[tennisbiz] Re: Creative Tournament Formats

In upstate NY, tournament play has decreased considerably at all
age levels, and is certainly low in the 40+ bracket. Playing twice a
day is difficult physically, but even more so when you take into
account that us 40+ people have a life outside of tennis, and don't
want a tournament to take up every last minute of the weekend.

Unfortunately, tennis has a legacy of believing that fitness needs to
be among the highest priority in tournament tennis and other tennis
formats. As a result, you have a situation which is very unfriendly to
people who have busy and diverse lives.

When I ran round robins, where people knew pretty much how
much playing they would be doing, my tournaments did pretty well.

That is also why league play like WTT and USTA have become so
popular. Tournaments as we know them are a relic with the
exceptions of juniors and high level tournament players - all of
whom make up only a small part of the tennis and potential tennis
playing population.

Bob Rosenblum
USPTR
PO Box 3027
Albany, NY 12203
Phone: 518-459-6212
Email: bob_at_csatennis.com




 
Received on Fri Apr 28 2006 - 07:29:14 CDT