2025 USTA League Nationals match schedules are out

[silverwyvern4]

Can anyone report their experiences with the new camera line call challenges they introduced at nationals last weekend?

 

[the_faceless_player]

Can anyone report their experiences with the new camera line call challenges they introduced at nationals last weekend?

I said this before about it at 4.5 Nationals:

They had it in Surprise for 4.5 last weekend. No live line calling, it is for challenges only. My team lost a match when an out call was overturned on a challenge. There were varying opinions on it. Sometimes the kiosks didn't work, people felt the marks on the court didn't match the system's call, etc. For the most part it seemed to be popular though. It didn't impede the pace of play or anything, most people seemed to reserve using it for a crucial point or something they were super confident in.

 

[GrassCourtFan]

This is a masterclass. Their self rates all played the minimum. All went 0-4 or worse (their self rates were 0-13) in local and districts. Their team lost their local flight.

All dominated at nationals, many bagels delivered.

The team went 6-0 at nationals. Went 27-3 on courts including in semis (4-1) and finals (5-0).

Lmao. Yeah, when compared to this level of tanking, "guy picks up self rates that are out of level but doesn't ask them to throw matches" feels downright honest.

 

[Quad Fault]

.

 

[m_rights]

I said this before about it at 4.5 Nationals:

They had it in Surprise for 4.5 last weekend. No live line calling, it is for challenges only. My team lost a match when an out call was overturned on a challenge. There were varying opinions on it. Sometimes the kiosks didn't work, people felt the marks on the court didn't match the system's call, etc. For the most part it seemed to be popular though. It didn't impede the pace of play or anything, most people seemed to reserve using it for a crucial point or something they were super confident in.

neat, I hadn't heard about this. what was the name of the company that implemented it?

 

[the_faceless_player]

neat, I hadn't heard about this. what was the name of the company that implemented it?

Play Replay

 

[FuzzyYellowBalls]

You guys need to realize what it's like in the Delta, lol, Mississippi (Jackson is more sneaky and a bubble to its own form of sandbagging) and other rural areas. Sometimes you can just form a team and be at sectionals automatically without a season (combo, tri level, hell even individual natuonals just entrr 2 tournaments and lose but still go), they grab players from all over, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes for shady fun. There are alot of juco players tok that dabble sometimes. But most of all, it's a combo of boredom, what else is there to do for the youth in small towns and lack of oversight, no one really cares that much.

I only say the boredom part because sometimes really good tennis players end up at home in the rural south, maybe a break from school or juco for education for a year so they call up their buddies and fart around in usta or an old captain does. There will be more distraction for people that age in a big city and travell9bg to sectionals or nationals won't be a really cool vacation weekend.

 

[Lord Of The Strings]

You guys need to realize what it's like in the Delta, lol, Mississippi (Jackson is more sneaky and a bubble to its own form of sandbagging) and other rural areas. Sometimes you can just form a team and be at sectionals automatically without a season (combo, tri level, hell even individual natuonals just entrr 2 tournaments and lose but still go), they grab players from all over, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes for shady fun. There are alot of juco players tok that dabble sometimes. But most of all, it's a combo of boredom, what else is there to do for the youth in small towns and lack of oversight, no one really cares that much.

I only say the boredom part because sometimes really good tennis players end up at home in the rural south, maybe a break from school or juco for education for a year so they call up their buddies and fart around in usta or an old captain does. There will be more distraction for people that age in a big city and travell9bg to sectionals or nationals won't be a really cool vacation weekend.

the insane variety of team journeys you see at Southern sectionals is hilarious. You have teams that formed and almost went straight to Sectionals and then you have teams from places like NC and GA who had 12 team local leagues, a local league playoff, then had to win a 10-team district (State) tournament just to make it...and it doesn't matter b/c every match will be decided by one court in a 3rd set breaker...always. lol.

 

[J_R_B]

Thank You for your questions. Several people had similar questions. I’ll answer them, and then I need to move on to focus on other things:

Question 1: In general, I’m really surprised this forum is so negative about self-rated players. Self-rated players are the life blood of the USTA leagues. Self-rated players are how USTA league tennis grows. With Pickleball taking over our tennis courts, and tennis players switching over to Pickleball…we really need self-rated players badly! We shouldn’t shun them, or be “embarrassed” about them, we should embrace them!

Can anyone think of another way that USTA league tennis can grow other than by self-rated players? We need to consider the bigger picture: if the USTA League starts shrinking down, it will lose energy and momentum, and that is the formula for a downward spiral.

So if other captains look at me and my teams, and believe that self-rated players are the way to victory, then great! Recruit, recruit, recruit! We need tennis to grow! I’ll say it again…self-rated players are the ONLY way we have growth in the USTA leagues. We need more self-rated players--not less.

I really do hope that other captains look at my teams and believe that self-rated players are the only path to winning championships…so that they will go out and recruit more new players to the USTA leagues! But in reality, it's a combination of "training and match play" that creates successful players. Take for example AM, who was one of my best players from my last year's 2024 team. Before I met him, he had played for another USTA league team, 2 years previous, as a self-rated 4.0S player. He had been a very strong high school player, and had competed in state championships. But that captain/team didn't do much with him, and so at the end of the year, he received a 4.0C computer rating. 2 years later, I noticed that he was not playing on any team, so I recruited him to my team. In my program, with hard work and training, I got him up to mid-level 4.5 by Nationals. This clearly demonstrates that being a self-rated player alone is not the key to winning championships. Hard work and training is the key.

However, another reason I like self-rated players is simple economics: Most of my players get moved up to 4.5 after Nationals every year. So for the following year, in order to have a team, I have two choices—recruit players from other teams, and have the captains mad at me…or recruit self-rated players. What would you do? Would you poach good computer rated players from other teams? Or would you recruit new self-rated players? That’s the pickle I’m in every year. I tend to look for a reasonable balance.

Finally—I tend to prefer larger teams. Frequently, there are injuries, work obligations, family obligations, and other conflicts that prevent players from making it to Nationals. So I need to recruit extra players, including self-rated players. Of the 7 self-rated players that I had this year—only 4 of them made it to Nationals due to injuries. Of my two appeal-rated players, only one of them (the 60 year old) made it to Nationals. The other one had a last minute health issue. So you can see why I have so many players to start with.

Question 2: Yes, when I recruit a self-rated player, I always know they are self-rated. I know we are going to be "under a microscope", so I research their backgrounds for hours to make sure they legitimately qualify to be at the 4.0 level before I invite them to be on the team. I advise them to answer each and every self-rating question 100% honestly and accurately and not to diminish their tennis experience in any way. I don’t want to deal with any legitimate grievances filed against them later, because they didn’t self-rate accurately. For the record, I typically end up passing on about half of the players I set out to recruit, because I find out they need to self-rate at the 4.5 level. I have a whole list of guys I could not recruit to my 4.0 team this past year, who I plan to reach out to for my 4.5 team next year.

Question 3: Yes, I am reasonably certain that all my 7 self-rated players started within 4.0 level and progressed throughout the year to reach into the 4.5 level. How do I know this?... Because at the beginning of the year, they played together with a group of other players with established ratings, so my app was able to triangulate, and give me the approximate rating of each of the 7 self-rated players. So compared with all the other established computer rated players, I know my self-rated players legitimately started inside the 4.0 level. You also mentioned: “low level 4.0 players”. None of my players were “low level" 4.0 players. I try to recruit players between mid 4.0 level and upper 4.0 level, otherwise, there’s not enough time to train them up high enough to be ready to compete at Nationals.

Question 4: Both of my 4.0A appeal-rated players were auto appeals. They clicked the button and were granted appeals down to 4.0. One was age 55 and the other was age 60. If the USTA grants them an appeal to play at the 4.0 level, I have no problem with it.

In summary: Captains, if you believe that self-rated players give a team an advantage, then PLEASE go out and recruit some self-rated players for your own teams. The USTA needs self-rated players to grow the game of tennis in our communities!

Self-rated players in and of themselves aren't the problem, intentionally underrating self-rated players, sometimes by multiple levels, is. Everything you've said is a bunch of bullchit. I haven't looked at this year's roster in detail, but in the past, you've had state champions, ranked juniors, and players self-advertising as 5.0. In other words, players you knew damn well were way above 4.0 level when they started your magical training regimen. Congrats, you are the US Postal of rec tennis.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Self-rated players in and of themselves aren't the problem, intentionally underrating self-rated players, sometimes by multiple levels, is.

Sure multiple levels is a problem. But by and large the problem has to do with USTA having a poor rating system as well. There are plenty of people that start the year out and should be at the next level. When a captain sees these guys who have a X.XXC rating then anyone worse or the same as them will be S rated the same or lower. I mean why would you rate a self rate higher then your best C rated player when they are equal to or weaker then your best C rated player?

Thank You for your questions. Several people had similar questions. I’ll answer them, and then I need to move on to focus on other things:

Question 1: In general, I’m really surprised this forum is so negative about self-rated players. Self-rated players are the life blood of the USTA leagues. Self-rated players are how USTA league tennis grows. With Pickleball taking over our tennis courts, and tennis players switching over to Pickleball…we really need self-rated players badly! We shouldn’t shun them, or be “embarrassed” about them, we should embrace them!

Can anyone think of another way that USTA league tennis can grow other than by self-rated players?

Yes.

We need to consider the bigger picture: if the USTA League starts shrinking down, it will lose energy and momentum, and that is the formula for a downward spiral.

It seems to be doing that already. The number of men playing tennis is growing but the number of men playing league tennis not so much.

So if other captains look at me and my teams, and believe that self-rated players are the way to victory, then great! Recruit, recruit, recruit! We need tennis to grow! I’ll say it again…self-rated players are the ONLY way we have growth in the USTA leagues.

You can keep saying that but that does not make it true. The self rate system is a joke.

We need more self-rated players--not less.

I really do hope that other captains look at my teams and believe that self-rated players are the only path to winning championships…so that they will go out and recruit more new players to the USTA leagues!

LOL. Yeah good idea all the C rated players can then sit out 2-3 years so they can "self rate" a level lower and be competitive. Great idea!

But in reality, it's a combination of "training and match play" that creates successful players.

Not so much. It is much more about recruiting self rated and Appeal players as well as others right at the edge of the level or higher. And then positioning the S rates in line ups so their rating doesn't skyrocket.

Take for example AM, who was one of my best players from my last year's 2024 team. Before I met him, he had played for another USTA league team, 2 years previous, as a self-rated 4.0S player. He had been a very strong high school player, and had competed in state championships. But that captain/team didn't do much with him, and so at the end of the year, he received a 4.0C computer rating. 2 years later, I noticed that he was not playing on any team, so I recruited him to my team. In my program, with hard work and training, I got him up to mid-level 4.5 by Nationals.

If he improved it was his own hard work - not your's. This is rec tennis so most players will decide on their own how much time they will spend on tennis.

This clearly demonstrates that being a self-rated player alone is not the key to winning championships. Hard work and training is the key.

You are going to talk about one guy as though it proves something? Seriously take a whole team of well established C rated players and win nationals. Then talk about proof until then I don't think many people are buying it.

However, another reason I like self-rated players is simple economics: Most of my players get moved up to 4.5 after Nationals every year. So for the following year, in order to have a team, I have two choices—recruit players from other teams, and have the captains mad at me…or recruit self-rated players. What would you do? Would you poach good computer rated players from other teams? Or would you recruit new self-rated players? That’s the pickle I’m in every year. I tend to look for a reasonable balance.

Finally—I tend to prefer larger teams. Frequently, there are injuries, work obligations, family obligations, and other conflicts that prevent players from making it to Nationals. So I need to recruit extra players, including self-rated players. Of the 7 self-rated players that I had this year—only 4 of them made it to Nationals due to injuries. Of my two appeal-rated players, only one of them (the 60 year old) made it to Nationals. The other one had a last minute health issue. So you can see why I have so many players to start with.

Question 2: Yes, when I recruit a self-rated player, I always know they are self-rated. I know we are going to be "under a microscope", so I research their backgrounds for hours to make sure they legitimately qualify to be at the 4.0 level before I invite them to be on the team. I advise them to answer each and every self-rating question 100% honestly and accurately and not to diminish their tennis experience in any way. I don’t want to deal with any legitimate grievances filed against them later, because they didn’t self-rate accurately. For the record, I typically end up passing on about half of the players I set out to recruit, because I find out they need to self-rate at the 4.5 level. I have a whole list of guys I could not recruit to my 4.0 team this past year, who I plan to reach out to for my 4.5 team next year.

This just shows USTA is only for people who live in very densely packed Tennis areas. You need to have lots of potential self rates that you can place on a team.

Question 3: Yes, I am reasonably certain that all my 7 self-rated players started within 4.0 level and progressed throughout the year to reach into the 4.5 level. How do I know this?... Because at the beginning of the year, they played together with a group of other players with established ratings, so my app was able to triangulate, and give me the approximate rating of each of the 7 self-rated players.

I would like to see all of this data for all 7 players. Who specifically did they play and what were the match scores? None of them had any performance ratings in any matches above 4.0?

 

[Moon Shooter]

This clearly demonstrates that being a self-rated player alone is not the key to winning championships. Hard work and training is the key.

Do you think having an S after your rating means you will be able to work harder and train harder? If not then you should have just as high a percentage of C rated players bumped up at year end as S rated players. Is that the case? If you have a larger percentage of S rated players on your teams over the past years that are bumped up compared to the C rated players then I think people will be justified in calling bologna sausage on your claims.

 

[LetsFGo]

I'd counter that critics shouldn't get distracted by name-calling and instead call for solutions to the situation they are criticizing. Calling someone a cheater without real evidence of a broken rule doesn't solve anything, other than perhaps feeling satisfying to the name-caller. If we don't want self-rates to be key players on national championship teams, there are plenty of ways USTA could act to change that situation.

Respectfully, I disagree. I'm not going to expend much energy advocating for USTA regulation reforms because #1) I know the USTA doesn't care and #2) there's always a way to cheat around any new regulation, and cheating is exactly what the cheater captains of the Utah men's teams will do, because they're cheaters.

Conversely, I do think that critics should name-call and call out cheaters explicitly. When you take a breath and step back and look at the USTA experience, 95% of people aren't cheating. Why is that? It's not the USTA regulations so much. It's some combination of A) self-respect, B) being raised right, and C) the embarrassment of public shaming, having your peers eyes on you and knowing that they can see your sandbagging, your BS self-rates, etc.

95% of us are wired to play fair thanks to some combination of A, B, and C. For the 5% who are cheaters, there's nothing that's gonna be done about A and B, but C is a powerful and important force that shouldn't be underestimated. It may not be super effective on the captains directly, but maybe it can be on the players choosing to join their team or not. I know I wouldn't want to show my face around my town if I was a player on a known and called-out cheater's teams.

Year after year these captains are recruiting self-rates who are way above level and coaching them to throw games in the regular season so as to avoid strikes. It's each person's choice whether to put on a smiley face about it and ignore it, or to confront it. Public shaming is an important tool in many facets of life, and there's no reason for it to be any different in adult rec tennis to let these dirty rotten cheaters off the hook.

 

[Creighton]

I've always thought it takes an incredible amount of cheating to win nationals. I didn't quite grasp how much it really took though.

This was the first year I've been on a team that made nationals. So I know the players very well.

We played two 7.5 pairs (4.0 guy/3.5 ladies) at 6.0 and we still didn't win nationals. Unbelievable.

 

[unexpected]

I've always thought it takes an incredible amount of cheating to win nationals. I didn't quite grasp how much it really took though.

This was the first year I've been on a team that made nationals. So I know the players very well.

We played two 7.5 pairs (4.0 guy/3.5 ladies) at 6.0 and we still didn't win nationals. Unbelievable.

So you are saying that you cheated, but some teams cheated more, so they're terrible, but your team is copacetic?

 

[TennisOTM]

Respectfully, I disagree. I'm not going to expend much energy advocating for USTA regulation reforms because #1) I know the USTA doesn't care and #2) there's always a way to cheat around any new regulation, and cheating is exactly what the cheater captains of the Utah men's teams will do, because they're cheaters.

Conversely, I do think that critics should name-call and call out cheaters explicitly. When you take a breath and step back and look at the USTA experience, 95% of people aren't cheating. Why is that? It's not the USTA regulations so much. It's some combination of A) self-respect, B) being raised right, and C) the embarrassment of public shaming, having your peers eyes on you and knowing that they can see your sandbagging, your BS self-rates, etc.

95% of us are wired to play fair thanks to some combination of A, B, and C. For the 5% who are cheaters, there's nothing that's gonna be done about A and B, but C is a powerful and important force that shouldn't be underestimated. It may not be super effective on the captains directly, but maybe it can be on the players choosing to join their team or not. I know I wouldn't want to show my face around my town if I was a player on a known and called-out cheater's teams.

Year after year these captains are recruiting self-rates who are way above level and coaching them to throw games in the regular season so as to avoid strikes. It's each person's choice whether to put on a smiley face about it and ignore it, or to confront it. Public shaming is an important tool in many facets of life, and there's no reason for it to be any different in adult rec tennis to let these dirty rotten cheaters off the hook.

It's certainly possible that fear of public shaming is a reason that we don't have even more captains who put great effort into creating super teams that push the boundaries of the rules. I personally doubt that that's true, but I have no way of proving it.

There's an analogy to strategic games that maybe helps make my point. The very best board/card games are ones that allow for an array of complicated strategic moves and counter-moves, but also have a well-written set of rules that constrain what moves are allowed in a way that makes the game competitive and fun. If a player discovers a strategy that doesn't break a written rule, or can't be proven to break a written rule, and which makes the game non-competitive and annoying to play, then that's a problem that needs to be solved.

The gaming world might call that a broken rule, or maybe it's an over-powered / broken card or card combination. In an informal / home setting, the players might rely on creating a house rule, or basically shaming someone who tries to make the move, to solve the problem. But in a more competitive situation like a tournament with prizes, there's no way that works - there has to be an official rule change by the designer of the game.

To argue that USTA doesn't care is not all that defendable. They certainly put a lot of effort into designing the rules that currently exist to keep leagues competitive. The self-rating chart is large and complicated in places - it must have taken a lot of work and thought to create that. The DQ system involves running large amounts data and computer code pretty much on a daily basis. If they didn't care then why would they bother doing all that?

There have also been rule changes in recent years that have attempted to address the issue, so I think they are trying. I'd say the problem is not that they don't care, it's that the beaurocracy and red tape for their rule change system makes progress too agonizingly slow.

 

[FuzzyYellowBalls]

It's a fun topic. Without significant money and a good dash of really caring, we are stuck with the system we have now, which is pretty good. More people here have good ideas than I bet some of the people paid to do this at the USTA and I imagine whoever is paid at the USTA is either fat and happy or too busy to care that much, unless a dramatic decrease in players occurred in team USTA events, why throw resources at it.

Another funny thing is I realized reading some of this, tennis, the actual match or showing up and playing isn't the focus, kind of funny, kind of sad. Oh yeah, captains will claim they train hard or whatever and earn the wins on the court, but really tennis , winning a match with strategy and skill, is reduced to a sideshow, the main focus is stack a team together and manipulate the ratings and have a team that is so much better than anyone they will play that even a bad day or match will not derail a trophy.

That means having people 2-3 levels, significant levels above the rest, or trying. Each group at nationals will have 2-4 of these teams, the other teams will fight well, have good matches, have a ringer or two, but then the juggernauts will just show up and win and often it's not in doubt. This is mostly at 4.0 and lower.

I think it has to be at this level though, to allow for a nice comfortable cushion from the sandbaggers and to allow for a psychological environment where the play on the court isn't the goal or prize, it's the result no matter what and that's where more people who didn't play in college will still consider USTA a very serious competition and the trophy more important than how good they are at tennis.

This won't sound nice, but I've maybe seen, hell, I've never seen someone decked out in sectionals/nationals shirts, bags, cups, towels, that was amazingly good at tennis. The nationals winners are good at tennis, but I don't know a lot of the sandbaggers relied upon who win nationals "promoting" it if that makes sense, wearing the gear etc. Despite the sandbagging they perform to help captains win, they are more concerned about their tennis than the trophies and some even played college tennis and are going the 4.0 route for various strange reasons.


I've seen many 4.5 and 5.0 teams win on the court, not before they show up to nationals, actually have to win and successfully do so, I think the bubble of win at all costs is less feverish at these levels whether it's more difficult or maybe the players are more serious about the actual tennis.

 

[denoted]

I agree with your general point, but I have a couple of long-sleeved shirts from USTA events that I wear because I like them (and don't have many other long-sleeved shirts). The thought of impressing someone with them is not very high up on the list.

 

[LetsFGo]

It's certainly possible that fear of public shaming is a reason that we don't have even more captains who put great effort into creating super teams that push the boundaries of the rules. I personally doubt that that's true, but I have no way of proving it.

There's an analogy to strategic games that maybe helps make my point. The very best board/card games are ones that allow for an array of complicated strategic moves and counter-moves, but also have a well-written set of rules that constrain what moves are allowed in a way that makes the game competitive and fun. If a player discovers a strategy that doesn't break a written rule, or can't be proven to break a written rule, and which makes the game non-competitive and annoying to play, then that's a problem that needs to be solved.

The gaming world might call that a broken rule, or maybe it's an over-powered / broken card or card combination. In an informal / home setting, the players might rely on creating a house rule, or basically shaming someone who tries to make the move, to solve the problem. But in a more competitive situation like a tournament with prizes, there's no way that works - there has to be an official rule change by the designer of the game.

To argue that USTA doesn't care is not all that defendable. They certainly put a lot of effort into designing the rules that currently exist to keep leagues competitive. The self-rating chart is large and complicated in places - it must have taken a lot of work and thought to create that. The DQ system involves running large amounts data and computer code pretty much on a daily basis. If they didn't care then why would they bother doing all that?

There have also been rule changes in recent years that have attempted to address the issue, so I think they are trying. I'd say the problem is not that they don't care, it's that the beaurocracy and red tape for their rule change system makes progress too agonizingly slow.

There is no rule that can be written to address the throwing of games, which out-of-level self-rates do to avoid strikes and which sandbaggers do to stay at the wrong level.

 

[Moon Shooter]

To argue that USTA doesn't care is not all that defendable. They certainly put a lot of effort into designing the rules that currently exist to keep leagues competitive.

Wow I find it hard to believe you think that.

The self-rating chart is large and complicated in places - it must have taken a lot of work and thought to create that.

I suspect they just sort of plugged holes over the years. It’s not like it takes any work now. They are taking in about what 10 million per year for annual dues.

The DQ system involves running large amounts data and computer code pretty much on a daily basis. If they didn't care then why would they bother doing all that?

The captains enter the scores. Nowadays with computers, it is not hard. Elo algorithms are decades old now.

It’s not like they need a huge farm of people with sharpened pencils and accounting hats calculating these ratings late into the night, every night.

There have also been rule changes in recent years that have attempted to address the issue, so I think they are trying.

$10 million in effort every year to make the leagues better? I would give 3xs the effort fo half as much.

I'd say the problem is not that they don't care, it's that the beaurocracy and red tape for their rule change system makes progress too agonizingly slow.

No they don’t care. They make billions on their monopoly of the pro game. It’s not like there are teams of bureaucrats somehow wed to this adult rec thing so no one can change it. No one cares - I think someone once said it is basically a team of interns that set up nationals. And if I recall someone else said they went to nationals at usta headquarters and it rained but they didn’t want to cancel the lessons for juniors on the indoor courts so they just shortened the nationals! LOL I mean what else can they do beside explicitly say “we don’t care about these adult rec leagues.”

 

[Creighton]

So you are saying that you cheated, but some teams cheated more, so they're terrible, but your team is copacetic?

How would pointing out that we threw out 7.5 pairs at 6.0 mean I thought my team was copacetic?

 

[unexpected]

How would pointing out that we threw out 7.5 pairs at 6.0 mean I thought my team was copacetic?

I mean, it's your team. You could have refused to sign up out of protest. You could have said "no, you guys are cheaters, I don't want to play with you", and then could have said "there's a team in our area that played 2 x 7.5 pairs at Nationals and still lost! Instead you signed up, and got to enjoy the experience of winning! So let's not look backwards and say "oh what my team was wrong, I never stood for any of that".

 

[Creighton]

I mean, it's your team. You could have refused to sign up out of protest. You could have said "no, you guys are cheaters, I don't want to play with you", and then could have said "there's a team in our area that played 2 x 7.5 pairs at Nationals and still lost! Instead you signed up, and got to enjoy the experience of winning! So let's not look backwards and say "oh what my team was wrong, I never stood for any of that".

I feel bad for your spouse if you're this bad at getting the implied message.

 

[unexpected]

I feel bad for your spouse if you're this bad at getting the implied message.

that's great, real constructive!

 

[Moon Shooter]

USTA could promote their leagues in at least two ways:

1) promote their rating system and therefore encourage adult rec players to work on their game and improve. Encourage people to try to improve and get promoted. It is interesting that usta instead demotes their rating system and instead suggest that “focusing on a number” is somehow unhealthy.

2) promote “winning nationals”. Since nationals is level based play it is somewhat irrational. Yet it seems people truly buy into it. This leads to the sort of ridiculous actions we read about in this thread and generally makes usta less enjoyable.

Now personally I think promoting nationals is fine and good, but when it becomes more important to players then an objective rating showing their skill something is broken. So the problem is usta prioritizes 2 *over* 1 (pursuit of higher ratings) and 1 is actively discouraged.

 

[TennisOTM]

There is no rule that can be written to address the throwing of games, which out-of-level self-rates do to avoid strikes and which sandbaggers do to stay at the wrong level.

I agree that's the toughest strategy to deal with. But eventually these players have to show their true skill level if they're actually going to help their teams win, and there are plenty of rule changes that could make it much harder for them to do that all the way to Nationals.

 

[TennisOTM]

Wow I find it hard to believe you think that.


I suspect they just sort of plugged holes over the years. It’s not like it takes any work now. They are taking in about what 10 million per year for annual dues.



The captains enter the scores. Nowadays with computers, it is not hard. Elo algorithms are decades old now.

It’s not like they need a huge farm of people with sharpened pencils and accounting hats calculating these ratings late into the night, every night.



$10 million in effort every year to make the leagues better? I would give 3xs the effort fo half as much.



No they don’t care. They make billions on their monopoly of the pro game. It’s not like there are teams of bureaucrats somehow wed to this adult rec thing so no one can change it. No one cares - I think someone once said it is basically a team of interns that set up nationals. And if I recall someone else said they went to nationals at usta headquarters and it rained but they didn’t want to cancel the lessons for juniors on the indoor courts so they just shortened the nationals! LOL I mean what else can they do beside explicitly say “we don’t care about these adult rec leagues.”

I think it would make me physically ill to be this cynical. Of course adult leagues could be better, arguably much better. But if they really didn't care at all they would be much, much worse than they are.

I believe every job out there is much harder than people from the outside tend to believe.

 

[HBK4life]

I agree that's the toughest strategy to deal with. But eventually these players have to show their true skill level if they're actually going to help their teams win, and there are plenty of rule changes that could make it much harder for them to do that all the way to Nationals.

There should be an algorithm that makes match ups between top teams weigh more. And against weaker teams the numbers don’t change much. It also increases into districts, sectionals and then nationals. In today’s age AI could crunch the numbers I bet and it is ongoing changing thing. So when Mr UTAHs guys magically split sets with a 2 blind guys it means nothing to them. If anything they should be punished. We have folks around here that go deep into post season year after year. Same people. Then they keep things close against bad teams or lose.

 

[Fighting phoenix]

USTA could promote their leagues in at least two ways:

1) promote their rating system and therefore encourage adult rec players to work on their game and improve. Encourage people to try to improve and get promoted. It is interesting that usta instead demotes their rating system and instead suggest that “focusing on a number” is somehow unhealthy.

2) promote “winning nationals”. Since nationals is level based play it is somewhat irrational. Yet it seems people truly buy into it. This leads to the sort of ridiculous actions we read about in this thread and generally makes usta less enjoyable.

Now personally I think promoting nationals is fine and good, but when it becomes more important to players then an objective rating showing their skill something is broken. So the problem is usta prioritizes 2 *over* 1 (pursuit of higher ratings) and 1 is actively discouraged.

This is a really smart way to look at it - for me coming back to competitive tennis after formerly playing juniors/college, my goal is to become the best player I can be, so getting bumped from 4.0 - where I was a highly coveted player by many teams, especially as a 40+ singles player - to 4.5 meant that I'm getting better and back to where I expect to be from a competition perspective. Instead, there's a vibe in USTA circles that my popularity has gone away and I'm just one of the masses. I feel like ambitious USTA captains would have encouraged me to self rate at 3.5 where I could have led teams to nationals, and then again at 4.0, but is that really the point? Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer was beating the crap out of those kids at a karate studio.

 

[LetsFGo]

I agree that's the toughest strategy to deal with. But eventually these players have to show their true skill level if they're actually going to help their teams win, and there are plenty of rule changes that could make it much harder for them to do that all the way to Nationals.

What rule changes?

 

[LetsFGo]

I think it would make me physically ill to be this cynical. Of course adult leagues could be better, arguably much better. But if they really didn't care at all they would be much, much worse than they are.

I believe every job out there is much harder than people from the outside tend to believe.

This is absolutely true.

Still, on this subject I absolutely share Moon Shooter's cynicism. And it's not even as if the USTA's lack of care has a nefarious origin--I'm not saying that. It's just the way the cake is baked. The motivation for any individual to care about this stuff is extremely diffuse; for anyone with any actual authority, there's no reason for it to be a priority; and so long as USTA's profit & loss statement looks roughly as good this quarter as it did last quarter there's no motivation for anything to be drastically reimagined.

 

[Moon Shooter]

I agree that's the toughest strategy to deal with. But eventually these players have to show their true skill level if they're actually going to help their teams win, and there are plenty of rule changes that could make it much harder for them to do that all the way to Nationals.

Since there are so many leagues players can join to throw their rating I really don't think any rule change could address that. For example if I want to remain a 3.0 I can join a tri-level team, 40+ 3.0 team, an 18+ 3.0 team and various combo teams such as 6.5 teams. I could very easily play the lowest court on any one of these teams and lose matches to keep my rating low. There would be no way USTA could do anything about it.

But in my experience players literally throwing games to keep their rating down is not that common. Most of the complaints about sandbagging come from people that don't understand that even top 3.0 men's tennis involves some strong players. They might look at a female 3.0 and get a sense of how strong "a 3.0" should be and then are shocked at the skill the top of even this bracket in the men's league. I also sort of suspect that perhaps the men's leagues are getting tougher. Just because I see people who say they are 4.0 or 4.5 and they were about 8 years ago and they won the vast majority of the games. But now, I'm not sure if they are just older or what. But even if they are still at that level they would be at the bottom not at the top.

For example i played with a guy who was on a 9.0 mixed team that won nationals playing as a 4.0. I was with him and a current c rated 4.0 player on one of my teams. Now the 4.0 on my team is I believe is near the top of 4.0 especially when he is having a good night - which he was. We switch partners every set and the current 4.0 won all the sets. Even when I played him and I was the worst on the court we won 6-3.

Other then that I would say the most egregious cases of out of level players I have seen were often c players that the algorithm just did a brain fart due to lack of data. In one case the guy self rated a 4.0 and got bumped down to 3.5C.

 

[Moon Shooter]

I think it would make me physically ill to be this cynical. Of course adult leagues could be better, arguably much better. But if they really didn't care at all they would be much, much worse than they are.

I believe every job out there is much harder than people from the outside tend to believe.

I want to be clear. I am talking about USTA national (where the $44goes) not my local league coordinator nor my sectional staff/volunteers. At the local/sectional level USTA cares a great deal and work hard for not much.
But if you are talking about the national level and saying they are working hard to get the $10 million in annual dues then I want to know why you think that. There is not even anyone in charge of the adult rec leagues. I mean don't you think there should be at least one person, if not several, whose sole job is to make sure these adult rec leagues are catering to the various populations throughout the country? I know 10 million is peanuts compared to what they get for the US open and other pro stuff but it is still a good yearly revenue.

If you can't find even one full time person at the national level who is in charge of adult rec tennis and only, adult rec tennis (not split time with some junior nonesense) then would you agree they don't really care? If you agree then please tell me who it is. If you think they really care even though no such person exists then I think that is where we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[schmke]

I want to be clear. I am talking about USTA national (where the $44goes) not my local league coordinator nor my sectional staff/volunteers. At the local/sectional level USTA cares a great deal and work hard for not much.
But if you are talking about the national level and saying they are working hard to get the $10 million in annual dues then I want to know why you think that. There is not even anyone in charge of the adult rec leagues. I mean don't you think there should be at least one person, if not several, whose sole job is to make sure these adult rec leagues are catering to the various populations throughout the country? I know 10 million is peanuts compared to what they get for the US open and other pro stuff but it is still a good yearly revenue.

If you can't find even one full time person at the national level who is in charge of adult rec tennis and only, adult rec tennis (not split time with some junior nonesense) then would you agree they don't really care? If you agree then please tell me who it is. If you think they really care even though no such person exists then I think that is where we will have to agree to disagree.

What are you basing this statement on that there is no one in charge of adult rec tennis? Do you have the USTA org chart and it shows no one with a title that covers that? Or is your point that the USTA is driven by committees and thus one person isn't in charge but rather it requires many people to agree for anything to get done?

 

[Snarf]

This is absolutely true.

Still, on this subject I absolutely share Moon Shooter's cynicism. And it's not even as if the USTA's lack of care has a nefarious origin--I'm not saying that. It's just the way the cake is baked. The motivation for any individual to care about this stuff is extremely diffuse; for anyone with any actual authority, there's no reason for it to be a priority; and so long as USTA's profit & loss statement looks roughly as good this quarter as it did last quarter there's no motivation for anything to be drastically reimagined.

lol. They have even less incentive than you think. The vast majority of the USTA's revenue - over 90% - comes from operating the U.S. Open. Even assuming passionate leadership, of course whoever is at the top is less focused on minor parts of the organization, like adult leagues. I'm guessing they are more interested in junior participation when they are looking to engage with the public/grow the game.

 

[Snarf]

What are you basing this statement on that there is no one in charge of adult rec tennis? Do you have the USTA org chart and it shows no one with a title that covers that? Or is your point that the USTA is driven by committees and thus one person isn't in charge but rather it requires many people to agree for anything to get done?

Org chart says there is a director of adult competition (recently promoted from running leagues), and under him are a senior manager for wheelchair tennis (unfilled), a senior manager for red ball social play (unfilled - there is a manager reporting to that position), a senior manager for adult leagues with a coordinator reporting to him, manager for adult tournaments, manager for national red ball social play who appears to report to the director of adult competition (unclear how that fits in with the senior manager red ball role), and a coordinator of adult leagues and competition (again, unclear how that fits in with the senior manager for adult leagues position).

 

[schmke]

Org chart says there is a director of adult competition (recently promoted from running leagues), and under him are a senior manager for wheelchair tennis (unfilled), a senior manager for red ball social play (unfilled - there is a manager reporting to that position), a senior manager for adult leagues with a coordinator reporting to him, manager for adult tournaments, manager for national red ball social play who appears to report to the director of adult competition (unclear how that fits in with the senior manager red ball role), and a coordinator of adult leagues and competition (again, unclear how that fits in with the senior manager for adult leagues position).

There are perhaps too many roles! But seems the Director of Adult Competition / Senior Manager for Adult leagues / Coordinator for Adult Leagues would cover what @Moon Shooter says isn't covered.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Yes I suppose that guy would be it. So it seems they now at least have someone. Although the only thing i see from him is a faq about running level 1-3 tournaments.

Would be nice to see what if any goals he has apart from about a dozen questions about how the leagues are run e.g.,

Does he think leagues serve smaller communities in the is well?

Does he think WTN is serving a purpose? If so what? What data lead them to assign rating heavilly based on age, and made them determing sets won and lost would be just as good as games?

Does he think it is ok that tennis in the us is booming but leagues are not? Why does he think mens leagues are so much less popular then womens leagues?

Etc etc.

 

[ptrbwmf2026]

I see a 2.5 self-rated woman who looks like she’ll finish as a 3.5. She didn’t play in USTA leagues, only local leagues.

Would she get DQed if she generated 3.5 ratings?

 

[schmke]

I see a 2.5 self-rated woman who looks like she’ll finish as a 3.5. She didn’t play in USTA leagues, only local leagues.

Would she get DQed if she generated 3.5 ratings?

If she didn't play USTA how would she get a year-end 3.5? Or are you saying she didn't play in advancing leagues but did play in other local USTA leagues?

The threshold for a 2.5 to get strikes is huge, plus if she didn't play advancing leagues the local leagues she played aren't used for strikes, so A) it is hard to get strikes as a 2.5, and B) she probably couldn't get them by definition.

 

[ptrbwmf2026]

If she didn't play USTA how would she get a year-end 3.5? Or are you saying she didn't play in advancing leagues but did play in other local USTA leagues?

The threshold for a 2.5 to get strikes is huge, plus if she didn't play advancing leagues the local leagues she played aren't used for strikes, so A) it is hard to get strikes as a 2.5, and B) she probably couldn't get them by definition.

She only played local leagues and not the nationals advancing leagues.

Does USTA only use results from nationals advancing leagues in their stroke calculations?

 

[schmke]

She only played local leagues and not the nationals advancing leagues.

Does USTA only use results from nationals advancing leagues in their stroke calculations?

Yes, no strikes from local leagues.

 

[ptrbwmf2026]

Yes, no strikes from local leagues.

I started laughing uncontrollably when looking at her results.

She has multiple 6-0, 6-0 wins against 3.0 rated players plus multiple 0-1 or 1-0 wins against 3.0 rated players.

In an advancing league, I would have to think that would generate strikes.