Dealing with USTA/regions -- advice or insight?

[DailyG&T]

I live in the southernmost area of a USTA region and I know many folks who would prefer to play on a team that is "zoned" for the region south of us instead. The major reason for me personally is that region south of us has USTA ladies teams that play on weekdays vs where I am now which is only weekends. The distance we'd have to drive is the same for both regions, but for other teams to come to us, we are 25 min past the northernmost place they drive. (If this makes sense.)

Thoughts on this? I'd like to approach ???? (someone in USTA??) saying I want to add a team in my area and can we be in that southern region. I would co-captain with my friend who is currently a captain of a team up here.

 

[schmke]

I "think" most areas require the team to be based or play out of a facility within the area. But the rules vary for team makeup, some having residency requirements while others may have none. Certainly there are a lot of players that live in one area and play in another, and I've seen the majority of a team do this too so it does happen, just depends specifically on the rules in your (or the adjacent) area.

Contact the League Coordinator in the other area about the requirements for fielding a team, they can certainly tell you.

 

[Cindysphinx]

+1.

Just so I follow, this would like if you are in Tennessee and you want to start a team of people who live near you in Tennessee but who are willing to drive to Atlanta to play there. And you would host home matches in Tennessee, and the Georgia players would have to drive 25 minutes (past the northernmost Georgia place they otherwise would play) to you?

I dunno. I would be surprised if any league allows a team that hosts home matches far away. Maybe you could offer to be the ones to do the driving and always be away? How far away is the most remote facility you and your players would have to drive to?

Have you considered instead joining a mixed league near you? You might get more out of adding variety to what you're doing now rather than wearing out your car driving to another state.

 

[OnTheLine]

In our area there is one team that should technically be in Southwest section in very northwestern Arizona ... they play here in Vegas in the Intermountain section. Their home court (only team playing out of a public park, and only has 2 courts so staggered times) is right on the Intermountain side of the border however all the players live on the other side of the border.

They only fielded a team for ladies' weekday, so non-advancing league and went 0-14 for the season, winning a total of 12 courts of possible 56.

My guess is that USTA said sure cross border for non-advancing league no biggie, but not for 18+ or 40+

 

[Moveforwardalways]

Can you and your team just play home matches at a facility in the region you want to compete in? This would solve the issue. If you are willing to ask others to drive to you, you could also drive closer to them.

 

[DailyG&T]

I'm on teams in both areas. (That' how I ended up on three teams!) I think it would be cool to have a weekday USTA option up here. Just an idea I was kicking around with some other people.

 

[DailyG&T]

Our area is really spread out, so for the northern team, we could drive up to 2 hrs to play opposing teams (most are within 45 min but a couple are a lot farther.) For the southern area, most of the drives are 30-45 min away but there are 2 that are a lot farther (one is about 75-90 min and one a little over an hour.)