It is only June 2023, but with 2024 early start leagues beginning in Georgia already, and other areas starting in the late Summer and Fall, the USTA League regulations for 2024 are starting to become relevant.

I have not seen a full regulations document yet, but have heard about a few changes, some National, some section specific, that I think are interesting and IMHO, probably a good thing.

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First, it appears that National is going to be calculating dynamic ratings for Mixed in 2024! This means that self-rates, appeals, and mixed-exclusive players will be subject to strikes from their Mixed play. This is big and I think will help cut down on some of the abuses of the system we see in Mixed where new players self-rate too low and dominate, but there is very little that can be done to disqualify the players that are clearly out of level.

I have not heard if this will begin with 2024 early start Mixed leagues or only for play during the 2024 rating year, but am working to find out. I assume that the rating from Adult league play will still be what goes into year-end ratings, but have not confirmed that yet either. But what do you think?

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Second, in most sections, Tri-Level has counted for year-end ratings for a number of years. Southern has been a hold-out, which could again be abused in some scenarios where players could dominate in Tri-Level for several years using an artificially low year-end level from a prior year. Well, in 2024, Southern will be including Tri-Level matches in year-end ratings. Southern will also hold Sectionals for Tri-Level in 2024 which I guess they haven’t in the past.

Third and last (for now), also in Southern, a change is being made to the levels for Mixed leagues. In the past, I believe every section has run Mixed leagues as “combo” leagues, e.g. 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, and 10.0, where the players on the court cannot have a combined current level over the level of the flight. This allows for a 4.5 and 3.5 to play together on an 8.0 team for example. This gives teams a lot of flexibility, and allows friends and spouses at a variety of levels to play together, but can lead to a pretty wide disparity in ability on the court at the same time, e.g. a 4.0 male with a 3.0 female (or 4.5/3.5 or 5.0/4.0).

Well, for championship year 2024 leagues in Southern, Mixed is going to be straight-level leagues, e.g. 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0, meaning it will be like normal Adult leagues where just 3.5s and 4.0s can be on a 4.0 roster for example. This will reduce the disparity of abilities on the court, but perhaps put Southern at a disadvantage come Nationals where they will have to face combo-level teams.

There are some side-effects of this of course and I assume they were all considered as some might be perceived as or actual negatives for a number of players.

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A simple one is that this restricts the ability for some friends/family/spouses to play together on a team. A husband and wife that are a 4.0 and 3.0 could play 7.0 before, and now can’t play on a Mixed team together.

A more significant side-effect is on participation though. Where a player could have played on three different Mixed teams at different levels before (e.g. a 4.0 could play 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0), the same player can now play on only two teams (4.0 and 4.5) and will be at a disadvantage one one of them. This has the potential to reduce participation 33%. Now, one might argue that there are players that avoid Mixed because of the ability disparity issue and they’ll come back and make up the difference, but we’ll have to watch and see.

It is worth noting that parts (or perhaps all) of Southern has done 55 & Over leagues as straight-level so this is just making their Mixed leagues consistent with that. That has worked for them, and Southern has done well at Nationals in this division, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

What do you think?

Source: https://t-tees.com
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