Following up on my earlier post, sure enough, in the PDX 40+ 4.5 league, the second place team that finished 5-1 lost out on a Sectionals bid based on one single PPP point in the standings to the 3-3 team that they had beaten earlier in the season. Further analysis shows that the 3-3 team got the one extra point from a defaulted match towards the end of the season from a team that had basically given up. The 3-3 team also lost 1-4 to the top team on the last weekend, with the top team rolling out their B lineup since they had already clinched playoffs.
Bottom line, I can't think of another sports situation where the team record doesn't count. Imagine if the NBA chose playoff teams not by their win-loss record, but by the teams that scored the most accumulated points from all their games. If that happened, you could have a team like San Antonio that won 50 games, but misses the playoffs because they have an anemic offense, but strong defense, while a 30 win New Orleans team scores a lot of points, but plays no defense gets in because they can score more.
For what it's worth, I have written our USTA Section Coordinator already showing how the 4-line format has to change because of what happened. I know the captain for that 5-1 team and several others in our league also did the same thing, but I'm skeptical and pessimistic about whether the USTA will listen.
