Vox Rationis
Professional
That’s my worry. It’s not like what he’s doing is hard. Will more people start going his route of finding college club players and high schoolers because they don’t want to be playing for 2nd?
2021 18+ 4.0M USTA League Nationals Predictions
- Thread starter schmke
- Start date
OMG, I had _no_ idea what is going on in USTA leagues. But that is rich indeed. So @JOGA87 comes here and complains about some _other_ team stretching the rules while he has a player on his team that is a captain of another team that has 2 star recruits graduating in 2020 and 2021 playing on his 4.0 team. Whoa. gee, there's no words left.
but what _can_ USTA do? The rules are what they are so honest folks can sign up and play. There's no way to make rules that could be applied to every case. Like - there surely are high school players that played 4 years on high school team and they are indeed 4.0 level, and not that great either. And surely there are high school players that are 5.0 level. And there are recent high school graduates that were so good that they did not even play on high school team since there was no point. How do you write a rule that would apply to all of them?
Which is why I think that captains should take a more active stand. They should be defaulting matches against such teams so USTA takes notice. Shame them publicly. Have each and every other captain file grievances. Do something.
But now I think it does not happen perhaps because many of those other captains do not have clear conscience either, that they _also_ try to skirt a rules a bit.
That TN captain didn’t contribute anything to the GA team other than offering cocaine and hookers in the sectional final to the GA team for them to lose the deciding match tie break.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Very good observation, but that's not Utah's style, that's Houston/Dallas style, win 4.0, lose 4.5 2 seasons, rinse and repeat. I'll address how I think the Utah system works so well below.Let's give props where props is due for winning nationals at least. What will be interesting to legitimize things though is, do these players move up and continue at the higher level with more average records, or do they "somehow" end up doing so bad again they end up back down, or just appeal down for the W/L stats. Two side of the coin with SR's and then sandbagging.
And now...we wait....
See above, I've got a feeling this is Utah.
Yes, I think Utah is unique because all these kids are going to have a 2 year mission and come back a little bit more "fresh" for USTA ratings. He can do this every year, get those fresh kids off of mission work. And, the Mormon community is tight night and connected, probably not going to alert the usta about what they do, keep it in house so to speak.
Wait, wait, that Georgia team that came in 2nd was the one that had the boys who played on both Georgian and TN teams?! Um, those guys were Utah level out of place at TN state playoffs. There were two teams like that, TN 4.0 was one or two weeks before TN 4.5. I looked at the records of those two 4.0 teams at 4.5, they were mostly dominant at 4.5 too. Now, that doesn't meant the Georgia team that Jog captained or played on was all bad, but why did you even accept people on your team that were probably living in Tennessee and already playing all over the place in TN usta competitions. Maybe you all are best friends, but why didn't more of the Georgia guys play TN. It's a bit strange to say the least even if you think the level of competition you played was all equal except for Utah, players playing in multiple states at 4.0 and 4.5 is a bit unusual.
If the GA team had those two boys from TN, the Utah captain would be heavily reevaluating his life right now.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Oh, they didn't play? Did they oversleep or just do TN?
Vox Rationis
Professional
No the 5.0 boys (the current division 2 HS State singles champ and the current division 1 singles runner up) were only on the TN team. They weren’t on the GA at all. But the TN captain and his partner were both on the GA team too. They didn’t play much. Interesting but not too noteworthy, IMO.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Oh, there I go over-reacting again, I'll fade back into the shadows for now. But was the TN captain (who I guess lives in TN or lives in Georgia or is trying to start a boy band made up of high school tennis players in TN?) role playing as the Utah captain with an experiment in TN, what's going on, ahhhh!?!?!
It wouldn't be noteworthy on its own. But combined with the fact that GA team had players that appealed down to play at 4.0, and pretty much all 3 doubles lines were close to unbeatable, the fact that they had players on their team that surely do not conduct USTA league business in fair fashion speaks volumes.... I suppose I would file it under 'guilty by association'....
it all seems to be pointing down to - 'it's unfair only if the _other_ team does XYZ'
The second best player that TN team had just fooled with the opponent in the one match I watched. His opponent was a clear 4.5 and still could do nothing against him. He was hitting volleys in between his legs for fun.
The worst thing though was watching him miss two tweeners. It really rubbed the salt in my wound that a 3.5 hit a tweener on me the day prior.
I do not understand your frustration. Clearly USTA expects 3.5 players to hit tweeners. They even feature them in promotional materials. From https://www.usta.com/en/home/stay-c...8---over-3-5-usta-league-nationals-recap.html
and that was 2 years ago. Now 3.5 players hit tweeners for winners.....
Since the USTA says a player who could be competitive at either of two levels should self-rate at the higher level, it wouldn't be a stretch for the USTA to forbid self-rated players from playing in the playoffs (or maybe just from playing at sectionals and nationals). Players who can help a team win at sectionals or nationals should have self-rated at a higher level. More generally, I view USTA playoffs as a carrot to encourage players to try to improve their games. I think it's reasonable for C-rated players who improved a lot to still play in the playoffs, where they would compete against other C-rated players who improved a lot. At least that's a level playing field. But C-rated players simply can't compete against S-rated players who rated incorrectly. And I understand that if S-rated players were forbidden from the final rounds of playoffs then there would be some captains who would try to get players on a two-year plan, by tanking matches one year to lock in a C-rating that can be exploited the next year; but that requires more effort than the current system, and I think fewer players would go for that.
sure, of course, any honest player would do that. But the idea of ' a player who could be competitive at either of two levels should self-rate at the higher level' cannot work since who is to judge if a given player could be competitive at a higher level? The said player - that's who.
So indeed the solution _could_ be to not allow self rated players to play at maybe Sectional and National. But that would mean that honest players that did rate correctly cannot play either. Which I suppose would have detrimental effect to the overall goal - have people sign up for a league play and have fun and play.
If I played such way out of level junior player I would literally ask him during a changeover for an email to his tennis coach, and prospective/current college coach/counselor so, you know, I can sent a message prizing the said junior on beating overweight grownup fathers at 4.0 level. And if he wouldn't give it to me I would say 'that's cool, I'm sure I can figure out what the email is myself'. At least give him something to think about.
I think it's simpler than that. Every team that qualifies for Nationals undergoes a total team rating review. If any players would be DQ'd, the team forfeits it's spot and the runner up takes their place at Nationals. Teams know all they have to do is manage UNTIL Nationals because there are no consequences. Well, DQ'ing the whole team would be a consequence .....
A player who made an honest mistake in self-rating is still a player who self-rated incorrectly, and hence should not play at sectionals or nationals against C-rated players. All the USTA needs to do is clarify in advance that their self-rate questionnaire cannot accurately assess the level of all players, so in addition to requesting that players play at the highest level where they can be competitive, the USTA has a firm rule that self-rated players cannot play at sectionals or nationals, since in those situations the self-rated player should have self-rated at a higher level. If you tell this to players when they sign up, then there wouldn't be any hurt feelings later.
It really depends on what you perceive to be the goal of USTA leagues. If the sole goal is for the USTA to make money, then it might make sense to attract more people into the system with the prospect of winning a national championship in their self-rate year, and hope that several of these players stick around in USTA leagues afterwards. If the goal is to encourage people to improve their tennis games, then the playoffs should be for C-rated players.
schmke
Legend
The simple answer is to tighten up the thresholds for strikes. When a player has to be closer to a double bump than the level they are playing at to get a strike, the situation we see happens.
Is that threshold really that high? I had no idea. I was thinking a threshold is at like +0.15 above the the level maybe (i.e. if your match results in match-ranking of 4.15, and you play at 4.0 then it is a strike)
oh sure, that I agree with. I've read your earlier post where you stated "it wouldn't be a stretch for the USTA to forbid self-rated players from playing in the playoffs (or maybe just from playing at sectionals and nationals)." as not allowing _any_ self rated players in the playoff. Even the ones that self-rated correctly and are within a rated level.
schmke
Legend
Depends on the level. Lower levels the threshold is higher. But even at 4.5, while I don't think you have to be closer to a 5.5 than a 4.5, there is still ample room and arguably too much room.
First draft of a proposal I am planning to submit:
Explanation of Problem
In recent years, captains have exploited the lack of any USTA-imposed limitation on self-rated (“S”) or appeal-down (“A”) players to load up on such players, to a degree that makes it feel like teams that were constructed organically cannot compete with these engineered super-teams. This was egregiously evident at the 4.0 men’s Nationals this year, where the winners of the two events had the following number of S- or A-rated players:
Reasons for Change
For many, the allure of playing in USTA leagues is the chance to compete against players within your general skill level. It’s understood that the NTRP ratings are not perfect, but does provide a reasonable framework in which teams can compete at a local, Regional, Sectional, and National level amongst their athletic peers. The USTA has done an amazing job of creating a structure where teams from each of the 17 Sections can compete with each other and feel like they have a realistic chance of prevailing.
Yet when the layers are peeled back and the noise is filtered, it becomes very apparent that the deck is stacked against most teams. The single most reliable factor in predicting a National champion is the number of S- or A-rated players on the roster. That’s it. For 18+ 4.0M, the arithmetic mean for the number of S- or A-rated players was three…. The number of such players for the four semifinalists? Seven, nine, 12, and 13!
Some captains are making a mockery of the rating system by filling their rosters with out-of-level S- and A-rated players, simply because the USTA has not proscribed a limit on such players. These captains are not to blame because they are not breaking any rules, but they helped make it clear that limits need to be put in place in order to restore competitive balance.
Limits on S- and A-rated players are not without precedent. For years, the TriLevel Nationals has adopted a rule that excludes S- and A-rated players completely from that invitational tournament. Presumably, the organizers did not want to see a tournament featuring the biggest sandbaggers, and felt the Nationals experience would be better preserved by allowing only computer-rated players to participate.
We do not want to stifle the growth of the sport or discourage new players from joining USTA leagues, so completely excluding S- and A-rated players from postseason would be too extreme. However, a limit of three S- and A-rated players who are eligible for postseason could be a reasonable compromise. (Under such a rule, a team could have more such players on the roster, but the captain would have to designate up to three that could participate in postseason play.)
Effective for 2022, USTA will require S- and A-rated players to play in a minimum of four matches for a team to be eligible to play at Nationals. While that is a good rule intended to allow more opportunity for the dynamic disqualification process to work, real life experience tells us that captains and players are sophisticated and motivated enough to meet this threshold without any problem. Let’s take a look at the 40-and-over 4.0 men’s champions from this October, and track how many matches each of their S- and A-rated players who participated in the semifinals or finals played in this season: 15, 13, 12, 11, 10, and 10 matches.
You can understand why captains seeking this rule change capping the number of S- and A-rated players have no confidence that the four-match requirement for Nationals eligibility of S- and A-rated players in 2022 will accomplish anything to prevent a recurring theme of teams loading up on such players.
Recommendation
Limit the number of self-rated (“S”) or appeal-down (“A”) players eligible for postseason to three per team.
Explanation of Problem
In recent years, captains have exploited the lack of any USTA-imposed limitation on self-rated (“S”) or appeal-down (“A”) players to load up on such players, to a degree that makes it feel like teams that were constructed organically cannot compete with these engineered super-teams. This was egregiously evident at the 4.0 men’s Nationals this year, where the winners of the two events had the following number of S- or A-rated players:
- 40-and-over 4.0M champion: 13
- 18-and-over 4.0M champions: 14
Reasons for Change
For many, the allure of playing in USTA leagues is the chance to compete against players within your general skill level. It’s understood that the NTRP ratings are not perfect, but does provide a reasonable framework in which teams can compete at a local, Regional, Sectional, and National level amongst their athletic peers. The USTA has done an amazing job of creating a structure where teams from each of the 17 Sections can compete with each other and feel like they have a realistic chance of prevailing.
Yet when the layers are peeled back and the noise is filtered, it becomes very apparent that the deck is stacked against most teams. The single most reliable factor in predicting a National champion is the number of S- or A-rated players on the roster. That’s it. For 18+ 4.0M, the arithmetic mean for the number of S- or A-rated players was three…. The number of such players for the four semifinalists? Seven, nine, 12, and 13!
Some captains are making a mockery of the rating system by filling their rosters with out-of-level S- and A-rated players, simply because the USTA has not proscribed a limit on such players. These captains are not to blame because they are not breaking any rules, but they helped make it clear that limits need to be put in place in order to restore competitive balance.
Limits on S- and A-rated players are not without precedent. For years, the TriLevel Nationals has adopted a rule that excludes S- and A-rated players completely from that invitational tournament. Presumably, the organizers did not want to see a tournament featuring the biggest sandbaggers, and felt the Nationals experience would be better preserved by allowing only computer-rated players to participate.
We do not want to stifle the growth of the sport or discourage new players from joining USTA leagues, so completely excluding S- and A-rated players from postseason would be too extreme. However, a limit of three S- and A-rated players who are eligible for postseason could be a reasonable compromise. (Under such a rule, a team could have more such players on the roster, but the captain would have to designate up to three that could participate in postseason play.)
Effective for 2022, USTA will require S- and A-rated players to play in a minimum of four matches for a team to be eligible to play at Nationals. While that is a good rule intended to allow more opportunity for the dynamic disqualification process to work, real life experience tells us that captains and players are sophisticated and motivated enough to meet this threshold without any problem. Let’s take a look at the 40-and-over 4.0 men’s champions from this October, and track how many matches each of their S- and A-rated players who participated in the semifinals or finals played in this season: 15, 13, 12, 11, 10, and 10 matches.
You can understand why captains seeking this rule change capping the number of S- and A-rated players have no confidence that the four-match requirement for Nationals eligibility of S- and A-rated players in 2022 will accomplish anything to prevent a recurring theme of teams loading up on such players.
Recommendation
Limit the number of self-rated (“S”) or appeal-down (“A”) players eligible for postseason to three per team.
Wouldn't limiting the numbers of S and A players going to post season play just encourage captains to really manage these players ratings? It would also incentivize them to pick up even more out of level players so they could guarantee a win on the 4 court format (Singles and One Doubles Line) or come close on the 5 court format (2 singles lines and 1/2 Doubles line)
Hmmmm, I'm not sure how to find on TennisLink. I just used the USTA app, which shows the type of rating a player has, but I know the app is available only for the iOS platform.
schmke
Legend
On TennisLink, the USTA League tab there is a section "Find NTRP Rating Info". Put a name in there and search.
This is excellent and I would absolutely send it.
That being said, I sent something similar (although not nearly as thorough) and heard crickets. If you notice in their feedback it always cites that it must somehow ultimately “grow the game”. I.e. increase revenues. I think that’s how they overlook these things. At days end, they want to do whatever generates the most revenue, not necessarily what makes sense.
One of my teammates had emailed a similar recommendation, and received this reply:
"Self rates are always a topic that the League Committee is discussing, in a normal year we are confident that the 4 match requirement for Self rated players will help rectify some of the concerns around self rates at Nationals in 2022."
Which is why I wanted to show how many matches the self-rated/appealed players for the 40+ 4.0M champions actually played, and that the 4-match requirement hardly seemed like a detriment to teams like the ones we are complaining about.
Not sure I follow. Aren't captains already managing S- and A-rated players ratings under the current system? It seems better to have that happen for up to three such players, than for 14, no?
There is a big difference between S and A. A rated players played a full year and got a rating that is within a whisker of either getting bumped down organically or not getting bumped up. I don't see a problem with letting these players compete. If it's an A rating because the players are throwing matches at the higher level or managing scores to get within the appeal range, those players are cheaters, which is a problem that has no solution yet, but people who are allowed to appeal because they are very close to the threshold after playing a full season fairly are not really out of level and are not the people who you see and say man, that player really shouldn't be at that level. I am very familiar with the Middle States 40+ team. Most of the A rated players fall into this category: Bosch, Bowers, Dratch, Grosso, Miller, Sassa, and Siegal are all players like that. If you watch any of them, they look like nothing better than really good 4.0s (which is of course an overlap with low level 4.5s). Pascale is a guy who is a legit 4.5 who got down into the appeal range by some strange algorithm anomaly, but he is not a ratings manager and continued to play 4.5 this year as well (he didn't play at 4.0 sectionals or nationals anyway). The problem with the MS team is definitely not the A rates.
Why would that be too extreme?
I'd be interested in knowing the following statistics - maybe someone has the numbers:
What percentage of total players currently get to participate in the postseason?
What percentage of total players currently get to participate in Nationals?
Maybe 20%-25%, and 1% respectively?
Basically, I don't think excluding S / A players from participating beyond some point in the postseason is going to discourage new players from joining. At least not honest ones!
I completely agree. As an example, it's crazy that the Middle West ringer didn't get 3 strikes after nationals, when at sectionals his game scores (all singles) were 12-5, 12-1, 12-3, 12-4, and in his first four matches at nationals his game scores (again all singles) were 12-7, 12-4, 12-3, 12-2. I think most people would agree that those scores, against top-level 4.0 opponents, clearly indicate that the guy doesn't belong at 4.0. But the USTA's system doesn't see things that way.
The problem is the the line drawing. Is this really what we want out of a handicapped competition? That you need 7 appeal down players to win a national championship?
From my personal experience, where I've had dozens of friends/neighbors join USTA over the past six years, the allure of playing on a team that advances deep into postseason was a driving factor into them joining USTA and participating in league play. If they were barred from playing postseason, I doubt they'd put in the effort.
And, these honest appeal-down players wouldn't be barred from playing at 4.0 level....just not with more than two other such players on the same team.
The team had other S rates, too. My point was just about the A rates. The Middle States team won on depth anyway. They didn't really have players who were ridiculously out of level and didn't rely on 2 or 3 massively underrated players to carry them. They had a full roster of guys who were borderline 4.0/4.5 and could roll out 2 or 3 full lineups of solid players so that they never worried about availability. Their two biggest "ringers" on their roster didn't even play in the playoffs. They were not really comparable to the Utah team. It's harder to get ridiculous ringers in 40+ anyway. Most of them (like Utah) are going to be kids new to USTA.
If S-rated players weren't in the playoffs, then the competition would be among players who had earned a computer rating of at most 4.05. Since the USTA's ratings algorithm has a large margin for error, one can't have much confidence that a 4.05-rated player is actually better than a 4.00-rated player. It seems kind of random to use an algorithm with a big margin for error, and then make decisions based on specific values output by the algorithm, rather than based on a range of values that takes into account the margin for error of the algorithm.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
It's always good to reflect on personal experience, but being connected to the Dallas area which is one of the few places that had increases in usta league participation over the past year, I think it was 1,000 new league players in 2020-2021, they aren't joining to go to playoffs in particular. That's mostly because an average of 328 people are moving to this monster metroplex every freaking day, when will it stop, never I guess.
First, writing letters is more than I will do, so I can't fault anyone for trying, but here is the reality of what happens to letters....
A person at the USTA reads them, a person that may or may not play tennis, a person that works a lot of hours for not a lot of pay, and a person who is busy doing scheduling, preparing marketing, meetings, coordinating all the sectionals and yada yada. The letters will be read, the pre-written for them response by their boss will be sent out in response. It will be discussed at a meeting, in general. Most of the meeting will be spent on increasing participation or planning. Not much will change.
The amount of work it would take to implement change would be hard to calculate, but it would take, first off, people in every section of the USTA getting elected to your local competition/captains committee groups, believe me, it takes a ton of time and effort. We once tried to do it to get matches scheduled later in the day instead of early every weekend, had to get 5-6 people elected to a special board to just do that. And these committees will involve female leaders trying to change things for their leagues and mixed, it's a lot more complicated than a letter to national USTA. And we were just trying to change things for Dallas only!
This is just a line drawing issue as well. It's all arbitrary. If we allow a 4.05 player to appeal, with the large margin of error there is no guarantee the 4.10 or 4.15 player is better than the 4.05 player. So why don't we allow all three players to appeal?
Interesting, my personal experience is quite different. Most people I know who joined USTA did it because they wanted the league experience - the opportunity to play in weekly matches against similarly skilled competition. I.e., their interest was mostly in the regular season.
I don't doubt your experience, but I find it strange that new players would be motivated by deep postseason advancement, when overall only a small percentage of league players actually get that far.
Also, how are all these new players already so close to the top of their level so as to be accepted onto a team with deep playoff aspirations? Surely the majority of new players are *not* at top of level, unless they self rated too low?
Because the USTA has decided that the margin for error in their algorithm is 0.05 either way. And one would hope that that isn't some arbitrarily chosen number, but that in fact they had some good reason for coming up with 0.05 as the error bound.
My situation might be the exception, but to expound: (1) My wife and I captain a lot of teams, most of which have realistic aspirations of winning the local league, so it's easy to add on one or two friends who want to get in on the experience. (2) If you're decently athletic and devote the hours/week on tennis match play and/or lessons like we do, it's easy to improve rapidly enough to outperform your initial self-rating to get to the top of that level, particularly if you self rated in the summer and can keep your self-rating for basically 1.5 years.
Interestingly, when I first self-rated (not knowing anything about USTA leagues and just going off the NTRP descriptions), I apparently self-rated too high as a 4.0 and didn't get picked up by any captains the entire year. In fact, a poker buddy of mine who has been involved with USTA commented that he thought 4.0 was too high....but he'd never seen me play, and I ignored his comment. Now, when new players are on the fence about what to self rate as, I suggest they choose the lower of the two and enjoy a successful first year of league play.
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In theory, if the error were the other way, and they let a 4.15 caliber player slide by on an appeal with a 4.05 rating, that player would be at risk of DQ, barring intentional "ratings management". The A rating is kind of a compromise: "yes, we'll take your word that you should be allowed to play lower, but if we're wrong, you're subject to DQs, unlike regular C-rated players".
I always suggest rating lower and playing at the level you intended. In other words, if you want to play 4.0, rate 3.5 and play 4.0. If in your first 2 4.0 matches, you get absolutely smoked in non-competitive matches, you can always fall right back to 3.5, but only if you rated there in the first place.
ChaelAZ
G.O.A.T.
I mentioned this earlier, that really it is the personal choice to want the winning record and to continue being at the top of a lower division than moving up to the chellenge of the high level, and more than likely a losing record. I don't understand it either peronsally, but I think that is the crux of it.
I wasn't sure if it would be helpful to include this language addressing why it is harmful to allow such super-teams to form:
Since there is currently no cap on the number of S- or A-rated players, captains that want to compete for a National title will have to adopt that winning formula…which I believe will be a detriment to the overall health of USTA leagues for many reasons, including:
- Orchestrated super-teams create imbalance that sucks the joy out of local competition. I posit that local league participation suffers when there is an obviously-stacked team. Players who are on the fence about joining a league may opt out when they realize they would merely be fodder for a super-team, decreasing league participation and revenue.
- The dynamic ratings and strike system in place, while necessary, creates perverse incentives for players and captains to put in less than their best efforts, which is antithetical to the tenets of competition. When a majority of the team is comprised of S- or A-rated players, it can easily become normalized for players on such teams to feel pressured to act in a way to avoid jeopardizing the team’s goals.
I'm sorry, I do not see it that way. When you have a team where a number of A rated players outnumbers C rated players by like close to10:1 ratio (at least counting those that actually played in the playoff rounds) then that is part of a problem too. Sure, each one of those A rated is 'just a hair' over the threshold. Collectively though they make that entire team way out of a normal/top 4.0 level team.
I don't know these players personally, so will have to take your word that these A-rated players are not out-of-level. But here's what I think:
(1) This Middle States team beat the Intermountain team (a team that boasted 12 S- or A-rated players) in the 40+ 4.0 semifinals...and this team WON Nationals, so it seems incongruous to equate a team full of A-rated players as less offensive than a team full of S-rated players.
(2) Players at the very top of a rating typically do well enough at the next level when they get promoted, based on my experience with top 3.5 level guys and how they've fared at 4.0. I've seen how difficult it is for these players to get their ratings low enough to appeal down, and I'm extrapolating to the 4.0/4.5 level, that it takes "work" to get your rating low enough to appeal down.
(3) It seems suspicious that seven such players ended up getting their appeals granted and playing for the same team...seems orchestrated and likely that they didn't give their best efforts in 4.5 league.
(4) A lady from the 40+ Middle States 4.0W team told me that this was the fourth time the core of the Middle States 4.0M team has made Nationals (which explains the gigantic "4X" emblazened on their team shirts). Something doesn't smell right.
I don’t get how going to nationals isnt a disqualifier for many of these self rates and appeal downs. Like you went to nationals. Decent chance you were playing out of level, or bare minimum need to be bumped for the following year. It’s completely absurd these same people are going to the post season annually and magically staying at the same level. Might be a bit of a tell. Working matches won into the algorithm is also going to solve a lot of this rating management by the people that aren’t A and S designations.
