Let’s See How This Is Playing Out

About a year ago, I published an article titled Quota Insanity written by well-known journalist/broadcaster Antonio Mora. In that piece, Antonio predicted that the quota-only system of entry into national tournaments would lead to meaningless events with meaningless outcomes because the draws would leave out many of the country’s top-ranked players. Turns out, Antonio is a pretty good prognosticator. Just take a look at what’s happening in next weekend’s Closed Regional tournaments around the US and how these level 4 selections are predictive of what’s going to happen for the summer super nationals. How can you call these credible national events when a kid ranked 1736 is getting in at the expense of a kid ranked in the 200’s?

In case those numbers aren’t enough for you, here’s a breakdown of all 4 Closed Regionals showing the rankings of the last players gaining direct entry alongside the rankings of the first alternates in each age group (12s weren’t included since many of the draws didn’t fill). This information came from looking at the selection process tab on TennisLink for each age group. Those kids accepted off their sectional list have an [Age Group] SEL next to their names, and alternates have a yellow dot next to theirs. In some cases it appears sections had aging up allowances and so some very low ranked kids got in from the age group below, but I ignored those kids and only counted ones who gained acceptance from their natural age group.

These are now National tournaments with no credibility whatsoever. We are going to see the same thing this summer for our national championship events. Maybe not quite this extreme, but the lists are going to look ridiculous and the kids left out are going to have a fit, and rightly so – this will have a huge impact on the Tennis Recruiting rankings as well as those from USTA.

Let me add that my son decided NOT to enter our Closed Regional because, looking at his current ranking, he didn’t think he had a chance of getting into the draw. Turns out he definitely would have gotten in and had the opportunity to gain some significant ranking points. How are parents and coaches supposed to guide these young players appropriately when the selections seem so random?

I have reached out to Lew Brewer and Andrea Norman at USTA asking for a comment but haven’t received anything yet. Once I do hear something, I’ll update this post so please check back later today. I’m hoping they can shed some light for us.

UPDATE 10:07pm 2/11/14 I received the following from Lew Brewer, USTA Director of Junior Competition: “It’s a bit too soon to make any sort of judgment about these events.  The Junior Competition Committee will be doing a full analysis of these events and will be discussing this at the USTA Annual Meeting in the next few weeks.” I still haven’t heard back from Andrea Norman.