Enter the team number in the Find NTRP Rating Info box and the current rating of all of the players on the team will come up. There are three on that team currently listed as 4.5 D.
2021 18+ 4.0M USTA League Nationals Predictions
- Thread starter schmke
- Start date
Once you're at Nationals you can't get bumped up/DQ'd
Northern upset Texas and was a court away from going 4-0. Hats off. Nobody was touching intermountain. Flawed loophole, not sure how that's fun.
Strange, without the team number you can use advanced search to drill down to players in their local league, but when you search that way, those three guys are listed as 4.5 B. Isn't that the old "baseline" rating type? Gotta love Tennislink.
Agreed, what a joke. There is no way anyone that plays 4.0, not from Intermountain, is going to win a national championship for the next 5 years. A player on their team confirmed the following: this guy pays for lessons 3 times a week, hotels, food, and drink (granted these kids could only legally have sodas, but coach only allows water either way). Travel wasn’t taken care of this year bc he had to finish building his tennis center. He has his next five separate teams lined up for 4.0. They have at least 3 D1 commits. One 20 year old is married (lol Utah).
His tennis center/scheme has to be looked into by USTA for anyone to have a chance. Is USTA natty champ even something you put on your resume as you apply to colleges??
It looked like the average age of Southern men that were at nationals was 36ish. Idk if you consider that kids but that’s probably what cost the Southern team. Their coach has gotta start scouting all these junior players, have them fill out their self rating questionnaire before they commit, and say they’ll be willing to play and travel with a team for a year while they could be enjoying weekends in college. GL
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It really sucks this is going to be the trend.I don’t mind the young guys playing, but they need to be rated correctly.
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
the only way you even have a chance to be rated correctly is if you play a few matches. The notion that you will rate people correctly based solely on a subjective questionnaire is crazy.
How can you get D1 commits for 4.0? That's a question on the self-rating form.
They conveniently fill out prior to commit/signing, afterwards USTA has shown they do not care.
It looks like Fowkes got rich off infomercials so he just likes the attention probably.
I can’t believe he’s literally building a $6 million tennis facility to do this.
Don't most D1 commits have their offer before they are 18? The USTA changed that this year, too, so that players cannot sign up until they actually hit their 18th birthday (as opposed to have it in that calendar year). There was a kid from my son's HS team who went to a D1 school last year, but he had his scholarship in place after his junior year when he was still 17. That's the only reason he even came back to playing high school tennis as a senior (which lasted one match until the season was canceled). He was one of a small handful of favorites to win the PA state tournament had there been a season.
Regardless, it sounds like the college commit rule needs to be amended so that at least D1 commits need to re-rate (or can be challenged with a self-rating grievance) if they rate beforehand and subsequently get a D1 offer. It's a more than a little ridiculous to have D1 caliber players lower than 5.0, unless the D1 commitment is known and reviewed by a sectional appeals committee who determines that the player is actually 4.0 (because it's a really low level D1 school or some other strange mitigating and very rare circumstance).
depends on the players, some wait until Spring Semester others will go early, not uniform, some players wait and see who signs where to see if scholarships $$$ are there but regardless if you sign with any D1, D2 school minimum should be 4.5+
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Since I am an investor and attorney, I used some of my internet skillz. Informercials Inc. has only $5 million annual revenue (not profit) and 25 employees, so, nice little business, tough to say if it makes someone rich, but I digress.
Wondering though if Tom Fowkes of the Florida tennis and fitness center is related?
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Who are the D1 commits?
HBK4life
Hall of Fame
A magic t-shirt
quality joke
Justagamefool
New User
Don't be surprised when a couple of the Intermountain guys receive a year-end 5.0 rating.
There are no D1 commits on the Intermountain team. Their three young players who got DQ'ed after nationals are in their early 20's and already attending or attended college. They may have been good enough to play on college teams, but if so they chose not to, perhaps because they wanted to go to BYU and weren't quite good enough to make that team (just guessing that last part).
As far as I know, this captain's strategy is to recruit players just like that - very good local college kids who do not actually play on college teams so they can self-rate at 4.0 without any obvious violations of the criteria. Then he combines them with the best computer-rated 4.0 players he can recruit, so that he doesn't need to play the self-rates to win the local league. He'll play the self-rates in the absolute bare minimum of matches at doubles only, not partnered with each other, so their initial dynamic rating is unlikely to be very high. He'll play them at singles during sectionals, but just enough times to get the team through without a DQ. Then they can all be unleashed at Nationals.
I think the best way to thwart this strategy via rule change would not be to change the self-rate criteria, but instead to make it more difficult for self-rated players to qualify to be in the team's lineup at nationals. The current system does not allow the DQ process to do its job, because self-rated players can get into nationals having played so few matches, and sometimes none of them at singles.
As far as I know, this captain's strategy is to recruit players just like that - very good local college kids who do not actually play on college teams so they can self-rate at 4.0 without any obvious violations of the criteria. Then he combines them with the best computer-rated 4.0 players he can recruit, so that he doesn't need to play the self-rates to win the local league. He'll play the self-rates in the absolute bare minimum of matches at doubles only, not partnered with each other, so their initial dynamic rating is unlikely to be very high. He'll play them at singles during sectionals, but just enough times to get the team through without a DQ. Then they can all be unleashed at Nationals.
I think the best way to thwart this strategy via rule change would not be to change the self-rate criteria, but instead to make it more difficult for self-rated players to qualify to be in the team's lineup at nationals. The current system does not allow the DQ process to do its job, because self-rated players can get into nationals having played so few matches, and sometimes none of them at singles.
The easiest way to thwart this is to just suspend the captain. He had 3 people who were incorrectly safe rated and several others close to being dynamically disqualified.
There should be a rule that punishes captains for that.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
That same strategy though happens in Texas, and I'm sure other states, banning one captain, might not do it, perhaps more national rules, not sure what, would be better. Texas never suspended a captain, that I know of, but USTA Texas, some credit is due to them, did make rules that were definitely specifically aimed at certain players and captains. One was a limit on Nationals trips per year and the next year based on previous trips. Another was to stop people from playing on every team available and captaining in Dallas and Ft. Worth every season. In other words the two cities are 30 miles apart more or less and people would straddle the leagues. That was more recent, the Nationals rule was like 8 years ago, some guy was going to Nationals every year on like 2-5 teams each year, mixed, combo, tri, 18+, 40+, 55+, he was on every team possible I guess without getting a sex change mid season and playing womens too.
Not sure that would do much - he'd probably just have a family member or friend be the named captain the next year and still run the team the same way. I've seen that happen with a suspended captain. There's also a chance that innocent captains would get suspended by a rule like this, e.g. a captain trying to start a team from scratch and the league coordinator helps them complete their roster by sending them a few newbies who end up being out-of-level.
This happened in NJ (Eastern Section) many years ago. There was a captain who once put a previously DQ'd player in a playoff lineup under the name of a different player on the roster. He was banned from captaining for life, but he still ran the teams at his club after that (not sure if he still does or not). He just has a different nominal captain listed in TennisLink. He was always a non-playing captain anyway.
Then it just comes down to actually enforcing the bans and further punishing people for violating them.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
First, think "Best in Show"......
Got it in your head.
Ok, there is obviously an opportunity for a hilarious docu-comedy movie, if only tennis was more popular and tennis movies didn't have the reputation of failing miserably.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
That is a good idea.
But, growth growth growth is certainly the directive given to USTA employees, that limits growth. To get any ideas to be implemented, it would take a bunch of people getting elected or appointed to committees and boards, a lot of work.
Given the fact that:
- a lion majority of USTA players play and enjoy the league, and
- they have great time competing in local, sectional, and national level play, and
- the published videos show that even the players on teams winning the nationals, while definitely play at higher end of a given range, are not outrageously out of the level, and
- anecdotal evidence that such and such is Dx level commit but lied on self-questionnaire and plays on way too low level is almost always just hearsay,
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Certainly the majority enjoy the league, me included, and your conclusion is correct, but hopefully your conclusion didn't mean it should be left the way it is and just ignore these situations, right?
Maybe the D1 commits are hearsay, I'd like to hear more about that, but I've listed ad nauseum the Texas irregularities and some in the south. Most of these tales on these boards aren't hearsay.
Yeah just because something works relatively well doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to improve it.
Imagine not being good enough to play at BYU but good enough to play at Utah state and playing 4.0. Gtf outta here with that. “It’s within the rules though.” There has to be some sort of moral compass instead of I found the magic formula to win nationals by playing people way lower than what they should be without being caught. This dude is a known offender and shouldn’t be allowed to provide benefits the way he does. 4.0 ain’t the big leagues where you get sponsored to play.
I just don’t see the appeal from his perspective. I could understand the appeal to winning one national championship. But doing it year after year has to get boring, right?
Sure. Just I do not see how you can improve the way ratings, levels, and appeals work without adversely affecting a great majority of honest players. For every proposed solution that has ever been mentioned there's a number of side effects that will have detrimental effect.
the entire league is based on good will and sportsmanship. Other than naming names and publicly shaming people I do not think there's any other way.
Do you have an idea?
ok, I'll bite. So where would you draw the line? If a given team has access to a facility where they can practice while other teams do not - is that not allowed either? If a captain provides beer after practice - is that not OK? If a captain manages to get 10 good players on the team while the other only 4 and the rest are so-so - is that unfair advantage too?
And these players in question are far, far from 'not being good enough to play at BYU'. You can check names on tennisrecruiting - they were at best one star recruits coming out of high school. I do not know them, or the team but let's keep things in proper perspective.
To me this post illustrates the thinking the best. @Firemanmn poster is fed up with USTA and Intermountain team while prizing Northern. Now, if you check Northern team you will find:
- according to tennisrecord Northern team has actually more players at the top of 4.0 level, and more players above 4.0 level.
- their singles player, supposedly all fairly property 4.0 rated is like 14-1 playing singles for 4.5 level team in 2021. Other players are not doing too badly at 4.5 level either.
Thanks for the bite. I think the line gets drawn and being a grown man recruiting junior players to literally play one season together to get a championship. Practice all you want, practice every single day cause that’s prob what it took a lot of teams to even get to the dance. I’ll allow a captain to provide beers bc there’s always a gentleman’s agreement that you’ll get the cap back. This guy isn’t allowed to buy beers for these youngn’s and also cannot be supplied back either. If the boyz wanna play together and they better than everyone in the area so be it.
As far as tennisrecruiting.net, that isn’t the best way to justify how good someone is. Also covid prob swayed some ratings. I’m a fan of the eye test and I’m sure college tennis coaches are as well.
ChaelAZ
G.O.A.T.
lol. Some of these dudes will just never get over not being breastfed, and will continue to find ways to fill the void in their lives.
To me, get rid of SR being able to go to Nationals and you solve a large majority of issues. Of course players could still game the system, but it would take a little more effort over a longer period of time to sandbag, and I think that might just annoy enough people to diminish it a bit.
Magic shirts might be nice, but you should see the pen I got this year. AMAZING!
tennis_tater
Semi-Pro
Two years ago, his singles ringer, Jihoon Noh, was a 3 star on tennis recruiting - a top 2 Utah rated junior, top 5 sectional player, and top 300 national player. I understand he walked on BYUs team, then ended up playing club at BYU and played at club nationals before playing on Fowkes 4.0 team. Look at his self rate matches during the regular season how the kid played the minimum matches and dropped a lot of games in doubles, then was hidden and protected until nationals where he was unleashed and destroyed everyone (except for the other 4.5 ringer he played on one leg while fighting cramps the during the match) giving Utah a clear 1-0 advantage over EVERYONE they played. And that 1-0 advantage with a player who should have been self rated a 5.0, gave Utah the title that year.
Bottom line - a kid who is younger than 25 without serious physical injury who played juniors representing “Team Utah” and zonal competition representing the Intermountain Section should not be allowed to play 4.0 league. Not only was the captain complicit in this, but the state and section was as well.
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FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Do you have more information, it seems you are aware of things going on over there? I'm just curious about the college thing, it wasn't really settled or was it?
Vox Rationis
Professional
Aren't you overlooking a huge difference which is the Utah captain hides his players and tells them to drop some games in order to stay qualified while there's no evidence of the Northern team sandbagging. You can't really go by "this other team has better ratings why not complain about them?" when the team we're comparing them to has intentionally kept their star players ratings down. Northern's star player seems to be playing his hardest which is why you knew going into nationals he was their star player. Utah's star players didn't have the highest ratings on the team because they were hidden and the only way of knowing who they were was to have background knowledge about that team.
sure, one can look at it that way. To me though there's not much of a difference. One captain supposedly manages player's scores so he avoids disqualification. The other captain knowingly uses a player way, way above 4.0 range because _he technically can_. Because that player's ranking was not adjusted due to no rankings being released at the end of 2020 - but everybody can see he should not be playing 4.0 if one follows the spirit of the competition. That's exactly what I mean by _the way my team bends the rules is OK_ thinking.
schmke
Legend
Made a poll to see folks thoughts on what is/isn't acceptable tactics.
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
What are acceptable tactics when assembling/running a team?
In several of the threads about this year's Nationals there has been discussion of some teams and players that were clearly out of level. Many of the comments are in the 18+ 4.0M thread (https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/2021-18-4-0m-usta-league-nationals-predictions.710902/)...
tt.tennis-warehouse.com
Vox Rationis
Professional
I get what you’re saying but I think it’s disingenuous to say there’s not much difference. One method is within USTA’s intended system (he was accurately rated but improved a lot during the rating ‘year’) and one acts outside their intended system (they’re not accurately rated and hidden to avoid the system’s method for correcting out of level players).
I think the results over the last two nationals speak for themselves.
come on. How is a player with a rating over 4.0, with 14:1 record at 4.5 level, but still playing on 4.0 team as well, 'within USTA _intended_ system? Sure, he may have improved a lot during 2020 year but there's no doubt both he and the captain knew at the start of 2021 year league that he is way out of range. He was 42:5 over 2020 year playing 4.0 and 4.5 leagues and tournaments. They used a loophole 'no rating at the end of 2020 year' to technically have him play at 4.0 according to rules. Just like the other captain used a loophole 'technically that young player can self rate at 4.0, and technically he can play only 2 matches, and technically he may or may not have managed the score'.
I think we will have to disagree on that one......
GrassCourtFan
Legend
Publish a "good sportsmanship" guide for captains, similar to The Code for tennis players. Should cover stuff like "help your self-rates find the level that's best for them - and when in doubt, play them at the higher level. Give self-rates that intend to play singles several singles matches early in the season so they can find their level quickly." (similar to "if you don't see it out, call it in" for players.). You could write out guidelines for how a captain that is genuinely trying to be a good sport should handle self-rates, appeal players, computer-rated players that improved real fast, making a team.
Then, suspend captains that obviously break those. You can use human judgement on that.
I think one thing is that there isn't such a rulebook for captains? Or maybe I don't know about it, but nobody cites one. Lots of things that are reasonable for an individual player - who probably won't know the rating system well at all, is just getting started with USTA, or in general doesn't pay too much attention to ratings - are not reasonable for a captain. (If a player self-rates too low, then only plays a few matches in doubles - sure, maybe they honestly were mistaken about their level, and wanted to do some doubles. Very possible. If a captain routinely picks players that dominate their level, every year, and hides them well - not likely to be an "honest mistake").
that is excellent example. Since apparently everything was done 'by rules' but definitely not by the spirit of the rules there's not much USTA can do. In that case I think it is up to other teams' players and captains to make league play, well, uncomfortable for the offending participants.
First, teams playing in good spirit need to get together and agree on the approach. It may require giving up one season of play, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made. These days I would say public shaming, in a tactful way of course, does wonders. Few suggestions:
When you play the offending team or player you go by every single rule to the letter. You ask for score after each point to be announced loudly, sometimes twice. You check the height of the net after each set. You make sure there are singles sticks and if there are none you refuse to play. You ask for the net cord to be tightened. You warn him you will be looking for foot faults. You ask him every other point if he is sure the ball was out. You take sweet time on the changeovers. You take your time on your serve, and on the returns. You do not skimp on toweling off between points. If that happens _during every match against that team_ I think they will get the point.
Then I would also give the player and the captain an honorary award. Like before the match have your players line up, clapping, and you give that captain a starbucks gift card with a message 'to the captain for outstanding out of the box thinking making it possible for a 3 star junior player to play against overweight 40year fathers of two'. And to the player 'for extraordinary results since nothing impresses college coach/counselor more than beating up on players twice your age that were just promoted from 3.5 level.' These things get out, and I'm not sure if those juniors would be lining up to play next year.
p.s. we kind of did similar years ago when we were running a tournament for normal rec players and there was this dude signing up each year and winning with average score of 6:1 6:2. He was flirting with professional circuit when younger, and was clearly out of level. But, in his words, he has not played professionally in 5 years so he was technically eligible. He could have signed up for another category where college players (or soon to be) played - but he preferred to win at our rec level. So one year we all chipped in, bought some trophy from TJ Maxx, got all together before his first scheduled match, and handed him the trophy along with monetary award, and informed him that he won first place in a new category that was created for him 'for players exploiting loopholes to sign up for lower level category'. All while clapping, cheering, balloons, etc. He got the message.
Brian11785
Hall of Fame
I think you nailed it. A groundswell of social shame will go a lot farther to discourage shenanigans than any rule changes. At least on a micro/individual captain level.
Vox Rationis
Professional
It's in their intended system assuming he didn't tank or have to hide to get his rating. I really don't see how those comparisons make sense to you? One requires dishonesty while the other doesn't. You play honestly, you receive a rating, you try to improve and win as much as possible. What's the problem? None of your technically this or technically that bears any resemblance to a guy who plays all his matches to the best of his ability and receives an honest rating from USTA. You really have to jump through hoops to make the two situations similar. It feels like your argument just boils down to "both players are wildly out of level and are therefore both equally against the spirit of the rules regardless of the circumstances behind them being out of level" which I completely disagree with.
Agree (to disagree). We definitely view this very differently.
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