Points Per Position Survey for USTA League

schmke

schmke

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I just received a survey from the USTA about a Points Per Position (PPP) team format. Basically the format awards points for court wins based on the court played and points accumulate throughout the season and this is what is used to determine sub-flight winners, not team wins/losses.

The survey asked if the current scoring format is fair, if PPP would devalue certain courts/players, and if should be used and where. It also asked some questions about stacking and if it abided by the rules and if how it affected players satisfaction with league play.

Pros of PPP are presumably that it encourages teams to play their best players on court 1 and reduces stacking as ensuring you win court 2 or court 3 won't score as many points as winning court 1. The cumulative scoring also means a team can recover from an early loss by making up points, they don't need to hope for the other team to actually lose a team match.

Cons are that depending on the weighting, court 2 (singles) and 3 (doubles) do have less meaning and impact so players might consider themselves less valuable. It also means teams could get away with having less depth, just win court 1s and you can advance. Except the cumulative scoring may make that difficult.

So what do people think?
 
I have no idea what weighting they would use, but I thought an example might help folks understand it.

Say singles are weighted 3 points for court 1 and 1 point for court 2. And doubles is weighted 3 for court 1, 2 for court 2, and 1 for court 3. This means there is 10 points total available in a match.

Say you have a 3 team sub-flight and team A plays team B and wins both court 1s and loses the rest. Team A gets 6 points and team B 4 points. Team A does this again against team C. So team A has gone "2-0" (although team wins don't really count) and accumulated 12 points.

When team B and team C play, team B wins 4-1 losing just court 3 doubles, thus getting 9 of the 10 points. This makes their total 13.

Using this scoring, despite team A "winning" both team matches, they accumulated fewer points and team B wins the sub-flight.
 
Weighting only promotes sandbagging because you would need even fewer ringers in order to win every match.
 
I just saw the survey and came straight here because I knew there'd be a discussion going on. I just want to say that everyone who received the survey really needs to fill it out. A few years ago, they sent out one about changing the format to 1 singes line and 4 doubles. Most players just ignored the survey but the ones who hated singles made sure to get their opinion in. The next summer, USTA Atlanta sent out a letter to captains saying they were going to adopt the new format and that's when players decided to make their feelings known. They flooded the USTA office with calls and within a couple of days USTA came back and said the letter was sent in error. Regardless of whether you're for or against it, fill out the survey and try to get your teammates to do it also.
 
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J_R_B said:
Weighting only promotes sandbagging because you would need even fewer ringers in order to win every match.
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Except as I understand it, "winning" a team match doesn't matter, it is the cumulative points that matters. See the example I gave where a team with 3 ringers that wins just court 1s and "wins" each team match could still lose the sub-flight.
 
When I was a top line 4.0 I wanted to play the other team's top team. Since our team was at the top of the league, the other squad frequently flipped their lineups which lead to some blow outs.

Now that I am at the bottom of 4.5, on a middling team, I am frequently getting flipped to play the top line guys from he other team. I dislike this also, but this is not as bad as playing 3.5 guys as a top 4.0.

I would be ok with this system but would prefer one where I am assured of getting an equivalent guy from the other team. For example someone suggested an app that once you plug in your lineup, the app matches up your players. I really like this idea to match up the top lines anonymously.
 
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schmke said:
Except as I understand it, "winning" a team match doesn't matter, it is the cumulative points that matters. See the example I gave where a team with 3 ringers that wins just court 1s and "wins" each team match could still lose the sub-flight.
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You can have a system where total court counts wins the flight instead of team match wins without having weighted courts. Reagardless of the system, the addition of weighted courts encourages sandbagging by placing a premium on the best players.
 
J_R_B said:
You can have a system where total court counts wins the flight instead of team match wins without having weighted courts. Reagardless of the system, the addition of weighted courts encourages sandbagging by placing a premium on the best players.
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But you still need "enough" depth to not lose more courts than you win regularly.
 
dizzlmcwizzl said:
When I was a top line 4.0 I wanted to play the other team's top team. Since our team was at the top of the league, the other squad frequently flipped their lineups which lead to some blow outs.

Now that I am at the bottom of 4.5, on a middling team, I am frequently getting flipped to play the top line guys from he other team. I dislike this also, but this is not as bad as playing 3.5 guys as a top 4.0.

I would be ok with this system but would prefer one where I am assured of getting an equivalent guy from the other team. For example someone suggested an app that once you plug in your lineup, the app matches up your players. I really like this idea to match up the top lines anonymously.
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I think that was me. I doubt the USTA would ever do it though, you'd have people putting trial line-ups in to try to figure out where people are rated.

If both teams would agree to abide by what was spit out, this is an app I could create from my ratings.
 
Each court needs to count the same, or you will have situations described above, where teams win without the best records, and vice versa. That's just wrong, and I filled out my survey accordingly.
 
I actually would be in favor of the format except Singles should be 2pts and 1pt not 3-1 so would be a 9 pt system.
Would stop the stacking, that I do not have a problem with, but would make it interesting.

*** I also see the otherside as well, guess in the end the current way is fine if the USTA would actually enforce their own rules on self-rates
 
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As with most things the devil is in the details. The survey used the word 'tie' a bit in its descriptive.

Taking them at their intended meaning... Who knows...

But they could be saying something like this for the scoring:

1 Singles = 1.5 points
2 Singles = 1 point
1 Dubs = 2 points
2 Dubs = 1.5 points
3 Dubs = 1 point

So one team could win the (2) 1 lines and receive 3.5 points and the other team would also receive 3.5 points.

This would encourage you to at least play your best players in positions that give you a chance at more points. Currently teams that have a dominant two or three players already have an advantage at local league play so I don't see this as causing more of an opportunity for sandbagging. And I do see this as penalizing stacking.

Not sure about this scenario, but there is a chance that this would discourage self rated sandbaggers throwing games depending on how they handle ties.

Stacking for the guys is less of an issue - we do it but we also don't care about it as much; but my wife also captains and she does **** off ladies sometimes when she has to stack to compete.
 
wrxinsc said:
As with most things the devil is in the details. The survey used the word 'tie' a bit in its descriptive.

Taking them at their intended meaning... Who knows...

But they could be saying something like this for the scoring:

1 Singles = 1.5 points
2 Singles = 1 point
1 Dubs = 2 points
2 Dubs = 1.5 points
3 Dubs = 1 point

So one team could win the (2) 1 lines and receive 3.5 points and the other team would also receive 3.5 points.

This would encourage you to at least play your best players in positions that give you a chance at more points. Currently teams that have a dominant two or three players already have an advantage at local league play so I don't see this as causing more of an opportunity for sandbagging. And I do see this as penalizing stacking.

Not sure about this scenario, but there is a chance that this would discourage self rated sandbaggers throwing games depending on how they handle ties.

Stacking for the guys is less of an issue - we do it but we also don't care about it as much; but my wife also captains and she does **** off ladies sometimes when she has to stack to compete.
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I never stack my lineup. In fact, if my lineup looks stacked, it's because I've noted that the other team tends to stack their lineup, and I'm actively attempting to unstack it.
 
J_R_B said:
I never stack my lineup. In fact, if my lineup looks stacked, it's because I've noted that the other team tends to stack their lineup, and I'm actively attempting to unstack it.
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Sometimes it's really not about stronger or weaker players but about match ups. When scheduling my singles guys, you could argue that a few of them were weaker (slower serve, less weapons etc...) but they were great retrievers and when they played against people that expected to win in two three strokes the other players had to hit 6-8 shots to win the point. Eventually having to hit so many good shots against my guys would tire out the opposing players and they would overhit and the errorfest would begin.
 
damazing said:
Sometimes it's really not about stronger or weaker players but about match ups. When scheduling my singles guys, you could argue that a few of them were weaker (slower serve, less weapons etc...) but they were great retrievers and when they played against people that expected to win in two three strokes the other players had to hit 6-8 shots to win the point. Eventually having to hit so many good shots against my guys would tire out the opposing players and they would overhit and the errorfest would begin.
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Of course there are matchup issues. I'm just talking about a situation where there is a unequivocably better player/team.
 
I once proposed an idea to help with stacking.

Say you have three doubles/two singles and all of your players are computer-rated 4.0s. No matter how you arrange that line-up, it's not stacking. All players are on level.

Say instead you have a 4.0 team with lots of players playing up. Stacking would be, IMO, putting your 3.5s on the higher courts.

I think it would be an easy fix simply to adopt a rule that "the rating (or combined rating for doubles) of a player cannot be higher than that of a teammate on a higher court."

An example: I have a 4.0 and a 3.5 for singles, and I have three 4.0s for doubles and three 3.5s.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put the 3.5 on Court One for singles.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put two 3.5s on Court One for doubles because that would give me 7.5 and 8.0 pairings on the lower courts. I would either have to put out three 7.5 pairs or play it 8.0/7.5/7.0.

The other rule that could be considered is that S, A and M rated players cannot play on a higher court than a computer-rated player. That means sandbaggers would have to play Court Three, which would be really boring for them.
 
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Cindysphinx said:
I once proposed an idea to help with stacking.

Say you have three doubles/two singles and all of your players are computer-rated 4.0s. No matter how you arrange that line-up, it's not stacking. All players are on level.

Say instead you have a 4.0 team with lots of players playing up. Stacking would be, IMO, putting your 3.5s on the higher courts.

I think it would be an easy fix simply to adopt a rule that "the rating (or combined rating for doubles) of a player cannot be higher than that of a teammate on a higher court."

An example: I have a 4.0 and a 3.5 for singles, and I have three 4.0s for doubles and three 3.5s.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put the 3.5 on Court One for singles.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put two 3.5s on Court One for doubles because that would give me 7.5 and 8.0 pairings on the lower courts. I would either have to put out three 7.5 pairs or play it 8.0/7.5/7.0.

The other rule that could be considered is that S, A and M rated players cannot play on a higher court than a computer-rated player. That means sandbaggers would have to play Court Three, which would be really boring for them.
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why not use the higher fidelity ("3.07") rating and force coaches to play highest rated player in top most available spot. they could easily email each coach each week with the updated ratings and computer disqualify any wrong placements. stacking issue resolved. they could even just update "dynamic" rating for league once a month.
 
Because doing that would make a lot less fun. Let me tell you a little story.

I have a buddy on my team. She and I partnered unsuccessfully a few years back, and I think we both decided we weren't a good match.

This year, we decided to give it another try. At first, we lost. We then took semi-private lessons with a pro who gave us strategies to help us maximize our strengths and compensate for our weaknesses. After a while, we were a well-oiled machine and started winning.

Under your proposal, we might not be allowed to partner. Not cool, man.
 
First off, USTA will never allow Captains to see dynamic ratings.

Second, do we really need more rules to make every Captains job even more miserable. I'm with Cindy, certain pairings are just not good even if the dynamic rating might be higher on the individual members of a team. Also, let's change lineups every week to look at dynamic ratings?

It is really up to the Captain to determine the best pairings of available players and play accordingly. We do not and will never have access to dynamic ratings so no Captain can always tell who has a higher dynamic rating and who does not.

I can tell you one thing - just because someone has a higher dynamic rating, it does not mean that player is the better player at any certain time.

This is just not a realistic approach to this issue.
 
This would be catastrophically unfair to rising 3.5 GOATs who get partnered with uncoordinated slow moving, spider-veined players.
 
tennixpl said:
What problem are they trying to solve?
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Given the questions in the survey, it appears they are trying to address complaints about stacking. And people probably complain about stacking because they are under the misconception that court 1 is supposed to have the strongest team and on down the line.

Now the somewhat valid complaint with stacking (IMHO) is that good players who get put on court 1 may sometimes have to play the "sacrificial lamb" in an uncompetitive match when the opposing team doesn't think they can win court 1 so they stack courts 2 and 3 with their best players hoping to steal a win. Sometimes the sacrificial lamb may even be playing up, so a strong 4.0 on court 1 may end up playing a 3.5 resulting in a match that may not be fun for either player.

This issue gets accentuated with the plus leagues where a 5.0 in a 4.5+ league has to play court 1, and if the opposing team doesn't have a 5.0 they can throw out a 4.0 that is playing up.

In either case, the goal of competitive matches isn't accomplished.

With PPP, the idea is if court 1 is worth more points, the opposing team is incentivized to play their best player there and you get a good competitive match for both players. This perhaps works to a point, but only if the opposing team has a good player they think has a shot to win on court 1. Otherwise, they are still better off conceding court 1 and stacking the higher numbered courts to try and get points there rather than risking a sweep.

Another drawback folks have pointed out is that it diminishes the value of the higher numbered courts which perhaps has a negative effect on the players who regularly play those courts.

Others have also noted that this puts an even higher premium on having a couple studs who can virtually guarantee a win on court 1, so may actually increase the sandbagging and underrating that goes on.
 
Cindysphinx said:
I once proposed an idea to help with stacking.

Say you have three doubles/two singles and all of your players are computer-rated 4.0s. No matter how you arrange that line-up, it's not stacking. All players are on level.

Say instead you have a 4.0 team with lots of players playing up. Stacking would be, IMO, putting your 3.5s on the higher courts.

I think it would be an easy fix simply to adopt a rule that "the rating (or combined rating for doubles) of a player cannot be higher than that of a teammate on a higher court."

An example: I have a 4.0 and a 3.5 for singles, and I have three 4.0s for doubles and three 3.5s.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put the 3.5 on Court One for singles.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put two 3.5s on Court One for doubles because that would give me 7.5 and 8.0 pairings on the lower courts. I would either have to put out three 7.5 pairs or play it 8.0/7.5/7.0.
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I agree with this. A few years back when I was still a 3.5 (after the great "bump up"), I played line 1 dubs and the other team stacked their lineup and put two 3.0s at line 1. We won 6-0, 6-0. It's a waste of my time.

But I just got bumped up to 4.5 for 2014 so I don't really have to worry about this issue since I'll be playing against 4.0s at the minimum now. I'm more of a high 4.0 so those matches should be competitive for me.

Cindysphinx said:
The other rule that could be considered is that S, A and M rated players cannot play on a higher court than a computer-rated player. That means sandbaggers would have to play Court Three, which would be really boring for them.
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I don't think that would help though in the case of sandbaggers. They already don't care about boring matches since they're playing down. By playing against lower rated players, they can sandbag even more and keep a lower dynamic rating. USTA just needs to ban self-rates from playoffs and up the matches needed for a computer rating so they have to "waste" a year to get that computer rating.
 
Cindysphinx said:
I once proposed an idea to help with stacking.

Say you have three doubles/two singles and all of your players are computer-rated 4.0s. No matter how you arrange that line-up, it's not stacking. All players are on level.

Say instead you have a 4.0 team with lots of players playing up. Stacking would be, IMO, putting your 3.5s on the higher courts.

I think it would be an easy fix simply to adopt a rule that "the rating (or combined rating for doubles) of a player cannot be higher than that of a teammate on a higher court."

An example: I have a 4.0 and a 3.5 for singles, and I have three 4.0s for doubles and three 3.5s.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put the 3.5 on Court One for singles.

The proposed rule would not allow me to put two 3.5s on Court One for doubles because that would give me 7.5 and 8.0 pairings on the lower courts. I would either have to put out three 7.5 pairs or play it 8.0/7.5/7.0.

The other rule that could be considered is that S, A and M rated players cannot play on a higher court than a computer-rated player. That means sandbaggers would have to play Court Three, which would be really boring for them.
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If the numbering of courts was intended to have any meaning (it doesn't today which is the root issue, many people think it does), I like what you are proposing with your first rule. Implementing it would give this meaning to some degree but wouldn't completely take away line-up strategy from a captains responsibilities. The only thing this really does is to keep the "on the rise" player playing up from playing on court 1 and perhaps court 2 in many cases which isn't really fair to the team or the player.

I don't really like the second rule. First, S and M rated players aren't necessarily sandbaggers, and remember, A rated players could be from an appeal up or down. I think this restriction would be too much.
 
schmke said:
This issue gets accentuated with the plus leagues where a 5.0 in a 4.5+ league has to play court 1, and if the opposing team doesn't have a 5.0 they can throw out a 4.0 that is playing up.
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And this is exactly how 5.0s get bumped down to 4.5 and those 4.0s get bumped up to 4.5 if the score isn't 6-0, 6-0. USTA created this mess, haha. I think you talked about this before in one of your posts.
 
schmke said:
Now the somewhat valid complaint with stacking (IMHO) is that good players who get put on court 1 may sometimes have to play the "sacrificial lamb" in an uncompetitive match when the opposing team doesn't think they can win court 1 so they stack courts 2 and 3 with their best players hoping to steal a win. Sometimes the sacrificial lamb may even be playing up, so a strong 4.0 on court 1 may end up playing a 3.5 resulting in a match that may not be fun for either player.
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Of course, if the captain of the stronger player didn't always play courts "in order" then the other team wouldn't be able to predict where to play their sacrificial lamb. "Stacking" is ineffective against an unpredictable captain.

If people worried less about what line they play (because they are all theoretically the same) and just played whoever is on the other side of the court they'd be happier. The proposed point system would, as Cindy pointed out, create more opportunities for friction and bruised egos among teammates.
 
Does stacking work at the local level anyways?

The years that I've had good teams, we basically had 12 line 1 players so even if someone tried to stack the line up, they would still lose bc their line 1 couldn't beat our line 2. Once you get to states, everyone is close to your level so there is no need to stack there either.

My point is that if you have to stack at the local level, you'll get crushed at districts if you make it somehow. I don't see the point in stacking and it rarely works. The good teams pretty much run through the local level until the playoffs and then they may have a competitive playoff match of equal abilities.

If you have a middle of the pack team, why would you ever try to stack knowing that your team wouldn't make it past the local level playoff?
 
kylebarendrick said:
Of course, if the captain of the stronger player didn't always play courts "in order" then the other team wouldn't be able to predict where to play their sacrificial lamb. "Stacking" is ineffective against an unpredictable captain.

If people worried less about what line they play (because they are all theoretically the same) and just played whoever is on the other side of the court they'd be happier.
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Exactly. So the real root issue is players that think the courts are supposed to be by strength of player. The USTA would probably be better off sending a newsletter explaining that than doing a survey. Once people understand that, then stacking doesn't really exist.
 
jonnyjack said:
And this is exactly how 5.0s get bumped down to 4.5 and those 4.0s get bumped up to 4.5 if the score isn't 6-0, 6-0. USTA created this mess, haha. I think you talked about this before in one of your posts.
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To address this, the one rule that might make sense is to not allow players playing up (e.g. a 4.0 in a 4.5+ league) to be on court 1 in plus leagues. Plus leagues do give meaning to court 1 as the plus players must play on these courts. It makes sense that a team with a plus player shouldn't be penalized by the opposition being able to throw a court with no recourse as the plus player had to play that court.
 
JoelDali said:
This would be catastrophically unfair to rising 3.5 GOATs who get partnered with uncoordinated slow moving, spider-veined players.
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partner - no one is talking about about spider veined players partnering with rising goats. wait. wat?
 
schmke said:
To address this, the one rule that might make sense is to not allow players playing up (e.g. a 4.0 in a 4.5+ league) to be on court 1 in plus leagues. Plus leagues do give meaning to court 1 as the plus players must play on these courts. It makes sense that a team with a plus player shouldn't be penalized by the opposition being able to throw a court with no recourse as the plus player had to play that court.
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this is a very sensible follow up to Cindy's post. makes sense to me.
 
I don't have a problem with giving more weight to singles and doubles 1 than singles 2 or doubles 2/3. I like the incentive to put your best player in singles 1.

I played a lot of matches last year in singles 1, and many matches I had almost no competition... and I know the opposing captains had players that were very good.

If I play doubles 3, I'm expecting to have a decent time, but i'm not expecting to get trounced. When doubles 3 turns into a US Open match vs. the Bryan brothers, then its no longer fun for the weaker players on your team.
 
A survey in search of a solution to a non-existing problem. It ain't broken so don't fix it. I voted accordingly: no change.
 
CrocodileRock said:
Each court needs to count the same, or you will have situations described above, where teams win without the best records, and vice versa. That's just wrong, and I filled out my survey accordingly.
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Agreed, and I filled mine out accordingly as well...
 
kylebarendrick said:
Of course, if the captain of the stronger player didn't always play courts "in order" then the other team wouldn't be able to predict where to play their sacrificial lamb. "Stacking" is ineffective against an unpredictable captain.
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Not completely true.

The rules say that the lower court must be forfeited. As a result, a captain is taking a risk if she puts her strongest team on Court Three. That pair might wind up winning by default with the other two courts losing (being matched against the strongest pairs of the opponent).

I would say most captains rarely if ever put their strongest pair on Court Three. If you do, you will hear about it if that pair doesn't get a competitive match and is disappointed to hand out a double bagel in 40 minutes.

If your strongest pair is on Court One and wins easily against a captain who "stacked," then you can shrug off your players' complaints with "Oh, well, I guess they stacked."

If people worried less about what line they play (because they are all theoretically the same) and just played whoever is on the other side of the court they'd be happier. The proposed point system would, as Cindy pointed out, create more opportunities for friction and bruised egos among teammates.
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If the league wants court assignments to be meaningless, then the league should do away with the requirement that the lower courts be forfeited. If the league doesn't treat all three courts the same, why should the players view it that way?
 
86golf said:
If you have a middle of the pack team, why would you ever try to stack knowing that your team wouldn't make it past the local level playoff?
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Because even middling or weak teams want to win a few matches. It's not all about the post-season. Most players won't make the playoffs, after all, so they don't care much about advancing.

The strongest teams will blow through the weaker teams. Stack, don't stack, makes no difference.

But if you are in the basement, you can pick off a slightly stronger opponent by stacking. So it makes sense.
 
I sense the appropriate thing to do should be to rename the lines and keep everything else the same.

Bob "Steve , what line are playing?"
Steve "Blue bird line"
Bob "Tough luck, the ace kickers always play their self rated guys on the blue bird line , I am going to play the woodpecker line"
 
schmke said:
Exactly. So the real root issue is players that think the courts are supposed to be by strength of player. The USTA would probably be better off sending a newsletter explaining that than doing a survey. Once people understand that, then stacking doesn't really exist.
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You are correct. I have worked in leagues for years and explained that the numbers are not strength of play, but captains and players do not listen. I wish USTA National would explain this, but it hasn't happened yet.
 
Maybe an alternative would be to award bonus points. 1 bonus point for winning both singles lines and you also get a bonus point if you win all three doubles. So if you take all five lines, you get 7 points.

Otherwise I don't see it as a chronic problem. Stackimg that is. I
 
catfish said:
You are correct. I have worked in leagues for years and explained that the numbers are not strength of play, but captains and players do not listen. I wish USTA National would explain this, but it hasn't happened yet.
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It is not the fault of the players. It is the fault of USTA.

They used to have a rule against stacking. If you establish a rule or expectation, you will often have a hard time undoing it. USTA has done nothing to change these expectations other than to say "Our old rule is no longer in effect." Not good enough. USTA needs to change the names of the lines to avoid the appearance of relative importance.

Yeah, USTA could start by calling the lines Bluebird, Eagle and Sparrow. But if Eagle was always the line that had to be forfeited, captains would put their strongest pairs on Bluebird and Sparrow.

Which is exactly what happens now.
 
Cindysphinx said:
It is not the fault of the players. It is the fault of USTA.

They used to have a rule against stacking. If you establish a rule or expectation, you will often have a hard time undoing it. USTA has done nothing to change these expectations other than to say "Our old rule is no longer in effect." Not good enough. USTA needs to change the names of the lines to avoid the appearance of relative importance.

Yeah, USTA could start by calling the lines Bluebird, Eagle and Sparrow. But if Eagle was always the line that had to be forfeited, captains would put their strongest pairs on Bluebird and Sparrow.

Which is exactly what happens now.
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If it was up to me, I would change the system and not use numbers. But it is not up to me. All I can do is explain to captains.
 
If the courts number has no meaning, than there can be no "stacking".
In which case adding meaning to the courts would then create the situation to stack which is what is being argued they are trying to correct. This makes no sense.

Quite frankly I don't care about stacking bc we struggle just to fill five matches anyway. and on any day anyone can beat someone else if they are of relative skill and "rated" properly
 
Cindysphinx said:
Not completely true.

The rules say that the lower court must be forfeited. As a result, a captain is taking a risk if she puts her strongest team on Court Three. That pair might wind up winning by default with the other two courts losing (being matched against the strongest pairs of the opponent).
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This is true, but likewise it is also very poor form to default a line without notification to the opposing captain. Almost always if an opponent is to default a line in a match, our captain receives a heads-up ahead of time, and can rework the lineup to prevent your scenario from happening.

If a captain were to hand over a lineup sheet with a defaulted line on it without letting their counterpart know beforehand, that would be totally bush-league, not only for the potential gamesmanship involved, but also for the fact that players are now showing up for a match that their opponents knew they weren't going to play.

Those kinds of acts would earn bad reputations, I would think.
 
In our league, defaults occur 15 minutes after start time. We play timed matches, so players cannot sit around cooling their heels waiting for a late player.

So many defaults occur because someone gets stuck in traffic. Line-up are exchanged 5 minutes ahead, so it often happens that the late player is on Court 1 or 2. Local rules specify that players on the defaulting team move up a court so that Court 3 takes the default.

That said, yes, there are people who don't give advance notice. This happens when a team is in playoff contention or the captains don't like each other.
 
The idea is crap. If you are rated 4.0 and your opponent is rated 4.0, then according to the USTA computer, your match should be competitive. Even when teams roll/stack line-ups, you end up with players of like rating playing each other. A change like this one would make it even easier to game the system than what is now possible. As pointed out, you could win the majority of lines in every match played and still lose your league on points. Likewise, it completely devalues overall team wins and reduces league titles to the results of a handful of players. It is a ridiculous idea.
 
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