schmke
Legend
I'd love to see Florida and Middle States in the final. On paper, would be a great team match.
BeyondTheTape
Semi-Pro
Some results from Day 1 posted. Interesting.
schmke
Legend
Well, they are posting very slow. I'm guessing matches are probably done by now, but still 7 men's matches to be entered.
BeyondTheTape
Semi-Pro
Hawaii 9-1 through day 1. Dont recall seeing them apart of our top 4 for easiest schedule of strength nor honorable mentions. wow.
schmke
Legend
They are an "island" and so pretty disconnected ratings wise. And they don't play that many matches in general with small flights, so they, like Caribbean, are often hard to predict.Hawaii 9-1 through day 1. Dont recall seeing them apart of our top 4 for easiest schedule of strength nor honorable mentions. wow.
But in my original simulation they did have a 5% chance of 4-0 and 25% chance of the semis. They still have to play Southern tomorrow, but a credit to them for doing well so far.
BeyondTheTape
Semi-Pro
very interested in the 0900am matchup between TX & Middle States.
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schmke
Legend
Good idea and I've thought of it, just haven't done it yet. In theory those who played day 1 are the players (at least the strong ones) that are there, and that would be better than blindly using the top-10, some of which may not be there.
OnTheLine
Hall of Fame
I watched for a little while today starting at about 4 ish ... saw some fine tennis on both the men's side and women's ... can't say for certain who all I watched as I wandered from court to court ... did see one of New England's courts absolutely man handling their opponents.
In case anyone is wondering: weather is as perfect as it gets .. high around 80, no humidity, no wind, clear skies.
In case anyone is wondering: weather is as perfect as it gets .. high around 80, no humidity, no wind, clear skies.
Just got word Middle States destroyed the two singles matches but lost the first set in all three doubles.
BeyondTheTape
Semi-Pro
so potentially 3 tiebreakers to win 1. its vegas but i like those odds.
Only split one court. 2-2, down to one match tb.
schmke
Legend
My Middle States v Florida final may happen in the semis.
schmke
Legend
It could be farther along than this, but TennisLink shows a bunch of 4th matches still to be played and 9 teams all at 2-1 or better so technically still in it.
The three 3-0 teams should be in the semis, but after that, Mydwest, New England, Hawaii, and Intermountain have the best chance at advancing.
The three 3-0 teams should be in the semis, but after that, Mydwest, New England, Hawaii, and Intermountain have the best chance at advancing.
Vox Rationis
Professional
Florida looks like they've done an amazing job of keeping their guys rested. After 4 matches, none of their singles players have played more than once a day.
schmke
Legend
With such depth, how do they decide who to play in the semis/final? Perhaps they are so strong it doesn't matter ...
Vox Rationis
Professional
They probably flip a coin at breakfast.
BeyondTheTape
Semi-Pro
Looks like 3 Sections comprised the Final Four of both 40&Over and 18&Over 4.0 Men. Caribbean, Florida, & Southern.
LOL, somehow, I doubt that.And if @J_R_B would have been there, I'm sure Middle States would have represented for 18 & Over
BeyondTheTape
Semi-Pro
Well you know the Southern 40&Over 4.0 men had to make Sectionals on a Wildcard. Yes. The national champs were Atlanta (b) team. Georgia brought two teams to Sectionals (playing in opposite round robin flights). Georgia (b) beat Georgia (a) in Sectionals Finals. National Champs...not bad for making Sectionals on a Wildcard.
The guy my friend was talking about is C-rated, and there's nothing shady-looking about his history. He's historically played 4.5, but only sporadically. He self-rated last year after a couple years off and had a bad year and got rated down. It happens.
ace18
Professional
Look at his 4.5 team they won 1 match and lost 29. Do a historical lookup of that team. Each season they get moved up to 4.5, they win 1 of 30 lines. The guy you mentioned I've also seen sign up with a different first name. His FB name is not the same name as what's in tennislink. I'm telling you, I've been a captain in Atlanta for many many years and know tons of players. And, I don't even play this level, so it has no impact on me personally. These guys cheat and everyone knows it but nothing is ever done.
ace18
Professional
In the state finals they were missing the stud singles player and one other guy and lost 3-2. In sectional finals, after receiving wildcard, they had those 2 players and reversed the win 3-2 to win sectionals. So yes, they were a lucky loser and were loaded for sectionals.
I know this team quite well. We play them every year in 40 & over. The person earlier was right. They have tanked for years to get all their good players down to 4.0. They’ve had a 4.5 low or 4.5 team for the last 3-4 years. Their combined record is like 4-120. Captains have reported this obvious tanking for years and USTA Atlanta does nothing about it. There has even been some proof and yet nothing happens. I went to high school with their singles guy and he really is a nice guy. The only questionable thing he did was play two matches in 2017 (which he lost) so that he could get a “C” rating making him DQ proof. He has played lights out throughout 2018 and will no doubt be bumped back up to 4.5 where he needs to be. Their captain is ridiculous to work with and I won’t even go on with all his antics during a typical season. The only thing that’s been proven here is that it pays to cheat. I guess that’s what USTA GA wants people to see since they’ve done nothing to stop it. It’s only getting worse with new teams popping up more and more with 90% self rates. I feel bad for those teams at Nationals that didn’t cheat the system for years that would have had a shot if this team was not there.
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I was there is Vegas with my Mydwest team. The guy in question did not belong there! He is an extremely high 4.5 in my state (WI) and was so far above the 4.0 level that he stood out like a sore thumb. Total sand bagger in my book.
Papa Mango
Professional
I was there too!! My first nationals and it was a great experience.
The weather and the facility were perfect over the weekend. Friday was perfect with sat/sun getting a little hotter. I think DTC/USTA did a great job with this Nationals with the exception of one official going nuts with the footfault calls on Saturday morning. Even came running from 3 courts over to give me a point penalty for swearing.
We had a middling schedule and I thought New England was the weakest team of the four. But got to see an 50 shotmoonball epic rally in a women's dubs match while we were waiting for the court to open up.
Did not see the Southern/Florida teams but everyone we played seemed to be solid on level, no sandbaggers encountered!
The weather and the facility were perfect over the weekend. Friday was perfect with sat/sun getting a little hotter. I think DTC/USTA did a great job with this Nationals with the exception of one official going nuts with the footfault calls on Saturday morning. Even came running from 3 courts over to give me a point penalty for swearing
. We had a middling schedule and I thought New England was the weakest team of the four. But got to see an 50 shot
in a women's dubs match while we were waiting for the court to open up.I did not play the match, but our teams played Friday night. And you guys had solid doubles. Losing D1 knocked the wind out of us.
Did not see the Southern/Florida teams but everyone we played seemed to be solid on level, no sandbaggers encountered!
ace18
Professional
Bingo, and I'm sorry, a team that wins 4.0 Nationals should win more than 1 individual line at 4.5 low, I mean cmon man (like ESPN says). I'm a pretty good acquaintance of one of the guys on the team and you better believe I bust his chops, every chance I get.
OnTheLine
Hall of Fame
I was there too!! My first nationals and it was a great experience.
The weather and the facility were perfect over the weekend. Friday was perfect with sat/sun getting a little hotter. I think DTC/USTA did a great job with this Nationals with the exception of one official going nuts with the footfault calls on Saturday morning. Even came running from 3 courts over to give me a point penalty for swearing
We had a middling schedule and I thought New England was the weakest team of the four. But got to see an 50 shotmoonballepic rally
Glad you enjoyed my club and city .... Also glad that we are now done with hosting Nats ... want my courts back!
I have a pretty good idea which official you may be referring to .... definitely keeps our disctrict playoffs on the level!
Jack the Hack
Hall of Fame
I'm a long time lurker on these boards, but I've exiled myself from posting anything for almost 3 years. That said, I decided to comment here because I was at Nationals in Vegas for both the 4.5+ and the 4.0 events, playing for my team and watching my sister’s team over the two weekends.
During the 4.0 tournament, I overheard some guys complaining that the Southern men’s team had a couple 5.0 players, so I had to go see it for myself. I watched Southern play SoCal, and saw the gentlemen singled out in this thread as well as the other player, both of which were in different doubles lines that match.
While I agree that they stood out as better than the rest of the 4.0s in the lineups that day, I *respectively* didn’t think that either of them were anywhere close to 5.0. In fact, TennisRecord.com has them at 4.25 and 4.08 after the Nationals results, which would put them in the “low” to “average” 4.5 categories at best. Both had decent serves and forehands, and moved OK, but I also saw a ton of errors from each guy, which I associate with the 4.0 level. I saw a few other players in the 4.0 tournament that looked the same as them in my opinion, and almost every Nationals 4.0 team has 2 to 3 players over the 4.0 threshold according to TennisRecord.
I don’t intend to sound snotty about this, but in comparison to the 4.5+ men’s matches I played in and watched the weekend before, the level of even the best 4.0s seemed much, much lower. No disrespect at all to everyone who played at Nationals since these teams represented the best 4.0s in the country over age 40. However, in every 4.0 match I saw, the ball appeared to be going 10-20% slower and there seemed to be 20-30% more unforced errors compared to 4.5+. And while he might have held his own OK in doubles, I think that Southern’s top 4.0 guy would have struggled to win games in any of the singles matches against the players in 4.5+.
In the 18s age division, I’ve certainly seen examples of horrible sandbagging and ratings abuse at 4.0 with high school state champions and top foreign players self-rating down and leading their teams to National titles. However, my perception is that the 40 and over divisions are relatively clean in terms of ratings tomfoolery and cheating. In 40s, usually people have a long record of previous league play that eliminates inaccurate self-rating, and with career and family responsibilities, they don’t have time to waste manipulating scores for their ratings, or throwing a whole season away in hopes of a title run later. I know it happens in 18s (ahem... Houston we have a problem), and maybe I'm wrong... but I haven't seen it in 40s.
For those that know that Southern player personally (@brettatk), what is his playing background? Did he play college tennis? Did he ever play high level junior, Open, or age group tournaments with any success?
I couldn’t find anything in a brief web search that would make me think he’s got a past that clearly shows he’s out of level. In fact, he only has a 5 and 9 record in 4.5 going back to 2007, and seems to have been blown off the court by 3 good doubles teams in 4.5 last year. This makes me think that the summary that @J_R_B wrote is spot on.
And finally, just to give you some contrast on my perspective, I want to point out that the SoCal 4.5+ team that won the Nationals title featured 3 guys that played for Stanford, 2 guys from USC, 1 from UC-Santa Barbara, 1 guy that was an All-American in D3, and 1 guy that was the 2004 NCAA D1 National Championship singles runner-up in their last match. That’s 8 players that played high level college tennis, and SoCal barely won the title in a 12-10 third set breaker over NorCal! My 4.5+ team wasn’t nearly as good as SoCal, but almost everyone on our team also played college or professional tennis. Since 4.5+ is the highest level in the over 40 age category, I don’t consider any of this as sandbagging. But this does show the stark contrast in levels between 4.0 and 4.5+. I doubt very many of the 4.0 guys played college tennis, and while I enjoyed watching the drama of the competition at that level, I just wasn’t blown away by any player I saw in the 4.0 tournament.
PS - @OnTheLine: Vegas was fantastic during the two weeks we were there! I've been to the city 6 or 7 times for business previously, but was always stuck on the Strip and didn't enjoy it very much. This time, we were everywhere else in Vegas and had an amazing time. I was impressed with all of the tennis facilities, and my only regret is not making it over the the Las Vegas Open Challenger event that was happening at UNLV (we didn't know about it until we got back).
During the 4.0 tournament, I overheard some guys complaining that the Southern men’s team had a couple 5.0 players, so I had to go see it for myself. I watched Southern play SoCal, and saw the gentlemen singled out in this thread as well as the other player, both of which were in different doubles lines that match.
While I agree that they stood out as better than the rest of the 4.0s in the lineups that day, I *respectively* didn’t think that either of them were anywhere close to 5.0. In fact, TennisRecord.com has them at 4.25 and 4.08 after the Nationals results, which would put them in the “low” to “average” 4.5 categories at best. Both had decent serves and forehands, and moved OK, but I also saw a ton of errors from each guy, which I associate with the 4.0 level. I saw a few other players in the 4.0 tournament that looked the same as them in my opinion, and almost every Nationals 4.0 team has 2 to 3 players over the 4.0 threshold according to TennisRecord.
I don’t intend to sound snotty about this, but in comparison to the 4.5+ men’s matches I played in and watched the weekend before, the level of even the best 4.0s seemed much, much lower. No disrespect at all to everyone who played at Nationals since these teams represented the best 4.0s in the country over age 40. However, in every 4.0 match I saw, the ball appeared to be going 10-20% slower and there seemed to be 20-30% more unforced errors compared to 4.5+. And while he might have held his own OK in doubles, I think that Southern’s top 4.0 guy would have struggled to win games in any of the singles matches against the players in 4.5+.
In the 18s age division, I’ve certainly seen examples of horrible sandbagging and ratings abuse at 4.0 with high school state champions and top foreign players self-rating down and leading their teams to National titles. However, my perception is that the 40 and over divisions are relatively clean in terms of ratings tomfoolery and cheating. In 40s, usually people have a long record of previous league play that eliminates inaccurate self-rating, and with career and family responsibilities, they don’t have time to waste manipulating scores for their ratings, or throwing a whole season away in hopes of a title run later. I know it happens in 18s (ahem... Houston we have a problem), and maybe I'm wrong... but I haven't seen it in 40s.
For those that know that Southern player personally (@brettatk), what is his playing background? Did he play college tennis? Did he ever play high level junior, Open, or age group tournaments with any success?
I couldn’t find anything in a brief web search that would make me think he’s got a past that clearly shows he’s out of level. In fact, he only has a 5 and 9 record in 4.5 going back to 2007, and seems to have been blown off the court by 3 good doubles teams in 4.5 last year. This makes me think that the summary that @J_R_B wrote is spot on.
And finally, just to give you some contrast on my perspective, I want to point out that the SoCal 4.5+ team that won the Nationals title featured 3 guys that played for Stanford, 2 guys from USC, 1 from UC-Santa Barbara, 1 guy that was an All-American in D3, and 1 guy that was the 2004 NCAA D1 National Championship singles runner-up in their last match. That’s 8 players that played high level college tennis, and SoCal barely won the title in a 12-10 third set breaker over NorCal! My 4.5+ team wasn’t nearly as good as SoCal, but almost everyone on our team also played college or professional tennis. Since 4.5+ is the highest level in the over 40 age category, I don’t consider any of this as sandbagging. But this does show the stark contrast in levels between 4.0 and 4.5+. I doubt very many of the 4.0 guys played college tennis, and while I enjoyed watching the drama of the competition at that level, I just wasn’t blown away by any player I saw in the 4.0 tournament.
PS - @OnTheLine: Vegas was fantastic during the two weeks we were there! I've been to the city 6 or 7 times for business previously, but was always stuck on the Strip and didn't enjoy it very much. This time, we were everywhere else in Vegas and had an amazing time. I was impressed with all of the tennis facilities, and my only regret is not making it over the the Las Vegas Open Challenger event that was happening at UNLV (we didn't know about it until we got back).
OnTheLine
Hall of Fame
@Jack the Hack Glad that you enjoyed my city! Playing tennis here is pretty darn easy as there are lots of places to play and we are really never rained out, being here in October meant that you had the best weather Vegas has to offer as well ...
The Open Challenger was fun to attend and starting Monday we have a WTA 80K Challenger that is part of the Aussie open challenger series too. Because it is held at Red Rock (where I think the 4.5 Nationals held some matches) it is quite intimate and you are able to be right up next to the players ... good way to remind yourself that you are nothing like the pros!
Dimitrov is now regularly practicing with Agassi and Steffi there at Darling Tennis Center and we had Djoker there in the spring when he was still working with Andre.
The Open Challenger was fun to attend and starting Monday we have a WTA 80K Challenger that is part of the Aussie open challenger series too. Because it is held at Red Rock (where I think the 4.5 Nationals held some matches) it is quite intimate and you are able to be right up next to the players ... good way to remind yourself that you are nothing like the pros!
Dimitrov is now regularly practicing with Agassi and Steffi there at Darling Tennis Center and we had Djoker there in the spring when he was still working with Andre.
ace18
Professional
So the singles player in question was bumped to 5.0..for year end rate...
Saw that this morning. He's a great player but I don't know about 5.0. He's playing Winter 18+ 4.0. Surely they aren't going to let him finish the season would they? That team lost everyone except two players to 4.5. I've seen a lot of bump ups so far. I wonder how many will be able to appeal back down.
ace18
Professional
I guess we will look for the team at 4.5- and see if they continue their 1 win and 29 loss season record.
If they do, what are the odds he loses the rest of his matches against 4.0s?
Jack the Hack
Hall of Fame
Double bump to 5.0 is rare, and as I wrote in my long post earlier, he didn't seem to be near a 5.0 to me. What I observed is what would an average 4.5 in my area. Granted, I understand that it was 4.0 Nationals and can see why people would be pissed to play a good 4.5 at 4.0. And almost that entire team was bumped to 4.5... so I get it... but that isn't that unusual when you win a National title.
I'm still curious... what is that particular player's playing background? Did he play college tennis? Did he ever play high level junior, Open, or age group tournaments with any success? Was he a great athlete in another sport?
Getting a 5.0 rating after age 40 is huge honor, but it's also almost a death sentence for League play. I know... it happened to me a few years ago and my playing opportunities dropped in half (along with my winning percentage).
Just to note, I looked up the new ratings for the 4.5+ championship team that I highlighted previously. Every single 4.5 that played in the finals was bumped to 5.0, and both of their 5.0s were bumped to 5.5! So needless to say, that team was ridiculously talented and made the 4.0 champs look very average in comparison.
Is it common to see 4.5 players with that type of pedigree? In my area, I don't know of anyone near the 4.5/5.0 border who played at a school with much (any?) name recognition. I would have thought guys like the ones you listed would be playing 5.5+, not 4.5+.
ace18
Professional
Perhaps USTA Georgia received a lot of complaints about the 4.0 guy that took the double bump, or someone from USTA GA reads this.Double bump to 5.0 is rare, and as I wrote in my long post earlier, he didn't seem to be near a 5.0 to me. What I observed is what would an average 4.5 in my area. Granted, I understand that it was 4.0 Nationals and can see why people would be pissed to play a good 4.5 at 4.0. And almost that entire team was bumped to 4.5... so I get it... but that isn't that unusual when you win a National title.
I'm still curious... what is that particular player's playing background? Did he play college tennis? Did he ever play high level junior, Open, or age group tournaments with any success? Was he a great athlete in another sport?
Getting a 5.0 rating after age 40 is huge honor, but it's also almost a death sentence for League play. I know... it happened to me a few years ago and my playing opportunities dropped in half (along with my winning percentage).
Just to note, I looked up the new ratings for the 4.5+ championship team that I highlighted previously. Every single 4.5 that played in the finals was bumped to 5.0, and both of their 5.0s were bumped to 5.5! So needless to say, that team was ridiculously talented and made the 4.0 champs look very average in comparison.
I'd be amazed if the USTA adjusts ratings based on what we say here! The player in question lost a combined total of 2 games in his matches in the semifinals and finals at nationals, both of which were against opponents who were bumped to 4.5. His match ratings for those two matches were probably well into the 5.0 range, so it's not so shocking that his year-end rating was 5.0.
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