ITA Proposes Format Experiment with One-Ad Scoring, 5-all Tiebreakers, and Doubles First

Intercollegiate Tennis Association Executive Director David Benjamin sent a letter to Division I college coaches last night, outlining an alternative format that will be experimented with in January and February of 2014. A copy of that letter, which also contains the format implemented for the USTA College Match Days, appears below.

I have already voiced my preference for no-ad in doubles on the basis of it being an accepted format in professional tennis, but I do not like the one-ad concept for doubles or singles. However, I do believe this format experiment is the result of a legitimate process by those with the most at stake in Division I college tennis, and although the shotgun nature of it is disturbing, I will keep an open mind about it.

Again, I believe it's necessary to examine the premise that these experiments will result in shorter match times (I'm hoping Jeff Sackmann will assist us here if he can) and that shorter match times will lead to increased fan support/television exposure. I imagine those claims were behind the no-ad format that Division I adopted in 1971. In 1989, with the format not adopted on any other level, traditional scoring was restored. I hope this change is a noble experiment with a much shorter lifespan.

Dear Coach:

Greetings!

I would like to update you concerning recent discussions about the Division I dual meet format, and the decision made last week by the ITA Division I Operating Committee.

As you know, the past academic year we dedicated a great deal of time to this issue, and the ITA Operating Committee decided at its spring meeting in Champaign to "tweak" the current format by mandating that (effective August 2013) the doubles pro-set will consist of a tiebreaker at 7-all rather than at 8-all (the NCAA tennis committee has agreed to use this same format in the 2014 NCAA Team Championships).

Late last spring, the USTA created an "Advisory Group" that included eight NCAA Division I Athletic Directors from a variety of conferences and regions, as well as NCAA staff. As explained in a letter that the USTA sent a week ago to Conference Commissioners and SWA's: "the {goal} was ... to help improve the college tennis product and experience - for players, for fans, for coaches, and for television... and to make the college tennis season and match more exciting and relevant."

This advisory group, after several conference calls in August, met in NYC during the US Open. It has recommended that a new dual meet format be experimented with during the USTA College Match Days in the spring of 2014. The format suggested by the Advisory Group is as follows:

Singles first. The singles matches will come first; numbers 1-6 singles will be played to start each team dual match. The integrity of singles will remain the same. They will be best-of-three sets, worth one point each toward the team result in the dual match. As is currently the case, four points are required to win the team match.

Doubles tiebreakers. In the case of a (3-3) tie after the singles results, then three doubles matches would be played using 10-point super tie-breakers to decide the outcome. This would create college tennis' version of "overtime." The team that wins at least two of the three doubles matches receives the decisive point and wins the match.

"Clinch" format. Once four points have been reached ("clinching" the match), the remaining matches shall not be completed.
Team warm-up. Players will be expected to warm-up with their own team prior to the scheduled match time and will not warm-up against their opponent before the first point is played.

The ITA was not involved in the discussions of the Advisory Group, but it is our understanding, based on a number of meetings with USTA staff during the Open, that the primary goal of this format change would be to make the dual meet time sensitive (ideally less than three hours in length), and in doing so, create a team event that would be more TV friendly and more attractive to the tennis fan.

Over the past several weeks we have had extensive format discussions with a number of ITA Coaches who were in town during the Open, as well as many phone calls with coaches not able to make it to NYC. While many of the ITA coaches agreed with the goal of the USTA and the Advisory Group of finding a dual meet team format that might prove more time sensitive (and as such more viable for TV and more fan friendly), most of the coaches were very concerned that an inevitable consequence of the proposed format would be to reduce very significantly, if not entirely, the amount of doubles played in team competition.  In fact, when Mike and Bob Bryan were asked about this during the Open, they stated that if this proposed format had been used during their Stanford career, for at least one full year they would have never played a doubles match in any of the team matches (and this was confirmed by their coach, Dick Gould).

In follow up to these wide-ranging conversations, the ITA Division I Operating Committee held a highly-focused conference call. After a great deal of vigorous discussion, the committee voted to mandate experimentation in the winter of 2014 (January/February) with a new dual meet format that will represent a dynamic change from the current team format. The new ITA format will be time sensitive (under three hours), but still emphasize the importance of doubles in the college team match. The following is the ITA dual meet format for experimentation:

The dual meet will consist of three doubles matches played first (worth a total of one point), followed by six singles matches, each individual match worth a point. Four points are required to win the team match.

The three doubles matches will each consist of one set to 6, with one-ad scoring and a tie-breaker at 5-all.  Once a team has won two doubles matches, the remaining doubles match will stop (NB. this "clinch" policy is the current rule in the ITA National Indoor Team Championships and the NCAA Team Championships).

Six singles matches will follow the doubles, each singles match two out of three sets, with each set using one-ad scoring, and a tie-breaker at 5 all.

Once four points have been reached ("clinching" the team match), the remaining matches shall not be completed (as in the doubles point, this "clinch" policy is the current rule in the ITA Indoor Team Championships and the NCAA Team Championships). 

There will be no warm-up against opponent before the first point is played in doubles and singles: players will be expected to warm-up with their own team prior to the scheduled match time (it should be noted that this "no warm-up against opponent" rule is tentative: a final decision about this will be made by the ITA Operating Committee at its annual meeting this December).

It should be understood that the ITA Operating Committee is fully supportive of the USTA College Match Day concept as a promising initiative to create greater exposure on TV, increase the local fan base for college tennis and provide a valuable opportunity to experiment with format.

At the same time, the ITA Operating Committee strongly supports a dual meet format that keeps doubles as an integral part of the team match. As already explained, we are mandating extensive experimentation with the ITA format in the first two months of 2014, and we are recommending to the USTA that it also experiment with the ITA format during some of the College Match Days.

In closing, I would like to thank the members of the ITA Division I Operating Committee, as well as other key coaches, for all of the time and energy that they have devoted to these very important discussions. And I would also like to make it clear that the long-standing partnership between the ITA and the USTA remains very important, and we will continue to work together in our shared mission of growing and promoting college tennis at all levels.

Always, 

David A Benjamin
Executive Director
Intercollegiate Tennis
Association (ITA)