitude and all that jazz, but I couldn't help but be glad my match was already (successfully) over. It's hard not to get alligator-armed with that much pressure!
 
C

CSquared

New User
one guy has played low A recently and another played a1 this year, but the others may not have any alta playing record, just usta records. I guess all we can do is request low and explain our reasoning as best we can.
 
G

Gemini

Hall of Fame
bcart1991 said:
Gemini with the ninja edit...

You don't see teams that win USTA State tourneys with weak line 3 doubles.
Click to expand...


LOL!! Yeah..I had to <snip> part of my original post as there's some controversy on the boards regarding balanced lineups. I'm all for them. There are some that don't think it's a "fair" way to play and that it's sandbagging.

And I agree, there should be very little separating your doubles pairings. They should as close as possible skill-wise from top to bottom.
 
Last edited:
T

treo

Semi-Pro
Regarding "balanced lineups", a league coordinator I spoke to told me that there is nothing illegal about balanced lineups, stacking and even sandbagging. I know the rules have a paragraph about sandbagging not allowed but it is not enforced. He said a player's skill level is a matter of opinion, so you can't prove someone is sandbagging. ALTA is about friends playing together on so you can have 5.0 and 3.5 players on the same team. He said you don't need to have your 2 best players at line 1 and the two best individual players might not be the best team, so any kind of pairings are allowed. The only lineup rule during the regular season that is enforced is not moving a player more than 2 positions. You can file a complaint about a team sacrificing line 1 and stacking from the bottom, but ALTA won't do anything about it. In the end, the teams that fare the best won't have to rely on lines 1&2 winning every week and will be solid top to bottom.
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
PushyPushster said:
Played on our B-6 team at the Finals Saturday and, unfortunately, we took home the salad plate instead of the dinner plate. It came down to the 5's in a 3-setter. I know you're supposed to have an aggressive attitude and all that jazz, but I couldn't help but be glad my match was already (successfully) over. It's hard not to get alligator-armed with that much pressure!
Click to expand...

We played on the same court as you immediately after. That was a hair-raising match at line 5. Completely topsy-turvy from set to set (we got there at the start of the 2nd set).
 
G

Gemini

Hall of Fame
treo said:
Regarding "balanced lineups", a league coordinator I spoke to told me that there is nothing illegal about balanced lineups, stacking and even sandbagging. I know the rules have a paragraph about sandbagging not allowed but it is not enforced. He said a player's skill level is a matter of opinion, so you can't prove someone is sandbagging. ALTA is about friends playing together on so you can have 5.0 and 3.5 players on the same team. He said you don't need to have your 2 best players at line 1 and the two best individual players might not be the best team, so any kind of pairings are allowed. The only lineup rule during the regular season that is enforced is not moving a player more than 2 positions. You can file a complaint about a team sacrificing line 1 and stacking from the bottom, but ALTA won't do anything about it. In the end, the teams that fare the best won't have to rely on lines 1&2 winning every week and will be solid top to bottom.
Click to expand...

Well..I'm not trying to re-hash an old thread but as I've said there are some here that feel a balanced lineup is equivalent to sandbagging. I'm not one of them. It's ludicrous to create doubles pairings based simply on how individual players rank as singles players skill-wise on a team but that seemed to be the argument that was presented counter to the balanced lineup.

As far as player movement, he's right though I would add that you can only move any pair of players one position either way which makes sense. I just think balanced lineups make for more competitive matches overall.
 
D

Dishiki

Rookie
Spot,

ALTA did remove some guys from an A2 team. I know two of them. It's complete BS that they were kicked off, although one of the guys could easily play AA1.
 
P

PushyPushster

Rookie
bcart1991 said:
We played on the same court as you immediately after. That was a hair-raising match at line 5. Completely topsy-turvy from set to set (we got there at the start of the 2nd set).
Click to expand...

You guys were the A-team! Don't know if we spoke but I asked someone on your squad whether it was extremely irritating to watch guys like us fumble around on the court. I figure you must be watching the match and thinking, "Why. Don't. They. Hit. It. Over. The. NET???"

How did your team do?
 
bcart1991

bcart1991

Professional
PushyPushster said:
You guys were the A-team! Don't know if we spoke but I asked someone on your squad whether it was extremely irritating to watch guys like us fumble around on the court. I figure you must be watching the match and thinking, "Why. Don't. They. Hit. It. Over. The. NET???"

How did your team do?
Click to expand...

Hey, everyone starts somewhere, right?

Check the first post for my team's results...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

C
Lineup question (ALTA)
2
Replies
83
Views
21K
treo
T
C
Creekstone Estates Alta A5 Men's team(Bad Sports)
Replies
13
Views
1K
chatt_town
C
C
From Worst to First Congrats Washington Park Alta A-5 Champions
Replies
4
Views
449
chatt_town
C
C
Alta- Why do you continue to address sore losers(Leafmore) concerns
2
Replies
64
Views
4K
chatt_town
C
S
ALTA "playing early" dilemma
Replies
8
Views
3K
bcart1991
bcart1991
Top