How many matches in your Adult 18 & Over league?

[naturallight]

Last year we only had 6 matches in our 4.5 Adult 18 & Over league in Colorado. The league ran from the last week in April to the first week in June.

In previous years, it was more like 8-9, although one year it was 10. This did involve a Fri match or two, which I guess no one liked.

6 matches a year for what I think of as the main league just kind of sucks. I know there’s other leagues, but the 18-39 league is a complete joke and even Twilight isn’t that much fun. I'd much rather have 1 main league that lasts the whole spring/summer than 3 super-short leagues.

How many matches are in your Adult 18 & Over league? Is everyone in the same boat here?

 

[kevrol]

Probably had 7 teams in your league. We had that happen this past year. LC put it up for a vote. 6 or 12 matches. We ended up playing 12. It was a pain because it involved Saturday matches which is a bear to schedule.

 

[cknobman]

Your league coordinator decides how many matches are played, let him/her know how you feel.

 

[MathGeek]

I have fewer schedule restrictions than most, so I prefer more matches. Most of the leagues have fewer matches than I would prefer when combined with delays between seasons. But it's not too hard to find the odd event or tourney or schedule informal matches with folks. For me, a relaxed atmosphere and reasonable driving distances are higher priority than how many matches get scheduled.

There are some local leagues that are individual rather than team deals. These seem to have less drama and fewer scheduling conflicts. Their approach is more like "every Tuesday night between Jan 2 and Mar 6." Combined with the friendly opponents in these leagues, I think I'll be doing a lot more of this in 2017 and beyond.

 

[naturallight]

Yeah, he’s saying that between the Adult and 40+ leagues are too big to run concurrently, so that’s the main constraint.

However, looking at the schedule last year,

Adult league was 4/25-6/9,
40+ league was 6/13-7/28,
Adult districts were 7/29 and
40+ districts were 8/26.

So as long as you could play the Adult districts at the same time as the 40+ league, (which I don’ think would be too hard since the districts only involve a few teams), then theoretically you could have longer leagues for both Adult and 40+.

 

[atatu]

In our 18 and over league we had 13 teams so it was 12 matches. In the 40's we only have 5 teams, so we played 8 matches.

 

[Ft.S]

In the last combo league we had during fall season we had 6 teams and 15 matches, in the tri-level we had 3 teams and 12 matches. Anything less than 10, IMO, is too few.

 

[kevrol]

In the last combo league we had during fall season we had 6 teams and 15 matches

No way would I ever captain that.

 

[MiPeGr]

Depends on the year. At 3.5 we typically have 3 or 4 flights of teams. So depending on the total # teams, it's usually 7,8, or 9. I can't remember ever seeing 6 or 10. I'd rather have more matches per season, since 18+ is the only season I'm playing this year that affects ratings. (No tournaments are used in this section).

Couple a short season with a big roster and and "equal playing time" philosophy captain, and it's not all that fun sometimes. I would play every match in a season, if I could.

 

[Moveforwardalways]

Just play each team twice and double the matches. Some places do that.

 

[SuperJimmy]

It's gotten a little better for us. A few years ago, we had only 5 matches(!), while the other flight at 6. I felt we should have played each team twice. Lately it has hovered around 7-9 matches (2 flights) with our latest season being 9 matches. Our season is only ~3 months between mid Jan - mid April. So I think 9-10 matches are at a good spot.

 

[ncgator]

Just play each team twice and double the matches. Some places do that.

That's what our league does. Our spring league runs from late Feb to mid-May. We had 5 teams in 18+ and 40+ 4.5 last year and played each team twice for 8 matches in both leagues. Our 55+ 9.0 team only had 2 teams and we played each other 9 times.

 

[LeftyJunk]

In my area we play 18+ from mid January into May with 12 teams (11 matches) at 4.0 then we head into the summer and play all levels of Combo, all levels of 18+ Mixed, 40+ Mixed, mens and women's 40+, and men's and women's 55+. Then late August into early January we have a local league structured exactly like USTA buts it's not... I feel like our fall league is a waste of time and we spread out all of summer leagues a little better.

 

[Jim A]

Natural - I'm also in CO. I would rather longer league schedules. However after everything we went through in 2015 when 6 of our 9 matches had to be rescheduled, we were racing around the Denver metro area and having to consistently swap out players to get them in within the 2 week time etc...I'll take 6-7 and a little more breathing room. Never mind the limited # of courts and/or having to already play stacked matches each week. We play where we are because we get 5 each time we host. Not the greatest courts but I'll take 5 over 3 any day.

As for District's - there wouldn't be enough court availability to host both and while only a few teams it's a large # of the same teams in each. The same key teams we played in 18+ were there at 40+ and Twilight. We had about 95% of our roster for both levels. Over 3 leagues we had 20 total matches outside of playoffs/District's. Part of the smaller flights also fits in to advancing teams to flight playoff and District's. There would have to be more "wildcards" given out to advance the normal 5-6 teams to District's out of flight playoff for our level at least.

I don't see things changing but would take 7 or so as a good fit. 18-39 didn't have much going at our level, curious to see what happens.

 

[MRfStop]

We only have 6 matches in the 7.0 league I am playing in since there is only two teams.

We have 9 matches in the 8.0 league since there are 4 teams.

 

[brettatk]

We usually have anywhere from 5-7 matches depending on the number of teams in the division.

 

[naturallight]

Just play each team twice and double the matches. Some places do that.

Just to be clear, the issue isn't a lack of teams. It's that they try to fit 3 leagues (18+, 18-39/40+, and twilight) into a timeframe that should really hold 2 leagues at most.

 

[naturallight]

Natural - I'm also in CO. I would rather longer league schedules. However after everything we went through in 2015 when 6 of our 9 matches had to be rescheduled, we were racing around the Denver metro area and having to consistently swap out players to get them in within the 2 week time etc...I'll take 6-7 and a little more breathing room. Never mind the limited # of courts and/or having to already play stacked matches each week. We play where we are because we get 5 each time we host. Not the greatest courts but I'll take 5 over 3 any day.

Right, that was horrible. But part of the issue that year was that they had us play a much wider geographical range, so instead of playing the local club right next to you, you were driving 45 min away. I don't think they are going to do that going forward.

But if we would have had a longer 18 season, then (1) you would have more time to make up the matches, lowering everyone's stress, and (2) the extra matches would have come in June, when it would be less likely for rainouts compared to late April/early May.

 

[Jim A]

haha, I'll chalk that up to #4.5problems
we have no shortage of teams, heck CACM could probably have their own flight, but there are over 1000 3.5 players from the 18+ Denver Metro section last year. City Park, CACM, Gates, Wash Park, Skyline, Eastmoor, Crestmoor, etc are all so close that nothing is more than 15 min. I know some players on 55+ that deal with the same issue of heavy travel.

In the end I think it comes down to court availability and not having multiple leagues overlap, bad enough that each year Sectionals for 40+ overlap with State Open, hasn't been an issue yet but hoping to be that way this year.

 

[NTRPolice]

I've heard of cases where league days actually change during the season. This means sometimes you're playing on Saturdays for the first half and Sundays for the second. Leagues often overlap here too. This means if you have 40+ players playing on your 18+ team they may not be able to play.

IMO it's better to have less matches and less confusion than it is to have more matches and all sorts of scheduling nightmares in addition to the regular scheduling issues.

 

[FedLIKEnot]

In NorCal 3.0 we had 9 league matches, w/ four teams and had 9 matches plus 1 playoff match and districts. All in all I played 10 matches myself and felt it was good enough. Though the captain was terrible about setting up practice or hitting sessions so there was lulls in there where if I hadnt have found some hitting partners wouldnt have hit for 3 plus weeks.

I do think it depends on how your team is ran though as to the frequency of how much you play...like my combo team in 18+ we had 10 matches but the captain would set up practices and a few clinics so I was hitting with that team alone weekly and sometimes 2 times a week especially if playing with a new partner to get some reps in ahead of a match...all that said I could never captain a team much to problematic...