USTA 3.5 Team Not Very Good....

[worldaven]

I captain a USTA 3.5 team and we haven't won a match this season. We're 0-5. We have a decent coach to help us practice once a week. We learn some technique and strategy, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough.

We've lost two at 2-3, one at 1-4 and two at 0-5.

Any advice on how we can win...?

Maybe we're just a 3.0 team....

Thanks,
M

 

[GatorTennis]

Not everyone can be in 1st place. If you are having a coach led practice or clinic once a week, try pairing up and playing doubles at least once more a week. If you have any 4.0 friends, see if any of them will join you from time to time. Don't be mad if they say no, it can be frustrating playing down, but if any say yes, do what you can to make them happy and coming back. There is nothing like practicing against better competition. Like the adage says iron sharpens iron. You really can't expect to improve by playing only once a week.

 

[Thamel90]

Honestly, just about anything could be the culprit. The most immediate, feasible, and likely way you could quickly turn this around is to try to improve the teamwork on your doubles courts. Try lots of stuff in practice, see what works, what doesn't. Signaling, Poaching, I formation/aussie, 2up, 2back, other types of set plays are ways you can gain an advantage in a short time period at low cost, and it doesn't seem like there's much to lose here. I remember watching a close Women's match where they would do Aussie on one side and play "normal" on the other, giving them the same court positions to start the point. Strange, yes, but not necessarily ridiculous if it works for them. This is an opportunity to experiment and hopefully improve the communication & chemistry of your players, which will be vital later on down the road. This is definitely something that needs to be practiced, try to organize your players to play & practice this during the week if possible.

 

[Moveforwardalways]

I captain a USTA 3.5 team and we haven't won a match this season. We're 0-5. We have a decent coach to help us practice once a week. We learn some technique and strategy, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough.

We've lost two at 2-3, one at 1-4 and two at 0-5.

Any advice on how we can win...?

Maybe we're just a 3.0 team....

Thanks,
M

Sounds like you don't have enough 4.0s on your team.

 

[worldaven]

Not everyone can be in 1st place. If you are having a coach led practice or clinic once a week, try pairing up and playing doubles at least once more a week. If you have any 4.0 friends, see if any of them will join you from time to time. Don't be mad if they say no, it can be frustrating playing down, but if any say yes, do what you can to make them happy and coming back. There is nothing like practicing against better competition. Like the adage says iron sharpens iron. You really can't expect to improve by playing only once a week.

I like your idea of playing with 4.0, and better competition. That might help. I have to say that I do have earnest players on the team, who work hard and want to get better, but I don't know if lack of talent or strategy or both...

 

[worldaven]

Honestly, just about anything could be the culprit. The most immediate, feasible, and likely way you could quickly turn this around is to try to improve the teamwork on your doubles courts. Try lots of stuff in practice, see what works, what doesn't. Signaling, Poaching, I formation/aussie, 2up, 2back, other types of set plays are ways you can gain an advantage in a short time period at low cost, and it doesn't seem like there's much to lose here. I remember watching a close Women's match where they would do Aussie on one side and play "normal" on the other, giving them the same court positions to start the point. Strange, yes, but not necessarily ridiculous if it works for them. This is an opportunity to experiment and hopefully improve the communication & chemistry of your players, which will be vital later on down the road. This is definitely something that needs to be practiced, try to organize your players to play & practice this during the week if possible.

I really like this idea of improve teamwork. I don't think we poach enough. We don't signal. We don't do I formation/aussie. Not sure why... But you're right there isn't much to lose. Improving chemistry and communication is key.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

I captain a USTA 3.5 team and we haven't won a match this season. We're 0-5. We have a decent coach to help us practice once a week. We learn some technique and strategy, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough.

We've lost two at 2-3, one at 1-4 and two at 0-5.

Any advice on how we can win...?

Maybe we're just a 3.0 team....

Thanks,
M

- What's your coach's opinion? He's got the best view of how the team does in practice vs how they do in a match: if it's "about the same", your team is in the lower part of the league and you need to keep practicing and improving. If it's "practice play is [much] better than match play", your team needs to concentrate on the mental aspect: you're capable of hitting the shots and even maybe deciding when to use which shots but it's not translating into match play.

- Video your matches so you can review them later, not in the heat of the moment. Besides, trying to captain and play and pay attention to how everyone else is doing can be challenging, I would imagine. Do you detect patterns?

- Have you gotten a good feel for who are the good singles vs doubles players [regardless of stated preference]? Also who the good pairings are?

- How much match experience does your team have? Perhaps the other teams simply have more experience rather than better technique and ability to apply it.

- Is this your first season at 3.5?

- For the individual lines that you won, what did they do right? I think it's important to find the positive and also to set goals [and I don't mean "we're going to win the next match! Failure is not an option!" but something more like "Let's work on reducing our # of UEs" or "Be more conservative on your 1st serve so you don't put so much pressure on your 2nd" or "Let's avoid hitting the tempting DTL RoS [unless the net man poaches with 10 seconds of advance notice] and concentrate on high % CC returns", etc.]

- Focus more on the process [did I have good footwork/racquet preparation/concentration?] and not the result [we lost. We must have done something wrong].

- I'd be careful about complicating things too much with alternate formations and signaling, etc. Yes, those are valuable tools but I think you ought to look at the more basic things first [too many UEs] and address those before getting to the more advanced stuff. Fundamentals can be boring but I think they also pay the biggest dividends.

League is a journey more than an event [unlike a tournament where every match could be your last]. Learn to enjoy it, set yourself some reasonable goals, and go kick some ***.

Good luck [and skill] to you.

 

[OrangePower]

I captain a USTA 3.5 team and we haven't won a match this season. We're 0-5. We have a decent coach to help us practice once a week. We learn some technique and strategy, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough.

We've lost two at 2-3, one at 1-4 and two at 0-5.

Any advice on how we can win...?

Maybe we're just a 3.0 team....

Thanks,
M

Well, two paths to doing better as a team:

1. Play better - others have given you some good tips.

2. Better captaining. Which in turn means:
2.a. Be more strategic in setting up your lineups. Look for patterns in how your opponents set their lineups, and then try pairings and court assignments that have the potential to create favorable matchups for your team.
2.b. Recruit a few strong players. Sometimes it only takes one or two additional strong players to turn 2-3 losses into 3-2 wins. Also, when you have a couple of strong players you can rely on, it allows you to get more favorable matchups for the rest of the lineup. And, it takes a bit of pressure off some of the other lines.

In the long run of course the goal is for all your players to improve their level of play, but in the short run, good captaining can get you some much needed team wins.

 

[Jim A]

Need to know more about the team as others have mentioned. Where are you losing, what lines, are you looking at your opponent before? We had a team that won their flight in 2014 and went like 3-6 last year. Good team but lacked that top of the order player. Successful teams often have those players at both singles and doubles.

 

[Bigfoot Fault]

In general, 3.5 and lower tennis is mostly about keeping the ball in play and limiting your own errors. Another way of saying that is that in leagues lower than 4.0 most players don't have the offensive weapons to really play aggressively, and the winner of the match will be the team that has the fewest errors (which is usually true all the way up to the to professionals).

So in practical terms, what it means for you is to think about tennis differently than maybe you are right now. For example, in my 3.5 league I played with a partner with a very inconsistent, but also very strong, first serve. So if he got it in, it was a guaranteed point, but that only happened around 15% of the time. His second serve was also inconsistent, so he double faulted a lot. This caused us to have many close matches because we gave up so many free points through double faults.

I finally told him to ask himself the following questions:

1) can our opponents punish a weak serve?
2) are you afraid of going to a rally against these guys?

So if they can't punish a weak serve, and we can rally with them, then why try to hit big serves? Going for big serves was winning us a few points a match, and costing us a bunch. Had my partner always just went for safe, get-it-in serves, we would have played a lot more rallies, but we were the better team during rallies, so this would have been a good thing.

The lesson is, my partner's big, inconsistent, serve made it so even though we were the better team in most of our matches, we were always at a disadvantage because he gave so many free points through double faults.

And the big picture lesson is, for your team, the game plan should be to go for fewer winners, and more safe shots. Think more about location, and less about power. (disclaimer: I obviously don't know the specifics of your team, but playing in 3.5 leagues tells me this is the main trap players fall into-- beating themselves by going for low percentage shots).

 

[Bionic slice]

Who are your top players?
Are you able to win any line 1 in singles or dubs consistently?
Do you scout your opponents or look at team patterns with your opponents?
Have you run any practices with a pro coach to drill and work on team weaknesses and help individuals?
Are you recruiting and working on adding some stars to the team that can close and win key matches?
You need depth as well as talent as not everyone can play every weekend. You need also look at eliminating some of the weaker players as they are hurting your team but be diplomatic and help me know why or have a heart to heart and tell them you...are hurting us, we need you to improve or i will have to limit your playing time...it true...as some teams have starters and fillers, and over time...you have to make a decision...same team, you need help and if they dont improve, you need to consider limited playing time or maybe find a team with similar goals as we want to win and get to cities, get to sectionals and eventual national goal....with the dream of winning...but understand most successful teams have under-rated players or selfies who are much higher. You also need to find recent bump downs to find some players, also ask people to find people to try out....and visit local clinics and courts to prospect new talent.

 

[tennis tom]

Go down to the FEMA store and get some sandbags and fill them.
Give your opponents beer BEFORE you play and slip them some mickies.
Give big signing bonuses to good players from opposition teams to bail and sign up on yours.
Hire hot women to sit at your matches sans underwear to distract them, this worked well for Ilie Nastase.
Sign up as a 4.0 team. 4.0's will give you more pace, a ball hit with pace is much easier to return.
Pay-off roving umpires to call foot-faults on your opponents, this will really mess with their heads.

 

[Mac_Attack]

I captain a USTA 3.5 team and we haven't won a match this season. We're 0-5. We have a decent coach to help us practice once a week. We learn some technique and strategy, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough.

We've lost two at 2-3, one at 1-4 and two at 0-5.

Any advice on how we can win...?

Maybe we're just a 3.0 team....

Thanks,
M

Unless you have really strong singles players, I would try to sacrifice my worst players at #1 singles and #1 doubles. Providing your opponent sets his lineup pretty straight up, you can stack your best players at #2 singles and at 2 & 3 doubles to give yourself a chance at a 3-2 win. I've done this successfully many timesin the past.

 

[LeftyJunk]

Please don't stoop to bottom loading. There is nothing worse than traveling 30-40 minutes then paying $18 to play a 40 minute match against some one who has never even sniffed a first doubles court... on top of that people put in the time and effort to improve their game then end up playing the worst players on the other team. Not fun! Once you start to bottom load it becomes a vicious cycle.

 

[Mac_Attack]

Please don't stoop to bottom loading. There is nothing worse than traveling 30-40 minutes then paying $18 to play a 40 minute match against some one who has never even sniffed a first doubles court... on top of that people put in the time and effort to improve their game then end up playing the worst players on the other team. Not fun! Once you start to bottom load it becomes a vicious cycle.

Playing it straight up is preferred and allows for the best possible competition at every position. But, this team is desperate for a win, and is probably not matching up well. Being strategic with the lineup to try and get a win when you're 0-5 is okay by me.

I had to do it with my 4.5+ team last year because I had no 5.0 players. It was easier knowing that the 5.0's had to be at #1 and my opponents knew I was going to be sacraficing at #1. It was the only way I was going to win, and It worked. We won our league (with every win being 3-2) and won 2 out of 3 matches at sectionals, including over the team that won sectionals, who were in our flight. We narrowly missed out on the finals because they had one more individual match win...

 

[brettatk]

Very rarely do we play against teams in USTA that play straight up. Since there are no movement rules you might play against their best doubles team at line 3D or 1D. That's a very big part of strategy around here, trying to guess where the other team is going to play their big hitters so you can play/not play yours appropriately. Not really an issue though once you get to the playoffs or beyond, every line is tough. Any lineup is a fair lineup in USTA, there is no such thing as sandbagging.

 

[eelhc]

I captain a USTA 3.5 team and we haven't won a match this season. We're 0-5. We have a decent coach to help us practice once a week. We learn some technique and strategy, but it just doesn't feel like it's enough.

We've lost two at 2-3, one at 1-4 and two at 0-5.

Any advice on how we can win...?

Maybe we're just a 3.0 team....

Thanks,
M

First you have to figure out why you lost.

• How much post mortem or match analysis do you do?
• After match debriefing?
• Does your coach come to some match to observe the students?

I am constantly surprised when I speak to players after the match. It's like they played a different match than the one I watched.

 

[Turbo-87]

In general, 3.5 and lower tennis is mostly about keeping the ball in play and limiting your own errors. Another way of saying that is that in leagues lower than 4.0 most players don't have the offensive weapons to really play aggressively, and the winner of the match will be the team that has the fewest errors (which is usually true all the way up to the to professionals).

Totally agree here. In thinking of my own doubles matches, I would venture a guess that 7/10 points are due to unforced errors. If you can keep the ball in play the chances of getting a UE go up with each stroke. Someone is going to miss and you don't want it to be you. Yes, I will occasionally hit a rope down the alley or a nice deep lob that they can't catch up to, but UE's far outnumber winners. I know for me, what I want to do with the ball and what I CAN do with the ball are two different things.

 

[kevrol]

Please don't stoop to bottom loading. There is nothing worse than traveling 30-40 minutes then paying $18 to play a 40 minute match against some one who has never even sniffed a first doubles court... on top of that people put in the time and effort to improve their game then end up playing the worst players on the other team. Not fun! Once you start to bottom load it becomes a vicious cycle.

There's nothing wrong with bottom loading if you're in the hunt of things and trying to finish 1st. However, if you're at the bottom just trying to get one win, whatever you do don't do it against the teams that still have a shot.

 

[LeftyJunk]

There's nothing wrong with bottom loading if you're in the hunt of things and trying to finish 1st. However, if you're at the bottom just trying to get one win, whatever you do don't do it against the teams that still have a shot.

If its good for one why isn't it good for the other?

I guess I have had the wrong idea as to what 1st singles and 1st doubles means. I always thought that you put your best at 1, second best at 2 and third at 3. I understand the argument is out there that "we are all the same rating so it doesn't matter who you play". But let's face it, we all know there are various levels within a rating.

My question is, did they start out with the idea in team tennis that you have your best at 1st then someone eventually bottom loaded and it became a vicious cycle? Or has it always been just a location you put players and not a 1st, 2nd, 3rd "ranking" of sorts?

 

[OrangePower]

My question is, did they start out with the idea in team tennis that you have your best at 1st then someone eventually bottom loaded and it became a vicious cycle? Or has it always been just a location you put players and not a 1st, 2nd, 3rd "ranking" of sorts?

USTA has been quite obtuse about this, and that's what adds to the confusion. In one area of the rules USTA specifically mentions that there is no significance to line 1, 2, etc, other than just a location you put a player/team, and that there is no significance to line 1,2,etc in terms of strength.

But then they outline the defaulting rules where you default line 2 singles / 3 dubs before the other lines, suggesting that those are the weaker. And, in the plus leagues where players from the next level up are allowed to be on a team, the rule is that the plus player must play line 1. So basically USTA contradicts itself.

And then there is the added difficulty of how do you determine who actually is the strongest etc. I mean sometimes you have a good idea of how players stack up as you say, but then how does an opposing captain prove that you deliberately set the lineup out of order? Only way would be if USTA published more precise rankings, but they don't want to do that.

Personally, I just set my lineups in random order every time - less to think about that way!

 

[Booger]

You can always result to defense only pusher style. It's a legit strategy at every level, just ask Djokovic and Murray.