USTA / team tennis: how much do you focus on the "lineup war"?

[time_fly]

I'm just curious after seeing a huge number of different styles from different captains: when you make a lineup, do you focus mostly on your own players and how to best arrange them into the strongest lineup? Or do you think more about your opponent and optimizing the potential matchups? If the latter, do you take it to the extreme of writing your lineup at the last minute after you see what players show up, sneak a peek at their sheet if possible, etc? I've seen different captains focus on all of these approaches so now I'm wondering how common each style is. Obviously there are a lot more team players here than captains, so feel free to answer based on what you WOULD do if you were captain.

 

[ATX Tennis]

I don’t look at individual matchups as much as I look at team matchups. Yeah, it may matter in singles when you know a team has only a couple of options, but mostly I’m trying to create a lineup that will beat my opponent’s best lineup. I’m lucky because my club is usually strong and I have the luxury of normally being able to have players on the upper end of the rating. Because I am trying to make sure I get my guys eligible for sectionals/nationals, I don’t always field the best lineup available. But I also don’t make the mistake of playing weak lineups against weak teams. I make sure to have enough firepower to win the match, while also getting my less strong players their matches.

I don’t usually wait until match time, but occasionally, if I see some other team’s singles ringer is present, I may play around with switching my 1 and 2 singles. By looking at old lineups, you can usually determine if a captain is likely to stack and in what way. Many guys go with 213 or 321 in doubles or always switch singles. It’s the guys that randomize strong ineups that are the toughest for me.

 

[Chalkdust]

When I was captaining I would just focus on putting together my lineup, and then assign courts randomly.

The more competitive teams in my flight were pretty good at keeping things mixed up, so not much to be gained from trying to guess how they might stack lines.
The weaker teams were more likely to play straight up, but we were going to beat them no matter what, so why spend energy overthinking it.

Benefits of random court assignments:
- Impossible for opponents to figure out your lineups
- No whining from players re which court they are on since they all know it's random
- Saves time trying to guess opponent's lineups, which (if opponents are competitive and smart) you're not going to get right anyway

 

[silverwyvern4]

For regular season matches, S1 is worth more points than S2 and D1 more points than D2 etc.
But for playoffs, every slot is worth the same, so do you just flip a coin to set the playoff lineups?

 

[J_R_B]

I don't make the lineup after seeing the opponent's players. We are in a PPP league, so I always set my lineup straight, not stacked, to try to maximize points. As for who plays, the first consideration is limited availability players. If I know a guy is only going to be available a couple times, then he gets in whichever matches he can make it to. Otherwise, I fill out the lineups according to the opponent - strongest lineup for strongest opponents, my "down roster" guys in matches where they can win. Obviously, this is dependent on availability. If I only have 8 guys, then those 8 have to play.

 

[silverwyvern4]

If it's the final match of the regular season and you only need 2 points to clinch first place, maybe play your best 2 players at D3

 

[LOBALOT]

I check availability for the next match right after the current match. Once I have availability I do have a sense of the relative strength of our next opponent and assemble a lineup based on that. I send the lineup out a few days before the match.

My commitment to my players is that everyone gets at least 2 matches. If we are playing a weaker opponent I will play some of the weaker players and then assure I have enough strong guys to ensure we get our 3. If we play a stronger team the guys know that the stronger players are going to play..

This has crept up and bit me a few times but I have captained a minimum of 3 teams every summer for the past 10 years and it has worked for my teams. My teams usually if not always win our flights and make the playoffs and the guys on my teams know the process and like it.

 

[ChaelAZ]

Having a lot of history of players and teams, we usually talk about the strengths and weaknesses of them to try and match up our teams or singles players. So if our normal S1 player is normally beating most guys, but always struggles against an opponents we might swap S1 and S2 that day to get a different look at the match-up. I play D1 mostly, but there are some teams our normal D2 or maybe even D3 might be a better match-up if the opponents struggle with less pace or a different match style. And then, we plan our line-up based on that history...and, of course, they do their stuff on their side and we see if the match-ups we and they planned for get thrown out the door. lol.

 

[socallefty]

I field the strongest lineup possible from available players. In terms of order of lines, I do a lot of scouting of opponent lineup orders from previous matches and set my lineups accordingly to beat the lineup I think they might play. If a team plays doubles lines straight-up (123) in order of strength, I might either play them straight up (if they are a weak team) or I might play a 1-stacked lineup (if they are a strong team) - my 312 will play their 123 and hopefully we win Line 2 and 3 while sacrificing Line 1. Most teams that want to win the league never play straight up lineups in our county, but the social teams always play straight up typically.

 

[Cashman]

Team tennis where we are is pairs - you pay 3 doubles sets, then split to play a singles set each, then swap to play a reverse singles set.

Each player gets 5 sets of tennis for a total of 7 sets in the match

Usually the strongest player in each pair is placed at #1, but teams will often vary this by mutual agreement after the doubles if a specific pair of singles rubbers looks like being decisive.

That way you can sometimes force a result that finishes up the match early (if someone is at 4 sets after the first singles round, often the reverse singles are just split via a mutual forfeit and everyone goes home early)

 

[time_fly]

my 312 will play their 123 and hopefully we win Line 2 and 3 while sacrificing Line 1.

I can count the number of times I’ve done 3-1-2 on one hand. Mostly at Districts / Sectionals. USTA is still supposed to be fun and the 1-3 matchup is almost never fun for anyone.

PS. One of the times I did it at Districts, it was against a team that always ran 3-1-2. It was really obvious looking at their regular season matches. When we won D1, their captain (who was also watching that round) proudly told me “you know, our D1 court was actually our weakest pair.” I was like “Really?”

 

[PK6]

Play your best players against the best teams! I did that but got scrutinized for wanting to win over peoples feelings-whatever!!! When you play USTA it’s all about going to sections-with that reason I’m no longer captain because of this. As result I’ve lost interest in playing and no longer care about tennis anymore as I’ve decided it’s time to finally get back into bodybuilding shape.

 

[WhiteOut]

I'm just curious after seeing a huge number of different styles from different captains: when you make a lineup, do you focus mostly on your own players and how to best arrange them into the strongest lineup? Or do you think more about your opponent and optimizing the potential matchups? If the latter, do you take it to the extreme of writing your lineup at the last minute after you see what players show up, sneak a peek at their sheet if possible, etc? I've seen different captains focus on all of these approaches so now I'm wondering how common each style is. Obviously there are a lot more team players here than captains, so feel free to answer based on what you WOULD do if you were captain.

I already have a job. capping is something i do as a volunteer, to help people who want to play tennis get the opportunity to do so. the teams I cap are usually in contention for the flight, and I'll set a *proposed* lineup based on next week's opponent. on match day, i dont stack lineups, i play it straight up and let it fall as it falls. the key is to build a roster with minimal gap between the strongest and weakest player on the roster. everyone gets an equivalent number of matches (not necessarily equal), and everyone knows this up front. everyone is happy, very little player turnover. if we advance, great. if not, there's another session starting in 2-3 weeks. i'm usually turning away 3-4 people and sending them to other caps who need players.

i used to scout/stack, and all the other stuff. soooo many things have to fall your way to get to sectionals, much less make it out of the flight, it's just not worth the time and energy spent imo. the worst was the year i had a national-caliber team get beat 3-2 in state finals because #1-5 on the roster were not available on that particular state-final match day...

 

[ShaunS]

Regular season matches I wouldn't be employing a lot of matchup magic. It's inevitably a gamble because you're making guesses.

If we're in post season play, and the opponent has a singles player who's riding a fifteen match winning streak... probably not going to throw my best guy out there to feed his ego. Similarly, if I'm having to play someone (or a doubles pair) who's much, much weaker than the rest of the team then I'd probably serve them up as sacrifices for the higher spots. Wouldn't ever see the need for this during regular season where local teams would share similar potential talent disparities.

Obviously team depth plays a huge part in this question. Historically, I've been on small teams with a big range between the best/worst players, and that's required a little more thought by the captains. If the team is relatively balanced and/or deep, then throw out whatever lineup and let the chips fall where they may.

Again, referencing history, I've been on teams where the captain would shuffle the lineup regularly just to keep somebody from being able to easily guess what we'd do. I think of it as anti-stacking protection, and it's probably equally effective to any amount of targeted lineups.

 

[GrassCourtFan]

Again, referencing history, I've been on teams where the captain would shuffle the lineup regularly just to keep somebody from being able to easily guess what we'd do. I think of it as anti-stacking protection, and it's probably equally effective to any amount of targeted lineups.

Yeah, to me it makes sense to have that as a baseline - if you're not scouting other teams to figure out how to optimize your lineup, then just randomize your own lines so nobody can counter-scout and plan against you. Doesn't take any work, cuts out some inter-team jealousy about who got which line (because they're all just randomized), and makes sure nobody can take advantage of your lineup.

I've not captained though so maybe there's some reason captains don't do that. They don't seem to.