4.0 Nationals
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jonnyjack
Semi-Pro
Here's the team representing Norcal... http://norcaltennisdaily.com/?p=4242
jonnyjack
Semi-Pro
Here are the results:
http://tennislink.usta.com/LEAGUES/...lightID=DB009FFD71E0A0EAC5B44B6A69&CYear=2011
http://tennislink.usta.com/LEAGUES/...lightID=DB009FFD71E0A0EAC5B44B6A69&CYear=2011
Not surprised by the results. The usual suspects making it to the finals.
My team got waxed at districts by the team from Chicago that made it to Nats. They had at least 4 guys that were way out of level and one that was ridiculously way out of level. They could only muster a 1-2 record in their flight. I guess even after all the adjustments the USTA has made over the last few years, it's still comes down to how many guys that you can recruit who are willing to rate .5-1.5 below their ability in order to acheive almighty bragging rights. And a pen...
Hats off to Cal and Texas for their recruiting prowess
My team got waxed at districts by the team from Chicago that made it to Nats. They had at least 4 guys that were way out of level and one that was ridiculously way out of level. They could only muster a 1-2 record in their flight. I guess even after all the adjustments the USTA has made over the last few years, it's still comes down to how many guys that you can recruit who are willing to rate .5-1.5 below their ability in order to acheive almighty bragging rights. And a pen...
Hats off to Cal and Texas for their recruiting prowess
tennismonkey
Semi-Pro
just based on the results it sure seems like that texas team was really loaded. how are they prior 4.5 sectional players? they played up and made it to sectionals?
i know some of the guys on the northern virginia team which steamrolled through the regular season, districts and sectionals without breaking a sweat. makes me wonder what buzzsaw they ran into.
i know some of the guys on the northern virginia team which steamrolled through the regular season, districts and sectionals without breaking a sweat. makes me wonder what buzzsaw they ran into.
jonnyjack
Semi-Pro
Agreed, that's why I don't care about Nationals. I rather play at the right level and get competitive matches during the regular season instead of destroying everyone locally and then paying hotel/air to get destroyed by ringers at Nationals.
btw, looking through tennislink is an absolute nightmare. Why can't they use the same software that Norcal uses, haha. Do any of the other sections use their own software?
btw, looking through tennislink is an absolute nightmare. Why can't they use the same software that Norcal uses, haha. Do any of the other sections use their own software?
goober
Legend
I like norcal software too. I wish we would use it. The current software is very cumbersome and not easy to look up things. It needs to be more intuitive.
Angle Queen
Professional
Like you, TM, I know some of the women on the Mid-Atlantic team that similarly rolled rather easily though the same set...including their Flight at Nationals. Made it through the semis...then...ran into a HS senior at #1 singles. Still, they should/could have pulled out another win in doubles but didn't. Haven't talked to them but I'm sure it smarts to lose to a kid. Literally.
Hmmm, let's see. She played all of three times during regular season play, all at doubles. Then once each in her state tournament, at #3 doubles. Then, voila, she's a singles player at the Mid__West Sectionals and at Nationals. At Nationals, she dropped all of 14 games over 6 matches at #1 singles. Ahhh, gotta love those self-rates. But she had to, ya know. At 18, this is her first year at Adult USTA League.
shhh...she played 9.0 mixed much earlier in the year...and won all three matches.
I didn't realize, though, that USTA doesn't dynamic DQ...at Nationals. Strikes are generated...but not used. Bah. Why bother?
Here are the womens 4.0 National Championship brackets.
goober
Legend
Not a big fan of lowering the age limit 18 several years ago. This allows high school students like this to compete in adult leagues. She is a 3 star recruit and one of the best players in her state- not a strong tennis state but she should be definitely 4.5 at a minimum. She is very likely going to play college tennis. She fits into the large gaping hole in the experienced players guidelines for junior players between 3.5 and 5.5.
I know Rick and Elkin from your team
jonnyjack
Semi-Pro
I just looked up this girl you're talking about. She played someone I know at Nationals, who's a pretty solid 4.0 singles player, and destroyed her too. This is exactly why self-rates should be banned from post-season play. They wouldn't have won the whole thing without her.
Maybe I should be register again for USTA and self-rate at 2.5 and then dominate all the way through to Nationals. I know I'll face 4.0 quality players there, haha.
Ronaldo
Bionic Poster
Can win at Nat'ls. Never lost in the playoffs including Nat'ls. 12-0
tennismonkey
Semi-Pro
AQ -- i wonder if the USTA ever looks at the percentage of players in post-season play who are self rates. and then look at the percentage of individual wins these self rated players contribute. it's a huge advantage for any team to have 2 solid self rated players who are playing out of rating. it's like starting off 2-0 and needing just 1 doubles win out of 3 chances.
based on the results - it looks like most of these teams have more than 2 ringers each. i guess you don't bring 2 little knives to a gunfight.
based on the results - it looks like most of these teams have more than 2 ringers each. i guess you don't bring 2 little knives to a gunfight.
dennis10is
Banned
It is good to know that adults, middle class or higher Americans, will do what ever it takes, lying and cheating, in order to win a meaningless game. One wonders what they will stoop to for something really important.
Do you think they cheat on their taxes, or lie on their resumes, or scam somebody in a business transaction? It can't be that these nice people, with their nice cars, and clothes, and manner, would cheat?
My world is shattered.
Angle Queen
Professional
If they don't (and it's fairly obvious they don't), they should. Since joining this board, and seeing how prevalent it is, I've even thought to do such an analysis for them so I've been collecting tidbits along the way. But alas, my time is probably better spent rooting on my beloved Spiders (esp after the atrocious way they played last w/e).
What's even more disturbing to me than a specific example of a team that wins it all with said self-raters, are the more nerve-wracking examples of teams that get to the playoffs...only to have a player DQed...where the retroactive DQ would have changed the outcome of the regular season or those playoffs. Legitimate teams...that never get the chance to go on. We had one such situation here in our area and I know if at least two more on the East Coast.
Better to bring a handgun.
But I'll say this about the team I know of. To the best of my knowledge, none of them are self-rates. Granted, that team was built...with the expressed purpose of going somewhere. Not sure how it works in other areas (my eyes have been opened to that too here at TT
), but around here, most clubs require membership to play on their USTA teams. The facility this year's Mid-Atlantic team played out of is more independent minded...and their captain went out looking for some of the best, securely-rated talent. And she got it. The two women from our club on that team are indeed our best 4.0s (in fact, we lost their services, if you will, this past w/e in an important local tournament...because they were at Nationals). I'm proud of them and what they went through to make it to AZ. Both of them are professional women, one with small children...who gave a lot of their time and money to participate on this team. I hope they get another chance (at 4.5 ) to go again.HoustonHacker
New User
Quite an exaggeration. We had two players who had played at the 4.5 Sectional level and one of them (myself) did not play at Nationals this year.
Hats off to the Pacific NW.
But the question still, is: if these guys have previously played 4.5, what are they doing playing on a 4.0 team?
maggmaster
Hall of Fame
They did not get bumped so they could still play 4.0... They were playing up on the 4.5 team. That happens pretty frequently.
Fedace
Banned
just curious. Who pays for the Airline tickets and Hotel bills ?? especially for these Ringers ? IF some 4.0 captain asks me to play in the 4.0 nationals and be the Ringer,,,i am Not going until they pay for my Airline tickets and Hotel bills. + also for the Food costs( has to be 4 star restaurants like Ruth Chris steak house). + some Golf outing costs as well.
Ronaldo
Bionic Poster
Each team received a number of rooms gratis. We only paid for lunch. Breakfast, dinner, and a snack were free for everyone on two floors of the hotel. Plenty of loot left for the hundreds of cans of brews we consumed.
Matt H.
Professional
Here’s my take:
I flew out Thursday night and checked into my hotel around 11pm local time. (2am Florida time if you take account for time zone) First match was 7:30am Friday.
Taking the courts Friday morning was interesting. Trying to get a quick warm up hit in and the ball was flying on me. Florida= sea level/100%humidity vs Arizona= 3k elevation/20%humidity. I knew I wasn’t going to be good for more than 3-4 shots in a rally, so I decided to go heavy doses of serve and volleying.
Overall myself and my team was 2-2 on the weekend. Texas was in our flight and won it going 4-0, 20-0 individually. I lost in a 3rd set breaker playing singles, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t against one of their A team players.
The experience was awesome (money aside LOL!). I now understand why some people go overboard with league championships. For an amateur tennis player I can’t think of a better experience. There’s about 400-500 people roaming the facility, and it’s really good competition for the most part. Emotions run extremely high. One of our doubles teams was in a super tight match Saturday morning. Down 8-9 in the match tiebreak of the deciding 5th point, our guy hits a huge ace out wide and the fist pumps and screams could be heard all over the park. They won 11-9 and the energy was insane.
USTA got a picture of that point and wrote a small article on us directly after that match.
http://www.usta.com/florida_men_show_their_latino_pride/?CategoryId=13268&Year=2011&pg=2
The finals was pretty good tennis. The highest of the “4.0 level.” Texas actually lost the final 3-2. Pacific Northwest won the championship.
Texas had 2-3 guys that were clearly way above the 4.0 level. Word going around was their #1 player had a D1 scholarship 3 years ago. I heard conflicting stories that he got injured or he was burnt out so he stopped playing. PNW’s talent level was extremely high too, but not as good as Texas. I believe it was a case of them putting together a better line up, whereas Texas put their 2 best players playing #1 doubles together. Had they been split up, I think Texas takes it 3-2 instead.
The match came down to #1 singles. PNW player was a kid who went for big shots, and Texas was the classic grinder/backboard that every player cringes playing against. In the 3rd set breaker I thought PNW had no chance. He’d hit 3-4 awesome shots, and still not win the point. At 4-7 when he went for a huge forehand that flew the fence on the fly to make it 4-8 I thought that was it. He then reeled off 5 straight winners, dumped his match point, then hit 2 more winners to win 11-9. Of those 20 points played, the Texas player missed *1* ball. The kid legitimately hit 11 winners and 8 errors. LOL
I flew out Thursday night and checked into my hotel around 11pm local time. (2am Florida time if you take account for time zone) First match was 7:30am Friday.
Taking the courts Friday morning was interesting. Trying to get a quick warm up hit in and the ball was flying on me. Florida= sea level/100%humidity vs Arizona= 3k elevation/20%humidity. I knew I wasn’t going to be good for more than 3-4 shots in a rally, so I decided to go heavy doses of serve and volleying.
Overall myself and my team was 2-2 on the weekend. Texas was in our flight and won it going 4-0, 20-0 individually. I lost in a 3rd set breaker playing singles, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t against one of their A team players.
The experience was awesome (money aside LOL!). I now understand why some people go overboard with league championships. For an amateur tennis player I can’t think of a better experience. There’s about 400-500 people roaming the facility, and it’s really good competition for the most part. Emotions run extremely high. One of our doubles teams was in a super tight match Saturday morning. Down 8-9 in the match tiebreak of the deciding 5th point, our guy hits a huge ace out wide and the fist pumps and screams could be heard all over the park. They won 11-9 and the energy was insane.
USTA got a picture of that point and wrote a small article on us directly after that match.
http://www.usta.com/florida_men_show_their_latino_pride/?CategoryId=13268&Year=2011&pg=2
The finals was pretty good tennis. The highest of the “4.0 level.” Texas actually lost the final 3-2. Pacific Northwest won the championship.
Texas had 2-3 guys that were clearly way above the 4.0 level. Word going around was their #1 player had a D1 scholarship 3 years ago. I heard conflicting stories that he got injured or he was burnt out so he stopped playing. PNW’s talent level was extremely high too, but not as good as Texas. I believe it was a case of them putting together a better line up, whereas Texas put their 2 best players playing #1 doubles together. Had they been split up, I think Texas takes it 3-2 instead.
The match came down to #1 singles. PNW player was a kid who went for big shots, and Texas was the classic grinder/backboard that every player cringes playing against. In the 3rd set breaker I thought PNW had no chance. He’d hit 3-4 awesome shots, and still not win the point. At 4-7 when he went for a huge forehand that flew the fence on the fly to make it 4-8 I thought that was it. He then reeled off 5 straight winners, dumped his match point, then hit 2 more winners to win 11-9. Of those 20 points played, the Texas player missed *1* ball. The kid legitimately hit 11 winners and 8 errors. LOL
Matt H.
Professional
what are you talking about? We stayed at the double tree. There were no free rooms or meals.
tennismonkey
Semi-Pro
nice write up matt. i did have a little chuckle at the article you linked though. "Florida Men show their Latino pride". some PR guy at the USTA trying to find an angle for Hispanic Heritage Month. i fully expect an article next month titled "Eskimo lesbians are all about love-love" for National Gay and Lesbian Inuit Month.
HoustonHacker
New User
Matt, were you the left-handed guy with the big serve? If you were, props to you. Unless my eyes deceived me I saw you hit what would have been an ace down the T in the third set TB against our guy and then call your own serve out. Great sportsmanship.
Someone asked how one could be playing 4.0 after having played 4.5 Sectionals? Well, people get older and their skills erode. I have probably been on close to ten teams that made 4.5 Sectionals and now was not really even able to contribute to our 4.0 team.
As for the finals, I do think Pacific NW was slightly better than we were, at least the way things matched up. They probably win 1S 6 or 7 out of 10 times, 2S they win 9 outta' 10, 1D we win 9 outta' 10, 2D they win 6 or 7 outta' ten and 3D we win maybe 5 or 6 outta' 10.
All in all the quality of play was lower than I was expecting. All of the bump-ups over the last two or three years have definitely lowered the overall talent level in 4.0.
Someone asked how one could be playing 4.0 after having played 4.5 Sectionals? Well, people get older and their skills erode. I have probably been on close to ten teams that made 4.5 Sectionals and now was not really even able to contribute to our 4.0 team.
As for the finals, I do think Pacific NW was slightly better than we were, at least the way things matched up. They probably win 1S 6 or 7 out of 10 times, 2S they win 9 outta' 10, 1D we win 9 outta' 10, 2D they win 6 or 7 outta' ten and 3D we win maybe 5 or 6 outta' 10.
All in all the quality of play was lower than I was expecting. All of the bump-ups over the last two or three years have definitely lowered the overall talent level in 4.0.
HoustonHacker
New User
Matt, some sections kick in a bunch of money to cover expenses. The we didn't get much from the Texas section. Everyone on our team got about 70 dollars to defray costs.
My blog has my (and commenters) overall impressions of Nationals if anyone is interested.
My blog has my (and commenters) overall impressions of Nationals if anyone is interested.
Ronaldo
Bionic Poster
This was 14 yrs ago in Orlando.
Matt H.
Professional
HoustonHacker
New User
I didn't. I was the skinny white dude on the bench.
Fedace
Banned
Fedace
Banned
sounds good. so did you go for it ?
DeShaun
Banned
A coworker of mine played on one of the teams that won 4.0 nationals a few years ago. He is in his early forties now. He played tennis in college in the 1980s. He recently told me that he is a 4.5 nowadays. I do not know whether he has improved from 4.0 to 4.5 since he won nationals, but I suspect not--he has been playing tennis his entire life, so, his level of play probably peaked a long time ago and has been declining normally with age. I think he may have been a ringer.
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This isn't crazy. I heard the guy won 4.0 National who self rated 3.0. And dominate every level every year.
And you may find that you may lose to couple of guys in 3.5 since they are 4.5 too. lol..
[May sound silly, but with all this sandbagging, could I being a Canadian and 17, come down next year, and self rate at 3.5 not having a computer rating at 4.5, and play?
That's just crazy!]
And you may find that you may lose to couple of guys in 3.5 since they are 4.5 too. lol..
[May sound silly, but with all this sandbagging, could I being a Canadian and 17, come down next year, and self rate at 3.5 not having a computer rating at 4.5, and play?
That's just crazy!]
Fuji
Legend
Wow! It's a pretty big deal down there then! Up here it's mostly just guys that are .5 below what they actually are! (Not a lot of 5.0 opportunity here, so quite a few play at 4.5, and some 4.5's play at 4.0.)
-Fuji
downs_chris
Professional
hey...i was on the Mid-Atlantic team...which team were you on? we definitely didn't bring our "A game" for the hawaii match and came up a little short...texas and the pacific nw looked tough...we actually got to practice some with the pacific nw team before the tournament started...somehow, their captain got our captain's info...
Angle Queen
Professional
Woot! Woot! CD!! Y'all did us proud!! (many times over)
Did you meet up with any of the female-folk that represented from our section?
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Short answer Fuji, is yes.
And it's just as shocking to me that this can be done and I've been involved in USTA league tennis for going on 9 years now.
Fuji
Legend
Oh wow! They really need to fix that!
What are the prizes for these National tournaments and all that? It must be fairly decent for these people to sandbag so low???
-Fuji
tennismonkey
Semi-Pro
kylebarendrick
Professional
I have seen people win ratings grievances by finding the foreign experience of players and using that as the basis for a grievance. One example that immediately comes to mind is a player from India that self rated at 4.0. After the grievance he became a 5.0. I agree, though, that it is much harder to find out what kind of experience foreign players have.
What a small world. We met in our first doubles match on Friday. I shaved my head. No, actually I am bald : ))
Eightmarky
Rookie
I was there too with Downs. Are you the guys from Queens? We rooted for you hard on Saturday!
downs_chris
Professional
haha...very small world...but yeah - that was tough for you guys to fly in at 1am the night before, then hit in that thin hot Tucson air! i'm glad we at least had a day to practice...pacific nw was there 3 days before us...haha
but yeah, we were all really rooting for you guys against hawaii...i saw you and your doubles partner were playing singles on that last day and played tough against those guys...i lost to the hawaii pusher that you played in a tight 3rd set tie-breaker...i had to get the ref a few times to explain a few basic rules that he didn't understand...haha, this one time (not in band camp), he hit a serve, and i hit the return in the net and lost the game....i noticed that something felt weird about that shot, and i went up to the ball at the net, picked it up and noticed it was popped...i was like, hey man - you just served a dead ball, take two...he threw a HUGE fit...especially after i called over the ref...haha, we ended up playing two...
but yeah, the way he kept score was a bit strange too...did you notice that? did you pull out your second set of your singles match?
I was there too with Downs. Are you the guys from Queens? We rooted for you hard on Saturday!
Are you the one in Bright Orange Shorts? Sorry, I tried hard but that kid kill me with his sharp down the line volley.
Nice to see you guys here.
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