This match I'm talking about, S1 and D1 were the double bagels that cancelled each other out and the opponents won D1 so if it would have been weighted, they would have gotten the win. I feel like this could NOT have been unanticipated by USTA had they thought about it or asked players for feedback for two seconds. Ties are NOT rare. I have a weird situation on my team where one of my strongest players has trouble getting to the courts early (she drops kids at school) and our lower courts start later so she's on line 3 when she plays. Just weird stuff like that. Anyway I want a win to feel like a clear, deserved/earned win lol. This feels arbitrary. Curious why they aren't considering weighing S1?? Or they could weigh all courts at a different amount. I'm in a non-USTA league that does that where each court is worth different amounts sliding down from 50, 40, 30 etc. AND you can get points for winning a set even if you lose.
40 and over how to win with four courts
- Thread starter HBK4life
- Start date
This match I'm talking about, S1 and D1 were the double bagels that cancelled each other out and the opponents won D1 so if it would have been weighted, they would have gotten the win. I feel like this could NOT have been unanticipated by USTA had they thought about it or asked players for feedback for two seconds. Ties are NOT rare. I have a weird situation on my team where one of my strongest players has trouble getting to the courts early (she drops kids at school) and our lower courts start later so she's on line 3 when she plays. Just weird stuff like that. Anyway I want a win to feel like a clear, deserved/earned win lol. This feels arbitrary. Curious why they aren't considering weighing S1?? Or they could weigh all courts at a different amount. I'm in a non-USTA league that does that where each court is worth different amounts sliding down from 50, 40, 30 etc. AND you can get points for winning a set even if you lose.
Also I should add.....one of the stated reasons for this four line thing at 40+ is "women don't like to play singles when they're over 40" and now for 18+ spring, our area is doing an option where you can be in a flight with only 1 line of singles and 4 lines doubles. The other flight would be traditional 2 singles, 3 doubles. Once we get to sectionals it reverts to 2 singles & 3 doubles even if you were in a flight with only one singles line. I am guessing there is a lot of vocal feedback out there about people not wanting to play singles though honestly I don't see it so much personally. Yes there are #neversingles people out there, but every team has their couple or few people who do play singles (myself included.)
schmke
Legend
Well, in this particularly case, the match would not have gotten to 1D being the deciding factor as your team won it on the games lost tie-breaker which is used before that. But had your team lost two more games in 2D/3D, then yes, your team would have lost if the new weighting of 1D more was in effect.
Note that some people did see this coming, I wrote about the issues when the regulations came out and brought it to the attention of staff at National and my section, and thankfully my section did something about it and switched to points per position where 1D is given 2 points and the other courts 1 point each. So we are not having issues with ties for 40+. But other sections stuck their head in the sand and said "it won't happen" or "it isn't a big deal" and are having to deal with it now. National messed up in going to a format where ties could happen and no clear rule to break them and "secret" TL behavior on who would be given the win, and while their out was that sections could use alternate formats including 2S/3D like before, many followed National and even those that wanted to do something different, they were hampered by what TL would support and the only real option was PPP which is what some went to.
schmke
Legend
Yes, this statement is very short-sighted IMHO. Yes, there are some teams that for whatever reason don't have depth at singles, and they complained about it and the USTA decided to cater to a vocal minority to change to one singles court. Then a vocal minority of facilities apparently said they preferred to only have to give up 4 courts to a league match, and we got 1S/3D. I don't think either of these changes is what the majority of 40+ USTA League players support. Many would prefer to have kept 2 singles courts, and if there were a change to 1 singles court the majority would have preferred to keep 5 courts and do 1S/4D. But we got 1S/3D instead.
ATX Tennis
Rookie
So what is the final verdict? Nationally, USTA will make the result of 1D be the deciding factor if lines won, sets lost and games lost are all tied?
I received this message yesterday from our local coordinator (I'm in South Carolina):
"Because we now have a 4 line format for our 40 & Over league, it is possible that an individual match could end in a "perfect tie" all the way through the "game winning percentage", therefore, we have had to revise our regs to add a final tibreak in case of a "perfect tie". The final tiebreak procedure in an individual match in the case of a "perfect tie" will be the winner of the #1 doubles. This is being implemented by National for their championships and passed down through Southern to the State to the local level. So, if your match is tied through the game winning percentage, the winner of the match will be determined by which team won the #1 doubles position.
See below...
In an individual match, if an even number of courts are played and the same number of individual courts are won, the tie will be broken in the following manner.
1) Loser of the fewest number of sets
2) Loser of the fewest number of games
3) Games won percentage (%): Total games won divided by total games played.
4) Team winning the #1 Doubles position
Please make sure your players are aware of this revision."
We were also told: "If you have a match between now and the end of next week that ends in a tie, 2-2, please do not input your scores in TennisLink until I give you the go ahead. The are implementing an enhancement that will choose the #1 doubles winner as the final tiebreak in a match that ends in a "perfect tie". "
The implication is that in Nationals, the #1 doubles result will be the "final tiebreaker" if the result is tied on all previous tiebreakers. This will yield a definitive winner, but again, there would be no need for all this rigmarole if we just played 5 lines.
"Because we now have a 4 line format for our 40 & Over league, it is possible that an individual match could end in a "perfect tie" all the way through the "game winning percentage", therefore, we have had to revise our regs to add a final tibreak in case of a "perfect tie". The final tiebreak procedure in an individual match in the case of a "perfect tie" will be the winner of the #1 doubles. This is being implemented by National for their championships and passed down through Southern to the State to the local level. So, if your match is tied through the game winning percentage, the winner of the match will be determined by which team won the #1 doubles position.
See below...
In an individual match, if an even number of courts are played and the same number of individual courts are won, the tie will be broken in the following manner.
1) Loser of the fewest number of sets
2) Loser of the fewest number of games
3) Games won percentage (%): Total games won divided by total games played.
4) Team winning the #1 Doubles position
Please make sure your players are aware of this revision."
We were also told: "If you have a match between now and the end of next week that ends in a tie, 2-2, please do not input your scores in TennisLink until I give you the go ahead. The are implementing an enhancement that will choose the #1 doubles winner as the final tiebreak in a match that ends in a "perfect tie". "
The implication is that in Nationals, the #1 doubles result will be the "final tiebreaker" if the result is tied on all previous tiebreakers. This will yield a definitive winner, but again, there would be no need for all this rigmarole if we just played 5 lines.
schmke
Legend
I'm hearing similar things being sent to players in other sections. Just wrote about it on my blog.
It is good to see a change made that will get rid of the ambiguity/confusion and give some clarity to who will win, but sad that it appears to not be a retroactive change given the statement that captains should wait to enter scores until the end of the week. This means a league will have had winners determined by two different criteria and this could affect standings and who advances to playoffs.
It is also interesting, although probably predictable, that they elected to use the court 1 doubles winner as the tie-breaker as this further diminishes the value of singles play. On the plus side perhaps, it will encourage teams to play the best players on 1D which may cut down on stacking, and if a team does that, perhaps other players get a shot on the one singles court more often instead of just running the best player out on singles all the time.
That's almost an afterthought with 1D being the tiebreaker, I'm not keen on the rules but after a 2-2 tie, does it go down to sets, games, game %, and if somehow that happens to all tie out it's 1D winner? That's so far down the list I'm not sure anyone can account for that.
schmke
Legend
This is the challenge with a 4-court format. You can have 2-2 ties and you can run out of what feel like equitable tie-breakers.
The current rules say the tie-breakers are:
- Fewest sets lost
- Fewest games lost
- Game winning percentage in the match
- (new) Winner of 1D
Note that #3, when done correctly, is meaningless. If both teams have lost the same number of games, they've won the same number too and each has a GWP of 50%. So it is pointless to have this as a tie-breaker.
#4 is new and at least is still objective, although one could say it is arbitrary. I think they picked 1D because making that court more important will cause captains to not stack and sacrifice that court, and they are trying to encourage teams to not stack. It may also cause a captain to play their best player there rather than singles opening more playing opportunities for other players in singles to make up for a single court. This is stretching it a bit though, singles is still being dissed with this 4-court format.
travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
In my match last night, the opposing team defaulted D3 in advance. They ended up winning both D2 and the singles slot. But we won D1 (worth 2 points). So we won the team match with only 1 individual on-court victory.
GatorTennis
Rookie
They should just do away with 40+ adult league
I would rather have D1 be the first (and therefore only) tiebreaker over stupid sets or games rules. At least that would be breaking the tie by winning a match. We play matches, not sets, not games. Who is to say that a team that gets a straight set win is more deserving than a team that battles back from dropping the first set and comes back to win the second and the match tb? Isn't the team that comes back from being down showing more mental toughness for not giving up and therefore could be (arguably) MORE deserving of winning the match?
Wait until teams start losing trips to nationals and national championships because they lost 1 more GAME than the other team at sectionals or nationals. There is going to be a lot of complaints this year, and rightfully so. It's still hard for me to reconcile how anyone with an elementary level of math skills could be so stupid to pick this format.
Wait until teams start losing trips to nationals and national championships because they lost 1 more GAME than the other team at sectionals or nationals. There is going to be a lot of complaints this year, and rightfully so. It's still hard for me to reconcile how anyone with an elementary level of math skills could be so stupid to pick this format.
Although it could start making people think twice about giving up games/sets in a match now that it can decide the outcome. I know as captain I'd be ticked if I knew someone was giving up games to help their rating and we ended up losing by 1 game. Also it'll make entering the scores very important. Scores that I have written down at the end of the match have varied greatly from the scores that the other captain enters. I know some captains do this on purpose to help their players ratings but I also know guys don't remember anything. If you asked all four participants in a doubles match what the score was afterwards you might have 4 different answers.
justinmadison
Semi-Pro
I think Schmke was instrumental in having our section award 2 points to D1. If you are going to cut the match down to 1 singles and 3 doubles I think this is the best solution.
In our section is does not matter how many team matches your team wins. It only matters how many "points" your team accrues over the season. It is kind of nice. One of the teams in my flight lost their first 4 matches and now have come back to third place after winning 5-0 in their last 3 matches. In the old format they would have been completely out of the running.
In our section is does not matter how many team matches your team wins. It only matters how many "points" your team accrues over the season. It is kind of nice. One of the teams in my flight lost their first 4 matches and now have come back to third place after winning 5-0 in their last 3 matches. In the old format they would have been completely out of the running.
schmke
Legend
Thankfully we have a Section Coordinator that will listen to logic and reason.
Our local league season has been PPP for several years now. With the 4 courts, the weighting will be 4-4-3-2 if the captains vote for 4 courts or 5-4-5-4-3 if the captains vote for 5 courts. All playoffs are 4 courts with standings by match wins, so the ridiculous tb procedure comes into play.
SaltyDDDog
New User
Might be nothing new, but just got an email from our Section Coordinator (Missouri Valley) that 40+ tie breaker rules are changing mid-season. The old GWP is gone, and D1 as the 3rd level breaker is effective, and will be used in post-season. Personally, I think a ranking order of Courts/Sets/Games would be much more competitive than a win-loss format. Clearly the 2020 40+ format is a failure, from my fellow players perspective.
It's up for nationals, but each section was given the choice to use it or not. Middle States chose to use the 4 court format in all playoffs so that the playoff format was the same as the national format, but they are also allowing the captains of each local league to vote on the format for the local league season.
schmke
Legend
It appears many sections are adopting the 4-court format for 40+. As of right now I see the following list all with at least one league where 1S/3D is being used:
Eastern*
Florida+
Hawaii+
Intermountain+
Mid-Atlantic+
Middle States*
Middlewest+
Missouri Valley+
New England+*
NorCal*
PNW*
SoCal+
Southern+
Southwest+
Texas+
This doesn't mean every 40+ league in these sections is using the format of course, and it also doesn't mean those sections not listed won't at some point.
Those with a + above are using team wins for standings while those with a * are using points per position, again, this is based on the info I have now and may change as more leagues begin.
ATX Tennis
Rookie
In Texas, I think everyone but San Antonio is using 1/3. They told us that the 4th match tiebreaker is line 1 doubles but GWP was still 3rd.
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
Edit: Nevermind
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travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
Fewest games lost and game win % are not always the same.
A 7-5, 6-3 match win would have same number of games lost as a 6-4, 6-4 match, but the first match would win the games won % tiebreaker.
A 7-6, 6-1 match with only 2 service breaks would also win the tiebreaker over 6-4, 6-3 match with 3 service breaks. So they arguably made the tiebreaker backwards, because it rewards the winner that has sets close enough to be pushed to 7 games.
But this usta so having a backward tiebreaker is kind of expected.
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But if the total number of games lost over all four matches is tied, then the game win % will also be tied, every time.
travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
.
Can anyone confirm what happens with the National-level 2-2 tie-break procedure when there is a retirement? Say you retire when the match is 3-3 in the first set. Your score gets entered as a 3-3 loss (retirement) in Tennislink. But if the team match ends 2-2, when Tennislink is determining the winner via sets lost / games lost, does it automatically count your match as if it was 3-6, 0-6?
I'm assuming it does it that way, based on this rule:
2.03N Scoring of Retirements. In case of a retirement, for the purpose of determining standings, the nonretiring player/doubles team shall be credited with such number of additional games as would have been won if the match was completed and the non-retiring player/doubles team won every subsequent game. For NTRP computer data entry in TennisLink, mark as retired and submit actual scores of the match at the point of retirement.
But "for the purpose of determining standings" is slightly different than "for the purpose of determining a team match winner," so I'm not sure that the rulebook is clear on this.
I'm assuming it does it that way, based on this rule:
2.03N Scoring of Retirements. In case of a retirement, for the purpose of determining standings, the nonretiring player/doubles team shall be credited with such number of additional games as would have been won if the match was completed and the non-retiring player/doubles team won every subsequent game. For NTRP computer data entry in TennisLink, mark as retired and submit actual scores of the match at the point of retirement.
But "for the purpose of determining standings" is slightly different than "for the purpose of determining a team match winner," so I'm not sure that the rulebook is clear on this.
schmke
Legend
I believe your assumption is correct, the description for standings is what is used for determining the team match winner.
Thanks - do you know of any example team match results that can prove that it works like this? Someone thinks it could be a good strategy to retire from a match you're going to lose in order to help your team win (because you lose fewer sets and games), and I can't prove them wrong.
schmke
Legend
When the 4 court format was introduced and TennisLink didn't have any defined tie-breakers for this situation (that was well thought out) I actively was looking for scenarios and found quite a few that were tied. I haven't looked lately, but let me see if I can find any where a retirement having games credited would have been the difference.
schmke
Legend
@TennisOTM actually, just go onto TennisLink and find any match that had a retirement and calculate the game winning percentage from the actual scores and see if it matches the GWP shown at the bottom of the team match. If it doesn't, recalculate the GWP using the credited scores would make it match.
I found one that actually had two retirements in it. The listed scores had 29 games for team A and 24 for team B, or 54.7% for team A. But TennisLink shows the GWP to be 52.70%.
If I give credit to the two retirements, the games became 39 and 35 which is the 52.70%.
So yes, the GWP tie-breaker factors in giving credit for the games not played.
Thanks, I found a similar one where that works.
Interesting though that the GWP at the bottom does not seem to give credit for 12-0 games when there is a default. Wouldn't that mess up the 2-2 tie-break procedure in that case? If the team that defaulted has zero games lost for the default match, they would almost certainly get the win on the games lost tie-breaker, if it got to that point.
Or maybe games lost and GWP are done separately, where the 12 defaulted games are used in the former but not the latter? In which case, maybe this is one case where the GWP tie-breaker level actually would decide the winner:
If Team A wins two matches 6-0, 6-0, and Team B wins one match 6-0, 6-0 and one match by default.
Matches: 2-2 tie
Sets lost: 4-4 tie
Games lost: 24-24 tie
GWP: Team A wins (they won 24/36 of the games in non-defaulted matches)
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
Here are the rules for my section:
Procedures in the Event of Tie for Adult 40 & Over matches:
1. Individual Matches. Winner of the most individual league matches.
2. Head-to-Head. Winner of head-to-head matches.
3. Sets. Loser of the fewest number of sets.
4. Games. Loser of the fewest number of games.
5. The fewest number of sets lost in the head-to-head matches.
6. The fewest number of games lost in the head-to-head matches.
7. Winner of #1 doubles court.
https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/sections/*******/pdfs/mid-south-illinois/MSITA Rules.pdf
With only 2 teams it will come down to sets then games (ten point tie break counts as both one set and one game) and then if that is even the winner of doubles 1.
With more teams than 2 tied you will go down the list until something decides it.
edit: Link can't work on these forums because I live an an unmentionable part of the country. These rules could prevent sandbagging since the number of games can decide it. One of our events was decided by number of games. I don't like that they seem to use "matches" for team matches and individual matches. I think maybe they should call each meeting between teams an "event" or something.
Procedures in the Event of Tie for Adult 40 & Over matches:
1. Individual Matches. Winner of the most individual league matches.
2. Head-to-Head. Winner of head-to-head matches.
3. Sets. Loser of the fewest number of sets.
4. Games. Loser of the fewest number of games.
5. The fewest number of sets lost in the head-to-head matches.
6. The fewest number of games lost in the head-to-head matches.
7. Winner of #1 doubles court.
https://www.usta.com/content/dam/usta/sections/*******/pdfs/mid-south-illinois/MSITA Rules.pdf
With only 2 teams it will come down to sets then games (ten point tie break counts as both one set and one game) and then if that is even the winner of doubles 1.
With more teams than 2 tied you will go down the list until something decides it.
edit: Link can't work on these forums because I live an an unmentionable part of the country. These rules could prevent sandbagging since the number of games can decide it. One of our events was decided by number of games. I don't like that they seem to use "matches" for team matches and individual matches. I think maybe they should call each meeting between teams an "event" or something.
schmke
Legend
The procedures in the doc seem to be some bizarre combination of standings tie-breakers and tie-breakers to determine the winner of a team-match. Everything 1-6 seems to be standings tie-breakers (and 1-4 are the same standard standings tie-breakers we've had for years which continue to be flawed and broken) but 7 makes no sense as a standings tie-breaker and is the addition they made after the fact as the final tie-breaker for team-matches. It would seem whomever authored this document for Middle West was a tad confused as what you posted is not in the National regulations document.
The Nationals regulations document has the following for team match scoring for 40 & Over with 1 singles and 3 doubles:
3 individual matches won;
If tied 2-2, the tie shall be broken by the first of the following methods to do so:
a) Sets: Loser of the fewest number of sets.
b) Games: Loser of the fewest number of games.
c) Game Winning Percentage: Total games won divided by total games played
d) Winner of No. 1 Doubles
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
I agree it is unclear how 7 would work with standings. They could have said fewest sets lost followed by fewest games lost at d1. But as it is worded I’m not sure what that would mean in, for example, a 3 way standings split.
I like the tiebreak when there are only 2 teams but when you are trying to break a standings tie with more than 2 teams it doesn’t work. They should have a different standings tie break if there is more than 2 teams.
I like the tiebreak when there are only 2 teams but when you are trying to break a standings tie with more than 2 teams it doesn’t work. They should have a different standings tie break if there is more than 2 teams.
The idea that's been discussed before is that c) is useless because it will always be tied when b) is tied. But is it possible that c) is not useless in the case where there is a defaulted line? That is, the defaulting team gets 12 games lost for that match when calculating b), but the defaulted match is not included at all when calculating GWP for c)?
schmke
Legend
Good point, the thought occurred to me too. I'd have to find a match meeting all that criteria to figure out what happened.
Sure enough, in year one of this idiocy, Middle States won the national semifinal in 4.0 by losing two fewer games than Intermountain in a 2-2 match. Rules are rules, but it definitely sucks for a team to lose like that, especially given the level of stupidity and incompetence it took to implement it in the first place.
ttwarrior1
Hall of Fame
here in ky it goes by
if its 2 to 2
goes to total sets won
then total games
then #1 doubles
but i would prefer another court of singles or doubles to do away with it
if its 2 to 2
goes to total sets won
then total games
then #1 doubles
but i would prefer another court of singles or doubles to do away with it
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