I stopped by Fowkes' tennis complex while in Utah....

I don’t know many people in the utah 4.0 league that thinks it’s less fun. I’m sure there are some but I don’t think it’s a lot of people. I mean the most fun part of the league is the regular season that lasts for 9-10 weeks as compared to one weekend. There are a lot of teams that want to prove they can beat Captain Utah’s team. There is challenge in that. I don’t his teams have an negative impact on participation in Utah
 
ellipses11 said:
I think this thread can be boiled down to the following:

(1) If Captain Utah had such a marvelous training method, he himself would be a much better player than he is. He's a low 4.0 and has been for many years.
(2) Captain Utah has gone to such an extreme to win that no one at the USTA thought they'd need to make rules to try to combat someone like him. Tennis has always been about dignity and honor. You clap for your opponent's good shots, not their errors. You lose with grace. You don't spend thousands of dollars and recruit clearly out-of-level players. Self-rating in such a self-serving way--that lessens the fun of the game for everyone--is dishonorable.
(3) USTA will never do anything about it because they want league fees and donations.

I'd recommend that the Utah 4.0 Captains operate a league where people who want to play all sign up. All captains have to agree that someone is reasonably appropriate for the level of the league. Then the Captains have a draft of sorts, taking turns selecting players from the common pool of players. They can leave Springville/SunPro out of it because no one really wants to go to Springville as it is. They can operate this league outside the USTA, so they can avoid USTA fees (and because the USTA has decided to not do anything about this problem). Captain Utah will win sectionals by default, so you'll probably see him every year at nationals, so his dream is fulfilled but at least Utah tennis will be more fun.

That's my two cents. I think it's ridiculous there's some man out there with a Napoleonic complex so extreme that he goes out of his way to make the sport less fun for everyone. It's like Cartman pretending to be disabled to win at the Special Olympics. It's just crazy. smh
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Well put. I think that part of the allure of playing league is to play with friends so I think all 4.0 captains would be allowed to have a list of X amount of players they would like on their team that wouldn’t go into the draft. That way they can maintain that core friend group. I also think this type of system would allow for a more even playing field and more competitive teams.
 
ServeAces&Lime said:
IThere are a lot of teams that want to prove they can beat Captain Utah’s team.
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Hopefully this is conjecture, the Utah team has players that go to nationals and don't lose one game lol, how is average Joe Utah team going to win? Captain Utah doesn't even use his best players in the regular season and still wins.

I hope this is a guess on your part, sure enjoy the regular season but that goal is not happening.
 
Tjb3297 said:
Well put. I think that part of the allure of playing league is to play with friends so I think all 4.0 captains would be allowed to have a list of X amount of players they would like on their team that wouldn’t go into the draft. That way they can maintain that core friend group. I also think this type of system would allow for a more even playing field and more competitive teams.
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I like that idea. Maybe the Captains use tennisrecord.com and find every participants dynamic NTRP (or UTR). Each captain gets seven "friend" selections. Friends still have to come from the universally approved list though. Then you add the captain's dynamic NTRP with each of their "friend" selections. Whichever captain has the lowest NTRP sum, gets the first pick of the draft and so on. I mean it's not a perfect system, but it's better than the current system. And since there's no nationals, people may want to win, but they won't go Captain Utah.
 
Tjb3297 said:
Are you trying to change the rhetoric to captain Utah is a doer of good and is shepherding these players to greatness, despite knowing he has some Danny Almontes on the team?
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I quoted him and his reference to "The Boys in the Boat". I mess around a lot in this thread and on this site. I may or may not believe every argument and story I put forth. But I do think this is how he sees himself. And like I said, to a certain extent, it's true. He does provide his players (and it looks like the tennis community as a whole) a lot. Most of his team aren't ringers. And those are the guys that play and win the regular season. He no doubt starts out with a strong 4.0 team (as he said himself). And they no doubt practice and improve. All that is true. He only uses his ringers in the post season. The rest of the year he very actively hides them. Unless you know the Ringers on his current team, I don't think any of us know how good they actually are. How could we? They've never really played a match yet.

But winning Nationals is only half the fun for Captain Utah. Imagine how much fun it is for him to successfully get the USTA to sign off on his Ringers year after year. When everyone is gunning for him and everyone knows what he's doing. And yet they can't stop him (out smart him). And none of us can point out any rules he's broken. He loves to come on here and laugh at everyone's feeble attempts to outsmart him and "get him". He loves to have other teams try "get him" and fail. He loves to have people file grievances against him that go nowhere (and have no chance of going anywhere). I dare say that this is at least as much fun for him as winning the Title. And to rub it in even more, it sounds like he's "the nicest guy" to everyone in person. Not the arrogant A-hole everyone wants him to be. It sounds like he's a hard to to hate.

He's multi-millionaire. He's smarter and better than everyone at everything. Don't you think he loves showing everyone that over and over again (while "staying humble and respectful")?

By the way, if you haven't, everyone really should read his posts in this and other threads. You don't have to believe his "feel good" stories. But you can learn a lot about the guy and how he thinks if you read them right. If you want understand the guy, that's a good place to start.
 
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There's a guy who had played 1 year in a Junior college, apparently burnt out, and 10 years later picked up a racquet and showed up in our clinic. When you see his strokes and how he prepares, you can tell he was a high level player. Sometimes he hits amazing shots. But right now, he'd fit in as a 3.5 or 4.0 player! Playing a set of doubles after clinic, I and another 3.5 beat him. Though he may look like a great player, he has a lot of rust and missed returns etc. You could argue our pace is too weak for him. This is the kind of player where if he was immersed w/ high level players would quickly move up in the ranks and potentially be a top 4.5 (4.5 is the highest league here)

Again I don't care if he looks like he should be a high level, the basic results are that he's competing w/ 3.5 and 4.0 players. It's the inverse of players like MEP (from tennis troll tv) who look like they should be 3.0s but are routinely winning 4.5 matches and are appropiately rated at 4.5

So would it be inappropiate to take this guy on a 4.0 team and build up his game to deal w/ the stronger players during the season?
 
tennis3 said:
I quoted him and his reference to "The Boys in the Boat". I mess around a lot in this thread and on this site. I may or may not believe every argument and story I put forth. But I do think this is how he sees himself. And like I said, to a certain extent, it's true. He does provide his players (and it looks like the tennis community as a whole) a lot. Most of his team aren't ringers. And those are the guys that play and win the regular season. He no doubt starts out with a strong 4.0 team (as he said himself). And they no doubt practice and improve. All that is true. He only uses his ringers in the post season. The rest of the year he very actively hides them. Unless you know the Ringers on his current team, I don't think any of us know how good they actually are. How could we? They've never really played a match yet.

But winning Nationals is only half the fun for Captain Utah. Imagine how much fun it is for him to successfully get the USTA to sign off on his Ringers year after year. When everyone is gunning for him and everyone knows what he's doing. And yet they can't stop him (out smart him). And none of us can point out any rules he's broken. He loves to come on here and laugh at everyone's feeble attempts to outsmart him and "get him". He loves to have other teams try "get him" and fail. He loves to have people file grievances against him that go nowhere (and have no chance of going anywhere). I dare say that this is at least as much fun for him as winning the Title. And to rub it in even more, it sounds like he's "the nicest guy" to everyone in person. Not the arrogant A-hole everyone wants him to be. It sounds like he's a hard to to hate.

He's multi-millionaire. He's smarter and better than everyone at everything. Don't you think he loves showing everyone that over and over again (while "staying humble and respectful")?

By the way, if you haven't, everyone really should read his posts in this and other threads. You don't have to believe his "feel good" stories. But you can learn a lot about the guy and how he thinks if you read them right. If you want understand the guy, that's a good place to start.
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Great points, I know many people financially equivalent to Captain U, some accept good fortune humbly, some lean hard into I am able to everything better than everyone, most of the better than everyone types try to replicate business success in other ways and fail, not realizing whatever gave them an advantage in the first success wasn't simply their sheer talent.

In a minor way, Utah is doing it better than everyone else and soaking in the results of his "superior" skills. (or the fact no one else really wants to dedicate tim and millions to rec tennis, but he chose a game, 4.0 mens tennis, where it's kind of easy to dominate if you want to spend more than some college teams do)
 
GSG said:
I've only had five USTA matches since August 2023 (2-1 Singles, 1-1 doubles) so I'm not sure that I've "routinely" been doing anything lately. I will note that a year ago my dynamic NTRP was 4.17 and it's currently 4.18 so obviously I've gotten a lot better since then :unsure:
Click to expand...

I hate to be pedantic to the most important rec tennis player in the youtube era, but you must be referring to the TR estimate of your dynamic ranking, unless they gave you access to the 'computer,' which you probably deserve, don't get me wrong.
 
denoted said:
I hate to be pedantic to the most important rec tennis player in the youtube era, but you must be referring to the TR estimate of your dynamic ranking, unless they gave you access to the 'computer,' which you probably deserve, don't get me wrong.
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You're right, I should have been more precise. I was referencing the TR estimate.
 
GSG said:
I've only had five USTA matches since August 2023 (2-1 Singles, 1-1 doubles) so I'm not sure that I've "routinely" been doing anything lately. I will note that a year ago my dynamic NTRP was 4.17 and it's currently 4.18 so obviously I've gotten a lot better since then :unsure:
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Are you the real Most Exhausting Player? GSG = Green shirt guy? Played vs. Ian and the Gang? or am I being trolled/missing the joke. I'm sure there are a lot of exhausting players.
 
GSG said:
I've only had five USTA matches since August 2023 (2-1 Singles, 1-1 doubles) so I'm not sure that I've "routinely" been doing anything lately. I will note that a year ago my dynamic NTRP was 4.17 and it's currently 4.18 so obviously I've gotten a lot better since then :unsure:
Click to expand...
The thread is GOATED.
My bad, someone sent me your 2023 TR record, or I assume it was you since I don't really know you, and for 4.5 it was 2 wins 10 losses with the 2 wins being 4.0s playing up in a 4.5 league.
 
socallefty said:
My point is that USTA operates a secretive system of what each level is and I have a problem with that. But as long as it is a secretive system I don’t see how anyone else can call players out of standard if they win in the playoffs and the USTA doesn't default them. The USTA claims that two players at the same level can play a match in which one player loses 0 and 0 and it is a legitimate result - so, I fail to see how anyone can look at scores or watch a match and objectively say a player is out of level. TR ratings are completely not legitimate and cannot be used as a proxy for what a players’s official USTA dynamic rating is.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone is ignoring the ultimate responsibility falls on the USTA to ensure fair play is achieved.

They're certainly failing their job. However, it doesn't excuse someone clearly circumventing fair play. Bernie Madoff's actions weren't justified just because the SEC failed to do its job.
 
Purestriker said:
I played a minor league baseball player three weeks ago at our state championships at the 3.5 level. Dude's wife played D1 college tennis at Michigan State was his coach. He just started playing tennis now that he is retired from baseball. I would say he showed substantial progress looking at his matches prior to state. He will be a 4.0 at the end of the year and would get boat raced by those players Utah had at the start of the season.

They won the title and will be at sectionals.
Click to expand...

I ran into a former MLB starting catcher at 3.5 sectionals once.
 
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