Email I sent to league coordinator:
Hello,
My name is M and I joined the USTA this past year to play tournaments and hopefully find a team to play on for the Men's League this summer, because I enjoy playing tennis. I have never been involved in a USTA League but some of my friends have and so I have watched for the past few years. The match format up to 4.5 has always been 2 singles and 3 doubles for as long as I am aware. I understand it was 1 singles and 2 doubles for 5.0 because there is a problem of getting enough players since it changed from Open.
This past winter I heard that the USTA was splitting up the leagues by age, into 18+ and 40+. I do not think anybody thought this was a bad idea. The NTRP system separates players by skill but unfortunately it doesn't factor in age, which usually is the difference between two evenly matched players, skill-wise, if player A is twice player B's age it is not a fair fight and apparently enough people have expressed that.
I am sure you are thinking why is he explaining something to me I already know and is my job to know? I want to make sure I am on the same page. If I have something wrong in the statement above or anywhere below, please correct me.
A couple of weeks ago a veteran member of a team (I say "veteran" as he has played the league for while now but is in his 30's) told me that the 18+ 4.0 league was going to be 1 singles and 2 doubles, reducing the number of players that participate in a match by basically a 1/3. But the kicker was that the team had to have enough players to play the old format at sectionals and beyond because every other section was keeping the old format. Although you can get by with 8 or 9 players through the season, really you need at least 10, more likely 12-14 or whatever the roster maximum is because of the schedule of matches after the regular season and players' availability. As far as I know, teams want to win so generally they are going to play there best players as many times as possible and throw everybody else in just enough to get them eligible for postseason or if a top player can't make it.
If you look at the amount of players available to each pool (18+ and 40+), theoretically there are twice as many possible participants as available to 18+ leagues than the latter and there are still plenty of 40+ players that want to compete with the younger guys and physically can. If anything, it should be reversed, 40+ should be 1 & 2 with 18+ keeping the previous format. Even this I believe goes against the USTA's mission statement, “To promote and develop the growth of tennis," so I would not want to see this either but at least I could logically follow what the thinking to this was.
Teams that take the league seriously and are trying to win have a good singles player and a good doubles team, the better ones have more, some have less, but the thinking is on any given night you had a chance to win 3 out of 5 matches. There was also the opportunity to give the younger and/or less experienced players (aka not as good, middle of the road types) a chance to play and develop without what could otherwise end up meaning giving up a match. Taking away that #2 singles and #3 doubles kills that. This reminds me of when I graduated from college two years ago and was looking for a job. Every company had openings but they were looking for applicants with experience, 2 years, 5 years, 30 years, whatever. My joke was, everybody is looking for someone with experience (basically someone they don't have to train, they know how to do what they are hired to do, which by the way you do not learn in college), how do you get the "experience" if no one will hire you? I was lucky, less than 5 months after graduation, someone put in a good word for me and I did an internship of sorts and acquired the skills I needed and shortly after was hired.
Back to tennis, are all the #2 singles players and #3 doubles players suppose to band together and make teams so they can play? I do not know what the financial breakdown of leagues are so I do not know what generates more revenue, having more teams of less players so everyone plays more or less teams of more players but I do know clubs only have so much available court time and it takes 1 more court for every 2 teams of 1 singles and 2 doubles than it does for 1 team of 2 singles and 3 doubles. And it looks like some clubs are going to have 8 3.5-4.0 teams because everyone wants to play.
Basically if you are under 40, and not a cheater/ringer you can't play singles, and if you are below the middle of the pack for your level, you can't play at all.
Maybe I am being selfish, I think that I am better than I really am. But at the same time, everyone I have spoken to, from captains to strong players to weaker players, whatever, has expressed the same concerns. I was invited to a team in January and was cut this past weekend because the captain says he just has too many players for 1 singles slot. He said I am no worse than anybody else but not better than the top 2 so there is really not a spot for me and it would not be fair to me to have to pay the registration fee and play 2 matches and sit on the sidelines the rest of the year and hope the team made it to the postseason. How are teams suppose to add in new players if they don't have the flexibility.
My only option to play is to somehow get bumped down 3.5. Again, maybe I am a 3.5 but I answered the questionnaire honestly and it put me at 4.5. I have played 4.5's and I am in no way, shape, or form a 4.5. I think it was because I was part of the Club team at Stony Brook University and the team made it to Nationals. I didn't play any matches that year (my senior year, 2011) but played earlier (2009). I possibly read the question wrong but whatever, I appealed to go down to 4.0 and that was granted. I do not know what to make of my match results from 4.0 tournaments and the 4.0 Fall flex league, but all but one has been competitive, so I am close to where I should be. This is not an appeal to get bumped down to 3.5 (at least right now). I am just venting some frustration to what I thought would be a great experience which has so far has not been pleasant and looking for answers. If you have read all of this, thank you for your time.
I look forward to hearing back from someone,
Sincerely,
Pickle9
USTA# 2010311180
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Reply I received:
Unfortunately, this major change with the age divisions came the same year as a major storm on Long Island. I was in contact with most of the clubs to see how early in May they could give me court time knowing I have always used all they have given me in the past for the old format and I was obviously going to need a lot more with the new format. The answer I got over and over again was.......we definitely can not give more time than in the past, its probably going to be less due to all the makeups that have to be given due to the storm.
Knowing it was going to be impossible to book all these five court matches with such limited time, we knew something had to be 3 courts so we could get two matches played at the same time since most clubs have 6 or more courts. We did our homework and found that the age demographic in the league on Long Island was 86% over the age of 40. We also had to consider in the 40 & Over league that the 4.5 level could have two 5.0's on their team and had we made the 40 & over just three courts, the 4.5 division would be extremely negatively impacted.
Long Island is not the only region that is doing the three court format, I believe they are in New Jersey as well. The regions have to do what they need to, to make the league work in their area. We are hoping this is a one year format due to the limited court time.
As for making the 40 & Over the league 3 courts, honestly, it would have made for many many more players in disagreement with our decision. We did the best we could with what we had to work with.
While I think it is great that there are teams who's goal it is to advance to the next level, there are many many teams that just want to play tennis.
I regret that you are not happy with the way the league is going to run this year, but we do feel it was the best decision with all the aspects we have to consider.
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LI USTA League Coordinator
