Did they really improve over 2 years or would they just have been the ringers in 2020 nationals?
2021 18+ 4.0M USTA League Nationals Predictions
- Thread starter schmke
- Start date
Did they really improve over 2 years or would they just have been the ringers in 2020 nationals?
schmke
Legend
Yes, there were a few.
Looking at the way out of level (> 0.25 over) players in the semis that played in 2020:
- Southern has one, would likely have been bumped up at 2020 year-end but was not wildly out of level then, their rating has gone up 0.25 since then
- Northern has one, would likely have been bumped up at 2020 year-end but was not wildly out of level then, their rating has gone up nearly 0.3 since then
I know just for me, I am a much better player now than a year ago. It is also interesting the amount of matches various teams played to get to Nationals. I believe Hawaii only played 6 team matches to get here while we played 22. I didn’t look at all sections but I would guess we have played the most matches to get here
Out of curiosity, how many way out level players in the semis didn't play in 2020? That would help clarify how much of the issue is from 2020 weirdness.
schmke
Legend
The whole reason for year-end ratings is that player's abilities change over time. The pandemic didn't suddenly stop this from happening, particularly when we are being told more tennis was played in 2020 because it was considered a safe activity in many areas. So a decision to not publish year-end ratings was just sticking one's head in the sand and not in touch with reality, resulting in more wildly out of level players in 2021 than in most years. I've looked at DQ stats earlier in the year where they were up for this very reason, but when C rated players are protected from DQ, it makes a mockery of ratings come Nationals with the handful of players that are way out of level and carry teams to the semis and perhaps championship. Sure, it is a level playing field in that player's in every section had the 2 years to improve, but it isn't fair to actual at level players wanting to compete that have no shot because the rating system failed them and has them facing players now way out of level.
Vox Rationis
Professional
Check their sectional results. Same story.
We unfortunately don’t have a singles ringer. Plus we play a doubles only league 20 weeks a year besides USTA
schmke
Legend
Impressive to be able to pull that off.
Yep. I thought it would hurt them at nationals but it hasn’t.
schmke
Legend
Yeah, it is hard to do.
A few years ago I had a team that was doubles heavy and went 21-3 on the doubles courts in the regular season, then 3-0 in a playoff match to qualify for Sectionals, 3-0 in the first Sectionals match, but then lost a doubles court in a super tie-break to the team that went on to Nationals.
Vox Rationis
Professional
The question is: is a doubles focused team the way to beat the untouchable ringers Fowkes and Freeman have been bringing to nationals the last few years?
The solution is for teams before nationals to file grievances before nationals.
Would that actually achieve anything? My impression is that neither team does things that can be documented to be illegal, instead they do things that are almost certainly deliberate tanking based on implausible scorelines, but the USTA has consistently required definitive proof of cheating rather than just having it be blindingly obvious.
Their ringer at nationals who beat the middle west ringer only had to play two local league matches and one at sectionals. Team was "too deep"
schmke
Legend
Another case of the USTA dropping the ball, they relaxed their rules on the number of matches self-rates had to play to be eligible for Nationals. I think the intent was to reduce the burden for teams that may have had trouble getting players in matches due to the pandemic, but I'm pretty sure the only ones to make use of it were teams hiding players.
schmke
Legend
Also, Intermountain's roster was huge, so one could make the argument playing time had to be spread around. But still USTA's fault for relaxing the rules that allow such a large roster of self-rates.
I think the most likely way to beat the Utah team is to convince some spiritual leader at BYU that it's immoral for BYU students to claim to be 3.5's or 4.0's when they're actually 4.5's or 5.0's. The Utah team is based very close to BYU, so I'm just guessing that that's the source of many of Fowkes's self-rated ringers. If someone important could be convinced that the players' blatant dishonesty reflects badly on the school, then maybe students would be discouraged from lying about their level. But I have no idea how to stop the Houston team from bringing wildly out of level players to nationals, given that the USTA refuses to do anything about Houston's obvious tanking and abuse of self-rating.
Yes with only 9 matches to get to nationals. Very difficult for the self rates to get DQ’d until after nationals
He was legit! Bombing 120+ mph serves plus having the game to go along. I heard 3BYU commits. Didn’t confirm though
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Yea plus the vast difference in the number of matches each team played to get to nationals. If I looked at it right Northern played 8 less matches and Intermountain played 13 less matches than us to get here
Vox Rationis
Professional
Agreed. But they make the process difficult and costly almost as if to discourage it.
Yeah I think maybe requiring more matches to play nationals would work. I think we had 1 self rate play at nationals but he had 15+ matches played before.
HBK4life
Hall of Fame
That shirt must have some magic powers. Do people really want to get away from their wives that bad?
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Well, you are kind of on to something there, but not 100%, now all I know is Texas and Southern. So in Texas the big city teams are usually the work of a group of captains in each city that accept the challenge of putting together teams, so they'll have multiple regular, mixed, combo, and tri-level. I know a couple that don't play and still travel for weekends to sectionals etc., I mean they play tennis, but don't play on their teams, at all, just watch rec tennis all weekend and tinker with lineups. It's, interesting, I've even seen full blown yelling arguments about lineups, during sectionals, at the event, if you are intrigued at all by human behavior, it's a very entertaining niche'.
So that's big city, same with southern, although a city like Memphis or Nashville, big ones in southern, are not even as big as some Dallas or Houston suburbs. Like for tennis, Memphis has about 3-4 4.5 teams and Dallas will have 15 with some having 25 players deep. At 4.0 in Dallas or Houston, you could play for years and never meet/see all the 4.0 players.
Anyway, the people from cities in southern also have the super captains, to a much much lesser degree.
Now, the rural southern teams that are quite good and mostly self-rated, I've seen a couple rural teaching pros self-rate, form teams and take the group through the tourneys. I've seen many more 18-24 year old super teams too, I think if you live in a small town area it's pretty fun to go to the big city and play tennis. PLUS, in southern, good luck finding tennis tournaments, the closest UTR are 600-800 miles away in Dallas and USTA tournaments are few and far between. In Texas there are tournaments every weekend almost if you are willing to travel between the cities.
So, a few groups, super captains, normal old guy groups (27-45) playing 18+, and the rural twenties guys.
Now, the married guys in the normal old guy groups, a large number just can't make sectionals because of family stuff, although they would prefer a weekend away from family. But, yes, of course there is a group of married guys that enjoy getting away from their wives, but it's the minority.
Most of the repeat customers at nationals or sectionals are either drug along by super captains or are single and tennis is their social outlet pretty much.
ChaelAZ
G.O.A.T.
It is the opposite. The wives want them to leave that bad. Our wives all did a wine weekend up in the high country, so they are very happy to see the men folks go play tennis player dress up.
You can't leave us hanging like this. All I know about Fowkes is that he started captaining in 2014 and made Nationals every year since 2015. He captains at least 2 teams every year and most of his teams have barely lost matches/sets/games on their way to Nationals.
I would love to know more about the "why". Also, is there some satisfaction in using 5.0ish players to win 4.0 Nationals by a wide margin? If doing this is a hobby, it has to be one of the most bizarre ones I've heard of.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
That's a fantastic point, and sometimes, wives go to these tennis things and you know, there's drinking and such and there are husbands there, not their husbands, well, you know, it's been a thing before.
I guess I just don't understand this if you're not playing. I guess I wouldn't mind being the 8th best guy on a team. But playing one match and "captaining" a bunch of ringers to nationals doesn't seem fun.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
No one will probably answer that for you. who has or is doing it
I've reshaped my thinking some based on travelling to places where USTA team tennis is a significant tennis option, not just one of many many options, some of those out of level players would have to travel anyway to play. high level competition. I play 4.0, strictly doubles in USTA so I never get bumped (only do UTR singles), but I consider myself a good 4.0 with an average record at 4.5, and I play to the level of my competition. I beat a 4.0 self rate in doubles, his partner was a legit good 4.0, but he had an unbeaten record at 4.5 and winning record at 4.5 sectionals, in addition to a winning record at 5.0, so the competition can "ok" in doubles at the regional national level, sometimes, even with ringers.
If it's a singles specialist playing 5.0, self rating at 4.0 though, I'm sure it's not even fun really unless wins just make one's day.
For Fowkes, he probably just recruits well. Most ringers will just go with the flow if someone recruits them. Plus, if you are on a team of ringers, you get to practice against good players. But, for my skill level, I think it would be akin to me self rating as a 3.5 and no, that wouldn't be fun, in fact I often get irritated if I play a usta match and the opponent doesn't play up to the skill level I expect to find at that level, so I can't put myself in their shoes.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
It's strange, I'd say the two captains I've played for like that, they were older guys who played only 55+, but captained teams at all ages, they didn't have kids at home, but would travel with us to tournaments for the weekend and watch and tinker with strategy, while never playing at all even in the regular season. Each captained or co-captained around 8 teams a season and still do.
McLovin
Legend
Sorry. After I posted that, I realized I probably shouldn’t have. I don’t want to go saying things about people that were told to me in confidence (and possibly get others in trouble). I would have removed my original post, but because it was quoted, editing mine won’t do me any good.
Recruiting is a part of it, but there's more. He has to put the time and effort into finding people that have not been USTA rated before and who are far better than 3.5 (his past teams) or 4.0 (his current teams).
Then he has to somehow convince them to sandbag their way through two matches in their league. What's in it for them? How are all these guys convinced to do this? Is there a free club membership reward? The whole thing is just weird.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
There are quite a few different individual reasons for sure. But, this might help conceptualize it. Most are single, new to an area, fresh off school or grad school that took them out of tennis competition. Most don't have a lot of social or family obligations. I say that because captains will make sure that local USTA league coordinators know they are looking for players, so if the coordinator gets an email, "email me first please" kind of thing. These are common threads, because, like you said, you need to be willing to spend a couple hours on a weekend losing tennis on purpose, not everyone has that luxury, if you can call it that. It's not impossible, as mentioned before, captains paying entry fees and Usta fees, and I know one captain in Texas that reimbursed in essence the lesson fees a teaching pro missed out on to play combo one weekend. If this makes sense to combine with what I said above, the participation of ex-college players in big cities is usually 1 team based on where they are located, they might even say no to commitment of usta, especially if they are in their early 20's and busy dating and having fun. There is a little sprinkle of "different" that the true sandbaggers usually share since self-rating and tanking regular season and playing 4.0 and 4.5 sectionals and nationals is a large commitment.
He owns a tennis center so has easy access to player pool. Plus covers the expense of several team lessons with pros weekly. Confirmed by one of his players
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Ohhhh, that explains it, can't blame him, it's good for business.
Purestriker
Legend
Yes.....yes the do.
ATX Tennis
Rookie
For those questioning why captain a team that you can’t really play on, I think one answer is some people like to be a fantasy GM/manager and strategize ways to win. I certainly do. I’ve never been on a team that can use talent to bludgeon other teams in playoffs/sectionals/nationals, so I enjoy the challenge. Yes, locally, we blow through most teams, but playoffs and sectionals in Texas is not for the weak of heart!
except their 2 young singles guys
Always amazes me that people can ignore how they’re part of the problem too. But for a lot of people it’s always “different“ when they do it.
How did one of their guys have a C rate when he just played a tournament in 2019?
schmke
Legend
Not a big surprise. My ratings had a couple more very close.
Do you think it's possible that any of those 3 picked up their 3rd strike during round robin play? It'd be interesting if they checked for DQ's after the round robin and then defaulted those lines, and the team with DQ's could be pushed out of the top 4 before the semi-finals start. In this case, up to 2 of Intermountain's round robin matches could have been reversed, knocking them out of the semis (maybe putting Florida in?).
If you click on individual names, their rating says 4.5 at the top of the individual player record. Maybe there's an easier way, but that's how I found those 3.
Ok, interesting. So they got bumped but none of their matches were DQs.
