I think the new age brackets will be the death of me

Our league just announced how they will handle the new 18+ and 40+ adult seasons. It was just an email; there will be a meeting in September to discuss.

Already, I am not happy. The 40+ season (which I assume is three doubles/two singles) will be in January. The 18+ season will be in the spring.

This means that, as a captain, I now have *two* seasons in which I must deal with singles players. Nothing against singles players per se, but having to find singles players is a total drag. There are not enough of them to go around, they get injured more often, they take up a lot of my roster spots, they take up more time for recruiting. The impact of singles on the prospects for the team is tremendous, so if you find yourself weak at singles you cannot compete.

I was willing to suffer through dealing with singles once a year. I am not excited about dealing with it for 50% of the year. And if I skip the January 40+ season and try to only captain the 18+, all of the devoted singles players will already be committed to teams by April.

Lastly, court time is difficult to find here in the winter. The league manages to find enough courts in the winter, when all of the leagues are either three courts of singles (singles league) or three courts of doubles (combo, ladies day). Where on earth is our league going to find all of these blocks of five available courts per team match in January?

Seriously, I may have to stop captaining the league adult season entirely with this new format.

You could captain only one or the other.....

someone call the waahmbulance

Cindysphinx said:

Already, I am not happy. The 40+ season (which I assume is three doubles/two singles) will be in January. The 18+ season will be in the spring.

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In NorCal, our 40+ season is also in Jan, but is only 2 dubs / 1 singles until districts. In districts it grows to 3/2.

I haven't decided yet if I will field a team or not.

How does it work? 18+ includes 40+ but not vice versa. Can a 40+ person play in either league?

sureshs said:

How does it work? 18+ includes 40+ but not vice versa. Can a 40+ person play in either league?

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Yes, that is what the + means. A 40 y/o is eligible for both leagues

As a 40+ singles player, I just see more opportunity, not obstacles.

Like others have written, you don't have to Captain both 18+ and 40+, it is your choice. I will play 18+ on my regular team, and 40+ on another team.

And on the teams I play on, the singles players have the least injuries of any players as they don't carry an extra 30+ lbs and are all in better shape than guys who can't play singles.

Maybe it isn't the fact your single's players are getting injured, but rather you are asking people to play single's who are pushing their bodies too hard.

I'm looking forward to it. Less play with my fellow geezers. An opportunity to play singles again. Life is good!

No problem with singles players on my team. Pretty much every new player who wants to join my team wants to play singles. The only people who want to play doubles are the senior players on my team, but even then I think a lot of them would play singles but they know that they can't compete at the same NTRP level in singles as they do in dubs. This will definitely open the door for the more senior players to hit some singles. Of course our leagues are running concurrently, it will be really hard to convince people to commit to 2 leauge matches a week.

goober said:

No problem with singles players on my team. Pretty much every new player who wants to join my team wants to play singles.

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I have heard that's how it is on the men's teams. On the women's side, hardly anyone wants to play singles lol. I tried USTA once & hated it but still, as a singles player only, get called repeatedly by captains I've never met to consider playing singles for their teams. I might actually consider USTA again if they split singles and doubles into 2 different leagues.

North said:

I have heard that's how it is on the men's teams. On the women's side, hardly anyone wants to play singles lol. I tried USTA once & hated it but still, as a singles player only, get called repeatedly by captains I've never met to consider playing singles for their teams. I might actually consider USTA again if they split singles and doubles into 2 different leagues.

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What difference does it make for you if there are other people on your team playing doubles?

No, I don't have to captain both.

Anyone who does not captain in January will find no singles players available in April, I promise you that.

Yeah, I think I'm done. I guess I will captain the various doubles-only leagues.

In my area, it's going to be tough to divide players amongst the 2 age groups. Most of our teams have very few players under 30. So, we'll either have a lot of teams on one or other of the age groups, but not both.

jonnythan said:

What difference does it make for you if there are other people on your team playing doubles?

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Well, this has just been what I have observed; others' experiences may be different.

1. There seems to be a lot more drama and gaming the system with doubles lineups. Not sure why that would be, but is just what I've noticed - too much shenanigans. The more there is to "just ignore" in order to have fun, the less fun it is.

2. At some point singles players are invariably stuck having to play doubles if there is a problem filling the line up. Something I'd rather never do.

3. I prefer tennis as an individual, rather than a team sport (vis-a-vis singles vs doubles) and would play Ultimate Tennis if it was in my area. Much more straightforward - everyone at your level is a potential opponent so there is never a reason to play less than your best. Even in USTA, a strictly singles league would probably work better in that format. Although perhaps it is overly optimistic to suppose the USTA would figure that out lol.
(I tried Flex League but it was not that helpful as it seemed to be low on everyone's priority list - people just sort of trying out singles if it was convenient - it was hard to schedule any matches.)

Again, just my experiences.

In our league we have 16 people out of 8 (current 18+ teams)

that are younger than 40

think they are running our leagues at the same time...so if all the 40+ guys play 40+

we will have enough to field 2 teams of 8 in the adult league and play each other every week...

18+ is the joke part....we never have anyone in the league younger than 28. Just like when I was in my early 20's the last thing I wanted to do was tie up my weekends hitting a tennis ball.

only once have we had a 20 year old and it was the captains son...who played 1 season and didn't like it.

all the (in your 30's guys are getting shafted.) we will end up in smaller leagues with 40+ leaving us....and 25- not interested in joining.

what they should do is have ( 18 + Flex league singles) cause most younger guys don't want to play doubles anyway.

30+ 2 singles 3 dubs

50+ 3 dubs senior

60+ 3 dubs super senior (playing a single 8 game pro set)

Wow, Cindy. What a mess. I can't believe they're going to try to run 40+ at the same time as Winter Mixed. Aren't ya'll tight with court time/availability anyway? And with them running the 40+ before the 18+, you're right: if you don't have your team lined up by say, mid-February, you're screwed...because (and I'm presuming here) most of the 40+ teams will just re-up in the 18+ division.

Us -- we haven't gotten much other than this statement by the group that currently runs Adult & Seniors:

In 2013, USTA Leagues will re-structure under new age groups. The current Adult Leagues will become the Adult 18+ Leagues and will be open to players 18 and older. The current Senior Leagues will become the Adult 40+ leagues and will be open to players 40 and older. The league seasons and post season championships will remain the same as they have in the past. Only the age grouping and league names will be different.

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They say nothing of the actual format, about whether the 40+ will be the full 5 lines of 2-singles/3-doubles...whether it'd do like the "current Senior Leagues" (with just 3 doubles) or try something like OrangePower's group in CA is doing 1/2 until playoffs (that strikes me as rather weird, though).

No, regardless, making the 40+ crowd play any singles, in Richmond, in July and August...they're nuts. We actually have a singles league that also operates in those months and even at 6pm in the evening the conditions can be brutal. There are a few folks in their 40s in that league...but not very many, certainly not enough to carry any decent number of teams to make a worthwhile flight.

I know I'm beating a dead horse...but I think the "restructure" will really struggle here. It'd probably take a more comprehensive restructure of our entire calendar to really make it work.

Angle Queen said:

Wow, Cindy. What a mess. I can't believe they're going to try to run 40+ at the same time as Winter Mixed. Aren't ya'll tight with court time/availability anyway? And with them running the 40+ before the 18+, you're right: if you don't have your team lined up by say, mid-February, you're screwed...because (and I'm presuming here) most of the 40+ teams will just re-up in the 18+ division.

Us -- we haven't gotten much other than this statement by the group that currently runs Adult & Seniors:



They say nothing of the actual format, about whether the 40+ will be the full 5 lines of 2-singles/3-doubles...whether it'd do like the "current Senior Leagues" (with just 3 doubles) or try something like OrangePower's group in CA is doing 1/2 until playoffs (that strikes me as rather weird, though).

No, regardless, making the 40+ crowd play any singles, in Richmond, in July and August...they're nuts. We actually have a singles league that also operates in those months and even at 6pm in the evening the conditions can be brutal. There are a few folks in their 40s in that league...but not very many, certainly not enough to carry any decent number of teams to make a worthwhile flight.

I know I'm beating a dead horse...but I think the "restructure" will really struggle here. It'd probably take a more comprehensive restructure of our entire calendar to really make it work.

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As an FYI, league structuring works from the top down. The local coordinators have to set league dates according to the league deadlines that are set by the District and Section. Some Sections have "Early Start" leagues, which allows a little more flexibility. The ones that don't have to cram all of the leagues in within the time frames they are given.

We haven't heard a peep down here yet. In Winter we already have mixed and singles. Adding another large league will be pretty...ehhh...tricky, to say the least.

I'd play for you, but #1 - I'll be in school and getting to MoCo with my school schedule would be stupid for me, and #2 - not old enough *yet*.

I bet that meeting will be a long one!

I'm out of seniors as of . . . Tonight. I had my last senior match tonight.

Heard another detail about how it will go next year.

Winter will have mixed. Then spring will have 40+ mixed. So they are basically dropping eligibility for seniors down to 40 and keeping the same basic schedule.

I actually think having just one court of singles for 40+ would be not great. Then you have to have a bunch of singles players in case you advance, but you don't have enough playing slots in the regular season to keep them busy.

Cindysphinx said:

I actually think having just one court of singles for 40+ would be not great. Then you have to have a bunch of singles players in case you advance, but you don't have enough playing slots in the regular season to keep them busy.

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This is exactly the problem we are going to have in NorCal, only worse. Regular season is 1 singles / 2 dubs, postseason is 2/3. So you need to have a large enough roster for both singles and dubs for 2/3, with only limited regular season playing opportunities. If I captain (and that's a big if), I'm going to plan my roster for the regular season and blow off the post season if we happen to make it. For me at least, enjoyable regular season for everyone on the team > competitive post-season team.

North said:

I have heard that's how it is on the men's teams. On the women's side, hardly anyone wants to play singles lol. I tried USTA once & hated it but still, as a singles player only, get called repeatedly by captains I've never met to consider playing singles for their teams. I might actually consider USTA again if they split singles and doubles into 2 different leagues.

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This reflects my own experience and feelings exactly. As a singles player, I tried USTA for the first time this summer and felt about it like Katie Holmes felt about Scientology, i. e., "Just get me out of here . . . "