While we’re no longer in early season mode, we still have a few more hot takes to get through! Resident Blog curmudgeon Adam Van Zee has the following spice for you today…
AVZ’s HOT TAKE: College tennis should change to a 6 match format with 2 doubles and 4 singles. Players can only play one or the other and not both essentially allowing all matches to be played at the same time. If score finishes tied at 3-3, tiebreaker rules are enforced. First tiebreaker is total sets won. If they remain tied, second tiebreaker is sets won by three breaks, then two breaks, then one break, and finally sets won in a 7 point tiebreaker. If still tied, you go to points won in the 7 point tiebreakers.
AVZ DEFENSE: Obviously this is a radical change to the way we score college tennis matches, but consider what this would mean in terms of participation, match length, importance of every single point/game played, de-emphasizing one dominant player (Ballou/Eudice for two), and the drama that could potentially ensue with each and every match. You have to make this in multiple of 3 because most colleges and universities have at least 6 courts (outdoor). Some would argue that doing 7 matches makes the most sense as you take away the tiebreaker scenarios, but if a team only has 6 outdoor courts, it doesn’t fix the match length issue. Same thing goes for a team with only 3 indoor courts. With this scenario, matches would likely never go longer than 2 ½ hours if everyone gets on court at the same time which also makes viewing for the spectator much more appealing. This also makes for tri matches easily completed without running your players into the ground. Currently, think about the second match of a day at Stag Hen and you are playing your 4th match (2 singles and 2 doubles) in the heat and you just have nothing left. What other sport is asking their athletes to compete for 6-8 hours in one day? This format also would penalize a player for tanking a set as it could very well cost his/her team the match. Finally, this would allow for more participation as it guarantees teams playing 8 rostered players each match. The current system allows you to get away with just 6 players. I also like that this doesn’t devalue doubles. Those matches would also play two out of three sets and not moving towards even shorter prosets that is currently happening. Overall this isn’t a perfect system as I am sure I would need to work out a couple of kinks to perfect how things would play out, but something worth considering.
CHB: I love it. I like that it emphasizes doubles more, and increases the tactical intrigue going into the match. I love how much time it saves, and that it would presumably allow tennis to continue to be played as two out of three full sets, with ads. Unfortunately, I don’t see it ever happening because people can always find small faults with it. Valuing a set based on number of breaks, for example, is especially problematic in women’s tennis, where sets are often “on return” rather than “on serve.” A 6-3 set may be valued at “two breaks” when it’s really “one hold.” I would prefer the first tiebreaker to be sets. If the sets are even, I want one 10-point doubles tiebreaker for all the marbles.
D3ASWomen’s: After the last hot takes I’m a little nervous to plant myself on a side here, lest I receive more impassioned hate from my fellow bloggers. JK, I’m not afraid of y’all. Come at me. In terms of this hot take, I don’t hate this idea. My high school tennis was also like this in a way. The tiebreakers came down to the number of games won. It could get crazy. It was fun. I think the way junior tennis is now though, with such an emphasis on singles, if this format were implemented then the doubles would really suffer. In D3 tennis especially, most of the strong doubles players are also the strong singles players, and I’m guessing those strong players will want to play singles. I don’t love the idea of forcing people to pick one. But I really like the push to shorten the matches. I like the thought of only a set for doubles instead of an 8 game pro-set and third set tie-breakers instead of full third sets in singles. I’d entertain the thought of no-ad scoring. But I do wonder how much shortening the matches will really do for the sport. I understand the spectator aspect, but I feel like if we cater only to that then we risk changing the fundamentals of the game of tennis, which feels weird but I’m open to it. I have to give AVZ credit for coming up with a way to shorten the matches while still keeping the same scoring format. However, I personally kind of liked that fourth match of the day feeling, and I feel like players should be rewarded for having endurance. I also had a massive caloric reserve to burn off and literally needed to play for 8 hours, so take that opinion with a grain of salt.
NE: I have never heard of this, but I like it a lot. You had me all the way until the rampant tiebreaker system. I’d like to think of myself as somebody who played close sets, and I don’t think that winning the set 6-4 or 7-5 should be valued less than winning the set 6-2. It’s all about the W. If you can do something about the tiebreakers, I could get fully behind this.
D3NEWomen’s: So I had to read this an embarrassing number of times before wrapping my head around it. At first, I was skeptical, but you know what, I’m kinda warming up to the idea. The whole tiebreaker aspect seems overly complicated, but there are two key things about this that I love. 1. The emphasis on dubs is huge. Dubs is more fun to watch (don’t @ me) and should not be forced to take a backseat to singles. 2. Having to have 8 players in the match versus the traditional 6 is also appealing to me. Obviously, this setup would favor teams with good depth (which usually means the team has been historically successful to draw multiple recruits each year), but it also means that there’s the opportunity to get more players on court consistently throughout the season. Let’s be real, it’s all for the team, but no one likes sitting on the bench and watching your teammates play for hours every weekend. I do have my reservations, though, mostly because I don’t like specialization and think players should be well-rounded, but hey, if we want more (any?) spectators to come to matches this could be a solid solution. But please rework the tiebreaker stuff – I’m still confused.
NewRegional: My problem with this change is that it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. Something that I love about college tennis is that if your team is around 25 in the country, but has an absolute stud playing 1 singles and 1 doubles, you feel like you have a chance to take down a team ranked around 15 in the country. Look at 2 years ago when a #36 ranked, Brandon Metzler-led Kalamazoo team beat #11 Kenyon. Metzler went 2-0 on the day, and if he was only able to play one spot, that upset probably doesn’t happen. Top 10 teams are generally always deeper, and wouldn’t be as affected by this rule change as lower ranked teams, further reducing parity. I 100% agree that matches take too long, so what if we changed the format to 3 doubles and 4 singles matches (with superbreakers for third sets) and play to completion? Say doubles takes an hour or so, and singles matches shouldn’t take more than 2 hours. That’s a 3 hour match at the longest, close to the length of a football or hockey game. Though I’ve never been a fan of superbreakers, they make for added excitement and things get wild, as we saw in Orlando on CMU’s spring break trip. I wouldn’t say the current system is broken, but I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to seeing some format experimentation.
newCentral: My high school tennis was similarly structured. I’ve both won and lost dual matches on game total before, and it really did emphasize to our team the importance of every point, every game. I’m very partial to making a dual match more time-friendly for both student-athletes and their fans. I’m also partial to forcing teams to play more players, but I think that this could unequally benefit better teams or teams with larger operating budgets. I’ve played a couple college matches with this format, and I enjoyed how quick the match was but I hated, hated, hated choosing between doubles and singles. Selfishly, I always wanted to play both – I don’t think I’m alone in the sentiment. I think that a happy medium could be set, with some multi-match weekends or tournaments utilizing this format to maximize the matches a site can host. The really cool and interesting part about this for me is that it would force coaches to be better, smarter, more tactical coaches. Deciding what baskets to put your eggs, while predicting the opposing coaches tactics would be a very interesting wrinkle for d3 tennis, and I’d love to see it implemented in national tournaments or quad-match weekends.
So yesterday, did they show 4 doubles semis while 2 singles finals were going on? Showed what, a game per match?
The same will happen when they implement simultaneous format. doubles won’t be shown at all lol, nevermind the drastically weakened doubles field.
So, AVZ, I have to ask again.
To borrow from Robert Byron,
“Are you in ____ pay???”
The more i think about it the more i get angrier lol. AVZ’s “this doesn’t devalue doubles.” is a blatant lie. Because the current format was installed in the first place by coach Wilkinson of Gustavus for that one purpose : to value doubles. You win all 3 and you need only 2singles match to clinch, which actually saves time lol. Really the ideal format and the guy who recommended current Div I doesn’t have a clue. Both probably detest doubles hence those inane proposals. Coach Wilkinson must be rolling in his grave. Is TV going to dictate Div. III too?!
I’ve really enjoyed NCAA doubles final last year, between, Raventos/Cancio and Chong/Yu. Raventos and Chong also played #1 singles for their teams. Yu played #2. Can you imagine them having to CHOOSE between those 2 disciplines? And OF COURSE Doubles will be MUCH poorer for that, if those elites choose singles.
What happened to America’s Pursuit of Happiness, never mind FREEDOM lol.
All for what? TV 2-hour format??! What’s next, WTT format(1 match at a time so all the more ‘suitable’ for TV!)??!
Oh and ‘wear and tear’, seriously? SAs are not Nadal, who has to outgrind 2 to 5 sets, playing the highest level all year long, more than a decade lol.
One more. I can’t help but think that it’s one more conspiracy for TV. 2hr. There was recently a controversy on Oscar broadcast too. Now this format being mooted, is not the first time, either. I have to ask, is somebody being paid to moot this? Because whoever moot this doesn’t care for doubles. Some players are already playing doubles only, so it’s really superfluous, in the first place. And Erin Routliffe, who helped Kristie Ahn just beat Ostapenko. She’s a Doubles legend for Alabama, and if not for Di Lorenzo doubles would’ve won NCAA 3 times. And she also played #1 singles. Can you imagine her having to choose only one? What bollocks. This inane attempt should be nipped in the bud, if you want to save doubles. Div. I doubles is already reeling from that new rule which drastically cut it.
It’s just a dumbing down of doubles for a few players who can’t make singles lineup, essentially becoming a club tennis.
Now, let’s see what’ll actually happen if it’s implemented in Div. I.
Coppoc and Goulak aren’t playing now. Imagine if they play doubles.
Kurtz is only playing doubles. Against much weaker opposition, what do you think will happen;
MASSACRE.
That won’t ‘help’ doubles.
CMS; Allen and Cox not playing doubles? Now what fun is that?
It won’t happen anyway, for practical reasons; how do you compute rankings. Who’ll play NCAA doubles. Are you going to ‘segregate’ Fall individual tournaments too?
There was great controversy over the D1 scoring changes 4-5 years ago. Having watched many D1 matches the past four years, I believe it had been a tremendous success. The 6 game doubles matches, no ad in singles / doubles probably cuts an hour off comparable D3 matches, and saves wear and tear. Your suggestion is interesting but the easier/better move would be to adopt the D1 rules.
Love D3 tennis (as former Eph captain from many years ago) and your site!
“My problem with this change is that it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. “–NewRegional
Seconded. The scoring overhaul throws into relief how incentives that are inclusive on the intra-team level are exclusive on the inter-team level, insofar as they reward the deepest programs.
It’s an interesting hot take, but does feel a bit ironic coming from AVZ, who has always prioritized recognizing less-heralded programs. Also, I may be wrong here, but there’s nothing stopping teams from experimenting with this or any other format, no?
College tennis does need a scoring reboot. Here’s a similar scoring system I would love to see implemented (although nobody ever takes it seriously). 5+1: 5 singles matches, 1 doubles match. All played simultaneously. Doubles is worth two points. Overall match is out of 7 points. That means that nobody can play both, and doubles is still valued. You’d have to choose to put your top dog in either singles or doubles. All matches played regular scoring, best 2/3 with a full third. The strategic implications of this would be extremely fun, and match time would be short because everyone plays at once. Coaches would have to coach singles and doubles at the same time and you still get 7 (+1 from the minimum 6) on the court. This also allows for a 6 court facility to play all at once. A possible downside is coaches recruiting “doubles specialists” but i think we still see lots of players exclusively playing doubles with the current system in place anyway. There have been college matches played like this, and from what I understand everyone has loved it. If my sources are correct all the coaches in the SCIAC actually agreed to play conference matches with this format this year, but some AD’s shot it down. Thoughts?
I love the pushing of new ideas and while I think this will not happen due to inertia, I like thinking about it. I really liked that college tennis has you play both singles and doubles and I think it rounds you out as a player. I think there are a lot of players that played very little doubles before having to learn in college and now they really enjoy it, so I don’t love getting rid of that. Also, I would go to a 3 singles, 2 doubles format or 2 singles, 3 doubles, I would hate to count games and tiebreakers. I like the idea of continually improving our game and it would be very interesting to test this out. I have got a hot take for you at the blog: Only one serve instead of two. I think it would speed things up and value strategy over a giant serve that misses half the time.
Super interesting! Coincidentally I agree the most with newCentral.
I like the creativity, but would be opposed to your idea. A couple concerns: Would this also be for Division 1? If so, it would diminish the ability for college tennis to be a pathway to professional tennis, as those players need to develop in both singles and doubles. Players would also be pigeonholed into doubles or singles specialists at a very early age. If your format is only for D3, then I’m worried that it would be hard to attract high level recruits (say 3 star and better–players who could play D1), because if anything, those players want to play more tennis, and this format would mean less tennis. How would coaches sell a 4 or 5 star recruit on this format? And if D1 is offering more tennis in dual matches than D3, it would diminish the credibility of D3 as a competitive avenue for college tennis.