New playoff format in situations where top-2 teams advance

[schmke]

In my section (PNW), our Sectionals is generally filled with 8 teams from 4 districts (sometimes 5 or 6), so the winners from playoffs in each district advance, along with the runner's up from 2-4 of the districts. At least 2 of the districts have playoffs where there is a single elimination bracket and once two teams make the final, they are both going to Sectionals and the final becomes somewhat meaningless (only affects which of two flights you go into at Sectionals).

This year, at least for the 18+ Mixed playoffs just held, they changed the format to avoid this meaningless match and I'm curious if anyone else has seen it implemented in their district/area.

I wrote a bunch more on my blog, but the gist of it is that in the past, the top-2 teams from each sub-flight advanced to playoffs and the teams were seeded 1 to N, generally the best 1st place team playing the worst 2nd place team and so on, in a single elimination draw.

Instead of that, this year all of the 1st place teams went into a "1st place teams" draw (A) and all the 2nd place teams go into a "2nd place teams" draw (B). The winner of draw A wins the playoffs and goes to Sectionals. The winner of draw B gets the opportunity to play the loser of the draw A final for the wildcard berth to Sectionals. This adds a bit more drama to the event and makes the draw A and wildcard finals both meaningful.

Here is an example draw.

You can kind of think of it as a double elimination draw where the 2nd place teams start with a loss and 1st place teams only drop to the loser's bracket if they lose the final.

I get what is being done, but wonder if it is really fair and equitable. The 1st place teams now have to beat 1st place teams to advance through the draw whereas in the old format, they at least got to play 2nd place teams to start most of the time.

And in the example above with 5 sub-flights and 10 teams, two 1st place teams don't even get the first round bye they used to. It is possible that in a tightly contested sub-flight, one 1-loss team (team 1) finishes 1st but is the 4th or 5th seed and has to play the extra match, while another 1-loss team (team 2) finishes 2nd and gets a top-3 2nd place seed and avoids the extra match. And team 2 gets to play 2nd place teams to advance instead of 1st place teams to boot. Yes, team 2 can't lose and will have to play the extra match on the end to advance, but team 1 has to win two matches and advance to the draw A final before they have the failsafe of losing. Which team would you rather be?

Has anyone else seen this with USTA League playoffs?

 

[kevrol]

I'm confused. So the loser of match 1 is out after 1 match?

 

[schmke]

Yes. It is single elimination with just one exception.

First place teams all go into one draw that is single elimination*. Second place teams go in a separate draw that is single elimination.

The winner of the 1st place draw is the local champ and moves on to Sectionals.

The loser of he 1st place draw final (the one exception to being single elimination) plays the winner of the 2nd place draw for the wildcard spot to Sectionals.

It seems ok on the surface, but the subtlety that 1st place teams are having to place 1st place teams in their single elimination phase is what feels awkward/wrong. The only benefit to being a first place team is that if you make the 1st place draw final and lose, you have a second chance, and that a 1st place team generally only has to win N matches in a row while a 2nd place team has to win N+1 (some exceptions to that as you can see in the draw above).

So is it better to be 1st or 2nd in your flight with this format? I think a 1st place team that doesn't have to play the the extra "play-in" match is desired. But if you have to play that "play-in" match (e.g. when there are 3 or 5 sub-flights populating a 6 or 10 team set of draws), wouldn't you almost rather be a 2nd place team that doesn't have to play the "play-in"?

 

[CHtennis]

Yes this seems hard to grasp at first but yes, I would think I would rather be a 2nd place with the 1-3 best record than a first place team with the 4-5th best record. That could lead to weird situations where a last match where neither team really wants to win the match all that bad.

 

[kevrol]

How far are these teams travelling to potentially only play one match?

 

[schmke]

It is all local (Seattle area) over one, or sometimes two, weekends. At least the second weekend (if there are two) has one or two facilities hosting all the matches.

 

[ShaunS]

Admittedly, I am not sure I fully understand everything here, but I'll take a stab.

The scenario above is representing a situation where 5 districts have sent two teams. All the district winners are placed in one bracket, and all the runner-ups are placed in a second bracket. (Protip - this is where anyone who has drawn a bracket before should be alarmed). The apparent attempt to fix that fundamental flaw is that the loser of match 7 drops into the runner-up bracket.

I think my objections to this format are the clunkiness and high degree of luck. Top finishing teams from two districts are being punished with an extra match, just to make this format work. They're also receiving absolutely no advantage for their win, and as noted, arguably are getting the significant disadvantage of single elimination against better competition.

It's basically like someone broke a double elimination tournaments bracket.

It seems ok on the surface

Honestly I think you're being too kind. It's flawed from the beginning, and the attempts to fix it are insufficient.

So is it better to be 1st or 2nd in your flight with this format? I think a 1st place team that doesn't have to play the the extra "play-in" match is desired. But if you have to play that "play-in" match (e.g. when there are 3 or 5 sub-flights populating a 6 or 10 team set of draws), wouldn't you almost rather be a 2nd place team that doesn't have to play the "play-in"?

Part of the problem is that you cannot know for sure. It'll depend on where you get slotted. There's an outside chance that a top seed would benefit from the Match 7 "drop down", but that could be two wins against other top seeds away.

I suppose the thing that I find so offensive about this format isn't all the flaws, but that they're trying to make it a thing at all. Right off the top of my head I can think of two better ways I've seen to handle this number of teams that would be more equitable. It'd only be a Google search away for someone to find when they were coming up with this mess.

 

[sam_p]

I'm just not sure what the problem is with playing a playoff match and just having the winners advance. That is the way it is essentially always in Norcal (a recent exception is the 18-45 singles league where there are three leagues and the best 2nd place team - by record - advances to District/Sectionals weekend).

If you lose the playoff, you go home.

 

[kevrol]

The thing I don't like it is the 2nd place teams have an easier path to the wildcard than the 1st place teams. Someone thought way to much about this when they really should have just had a true double elimination bracket.

 

[schmke]

The thing I don't like it is the 2nd place teams have an easier path to the wildcard than the 1st place teams. Someone thought way to much about this when they really should have just had a true double elimination bracket.

Excellent point, but a true double elimination bracket would require more matches and we already had to fight to get playoffs re-expanded to take the top-2 teams from each sub-flight (we'd done just the sub-flight winners and a single 2nd place team wildcard one year). The reason being it is difficult to secure enough courts for all the matches over a weekend or two, so requiring more matches would butt heads with that limitation.

This new format, even with its limitations, doesn't require any more matches to be played. And it does avoid the situation where each bracket's final has no meaning like it used to.

I agree it has issues though, and I was perhaps being kind when I said it looks ok on the surface.