USTA 6 Match Pilot Program?

[704Pusher]

Anyone else have this going on in local USTA

6 Match Pilot Program Pilot program for flights that have 7 teams playing 6 matches. An extra match will be scheduled at the end of the season so teams play a total of 7 matches. • Extra match will be scheduled under Championship Advancements • Will only count towards ratings • Will not count towards standings – regular season results will stand • 1st place team will not get a scheduled match because they will get additional play at states or in playoff matches • In singles flight of 7 teams; 2nd place team will play 3rd place team; 4th place team will play 5th place team; 6th place team will play 7th place team • If there are two flights of 7 teams in the division; 1st place teams of each flight will play each other in a playoff match to determine division winner and advance to state championships. 2nd place teams of each flight will play each other for additional match, 3rd place teams will play each other, etc. • Additional match will be scheduled for the week of April 23rd unless the last match is rained out during the week of April 9th. If the last match is rained out the additional match will be scheduled the week of April 30th. • Match ups will be determined 48 hours past the last scheduled match date except in the event of rain for one or both of the last two scheduled matches (as outlined below) • If you do not wish to participate and play the additional scheduled match you must let the local league coordinator know within 24 hours of your last match so alternate matchups can be scheduled. • For single flights the higher team in standings will determine the home team/facility. • For two flights a random drawing will determine the home team/facility.

 

[schmke]

Not here in PNW. When we have small flights, our LC just schedules uneven round-robin to get each team more matches. In a 7 team case, we'd have 8 matches scheduled, each team playing two other teams twice.

Now, this does seem sort of unfair in that it is possible one team has to play the top-2 teams twice while another gets to play the bottom-2 teams twice, but we do have a local playoffs where generally the top-2 teams from each flight advance, so the teams that are the top-2 are probably going to advance regardless.

 

[OrangePower]

I guess they are doing this to get everyone an extra match / more playing time?
We don't have that in Norcal, be we have something similar in spirit:
Our season is 10 weeks. And if there are say 8 teams, then you play each team once (7 matches), and then play 3 teams a second time (another 3 matches for a total of 10). All matches count for standings, and the teams you play twice are just luck of the draw, so you could be lucky and be playing the weak teams twice, or unlucky and play the toughest team twice. But it does mean more tennis for everyone, instead of just sticking to the 7 matches playing everyone once.

EDIT: Just saw @schmke post above, so looks like PNW and Norcal do a similar thing

 

[McLovin]

• Will only count towards ratings

Great. So, a last-ditch effort for people who played hard & won during the 'meaningful' season but didn't make it to Districts, to lose 1 & 1 to a lower ranked player and prevent themselves from moving up. Way to go USTA...

 

[J011yroger]

Can we call it the Panzer match?

J

 

[J_R_B]

In Middle States, in 7 team flights, they play 6-match schedule then there is an additional round robin scheduled where the top 4 teams get 3 additional matches against each other and the bottom three get 2 additional matches. These are regular season matches that count towards advancement, except with the limitation that a team cannot rise from the bottom 3 to advance. This ensures that every team gets 8 or 9 regular season matches, not just 6. I really like the way they do this here, certainly much better than this proposal.