R
rip8aces
Guest
I’d like to add my 2 cents about “sandbagging” and since my team had the good fortune of playing in the Men’s 3.0 Nationals this year I think I’m somewhat qualified to add my opinion. While we were a little disappointed, at the end of the tourney, my team was happy with our result overall. I don’t want to say any more or else you amateur Sherlock Holmes’s will try to figure out what team I was on and try to decide if I have a hidden agenda, axe to grind, whatever.
At Nationals, what I saw and heard about was that except for 1 or 2 teams, all of the other teams were filled with mostly 3.5 players. Call it sandbagging if you want, but it’s pretty much universal at Nationals. So, unless your from one of the smaller Sections, if you want to make it to Nationals, you pretty much have to sandbag to some degree. If your conscience won’t allow you to sandbag, then put together the best team you can, and hope you can make it to Sectionals, and realize that your chances are pretty good of being beaten by a team of sandbaggers.
The bottom line for me is the USTA has an IMPOSSIBLE job of trying to keep a truly level playing field. No matter what criteria they use to rank people and police the rankings, there will always be a way to work around the system and there will always be guys who will “sandbag”. I heard from some guys who have played USTA before, that there were more DQ’s this year than in the past, so it seems the USTA is trying to crack down on the sandbagging somewhat. So, unless you want your USTA or league dues to be $500, the USTA will have to make due the best it can with the limited resources it can afford. I personally think they’re doing a very good job and based on an earlier post, they’re looking at ways to improve the system.
One other thing about Nationals – even though the Texas team probably did a better job of sandbagging than the other 14-15 teams of sandbaggers, I never heard anyone complain about their sportsmanship. I stuck around for the last day of play, and I heard quite a few people complaining about the Caribbean team – bad line calls, coaching in Spanish, and heckling the other team. There were a handful of people from other teams there on Sun. and they were all rooting against the Caribbean. I even overheard one of the players from a team that lost to the Caribbean warn the Texas guys about the Caribbean and told Texas to beat the crap out of them. If anything, I think the USTA should have a chair umpire for the semi’s and the finals to make sure there are no bad calls, coaching, or heckling.
At Nationals, what I saw and heard about was that except for 1 or 2 teams, all of the other teams were filled with mostly 3.5 players. Call it sandbagging if you want, but it’s pretty much universal at Nationals. So, unless your from one of the smaller Sections, if you want to make it to Nationals, you pretty much have to sandbag to some degree. If your conscience won’t allow you to sandbag, then put together the best team you can, and hope you can make it to Sectionals, and realize that your chances are pretty good of being beaten by a team of sandbaggers.
The bottom line for me is the USTA has an IMPOSSIBLE job of trying to keep a truly level playing field. No matter what criteria they use to rank people and police the rankings, there will always be a way to work around the system and there will always be guys who will “sandbag”. I heard from some guys who have played USTA before, that there were more DQ’s this year than in the past, so it seems the USTA is trying to crack down on the sandbagging somewhat. So, unless you want your USTA or league dues to be $500, the USTA will have to make due the best it can with the limited resources it can afford. I personally think they’re doing a very good job and based on an earlier post, they’re looking at ways to improve the system.
One other thing about Nationals – even though the Texas team probably did a better job of sandbagging than the other 14-15 teams of sandbaggers, I never heard anyone complain about their sportsmanship. I stuck around for the last day of play, and I heard quite a few people complaining about the Caribbean team – bad line calls, coaching in Spanish, and heckling the other team. There were a handful of people from other teams there on Sun. and they were all rooting against the Caribbean. I even overheard one of the players from a team that lost to the Caribbean warn the Texas guys about the Caribbean and told Texas to beat the crap out of them. If anything, I think the USTA should have a chair umpire for the semi’s and the finals to make sure there are no bad calls, coaching, or heckling.
