Total team default penalty

[qwanta]

I played in a mixed doubles league this Summer with 5 other teams, so we played every team twice. The last place team didn't play their last match, so this resulted in a "total team default".

Surprisingly (to me at least), instead of just being penalized with a loss for the defaulted match, this resulted in 5 matches being cancelled altogether for the team.

Here is a screenshot:

The reason given was "It isn't fair for one team to receive a 3-0 win without playing, while all the others had to actually play them." But this solution seems very unfair to the teams that actually beat them, only to see the match result cancelled. My team actually benefited as we had lost the match that was cancelled, so we actually moved up in the final rankings, but it seems like a strange rule so I am curious.

Has anyone ever come across something like this in their usta league?

 

[schmke]

Yes, we have a summer league that is just one court of doubles where this is the rule. If a team defaults one match, all their matches are recorded as defaults even if prior matches had been played. Now, the actual scores are used for ratings purposes, but for the standings every team gets the same 6-0,6-0 result.

The rationale is like you say, to be fair to all those involved. If one team will get the benefit of a complete 6-0,6-0 win for standings purposes, it is thought to be fair to the others that had to play to let them get the same result. This helps to avoid a situation where a team ends up defaulting a couple of matches toward the end of the season because they just don't get scheduled in time (we are responsible for scheduling these matches ourselves) and giving one or two teams the default wins but not the others could decide playoff qualifiers.

 

[qwanta]

OK that would make sense. In this case though, they cancelled the matches altogether, so instead of being 2-8, that team is 2-3 now. (My team is went from 5-5 to 5-4).

I think the usta official just messed up and thought a double default was a loss for the team (2 courts defaulted) whereas it really means "both teams default - match doesn't count".