TennisPensacola.com Tennis Ladders in the Greater Pensacola, FL Area

TP Tennis Ladders

A couple of us were talking about how we could help build a loosely organized group of guys to play some singles around the Greater Pensacola area. So we added support for Tennis Ladders to the TennisPensacola.com site.

The TP Ladders are sort of a combination of ladders, quads and flex leagues. We rank members against each other, we assign each member 3 or 4 matches each month ... but the individual members are responsible for contacting their assigned opponents, agreeing on a time and place to play and entering all match results online. The TP ladders are not associated with any particular club and there are no schedules for match play.

The Pensacola Men's Singles (PMS) Tennis Ladder went live on July 15th, 2010. It is open to all men in the Greater Pensacola area who want to play singles tennis around Pensacola, Fl.

The Pensacola Ladies' Singles (PLS) Tennis Ladder went live on August 1st, 2010. It is open to all ladies in the Greater Pensacola area who want to play singles tennis around Pensacola, Fl.

Anyway - here's how the TP Ladders work...

LADDERS & BOXES:

Players will join a ladder using the online registration available on the TP website.

There is no charge for joining a TP Tennis Ladder. Your only real commitment is that you will play all assigned matches every month.

Around the 1st of each month, all TP ladders will be adjusted - member placement will be adjusted based on performance.

The newly adjusted ladder will then be broken into some number of "boxes." Each player in a given "box" is expected to schedule and play a match with each of the other players in his box during the upcoming month.

Boxes will contain 4 or 5 members - meaning each box member is expected to play 3 or 4 matches in the month. NOTE: Boxes lower down the ladder may, from time to time, contain an additional person when the number of ladder members is not evenly divisible by the expected number of people per box. The "lower" boxes are chosen for the size increase in order to allow folks lower on the ladder a little more opportunity to move up the ladder.

Challenges:

In addition to their assigned "Box matches," TP Ladder members can play challenge matches and have such matches considered in their ladder placement. As we begin, we are not imposing any restrictions on challenges. We may review this later.

Even though we're not imposing restrictions, in the interest of sportsmanship, members should probably not challenge anyone more than half a rating step lower (i.e. a 3.5 challenges a 3.0 - but not a 2.5). If you want to challenge up, that's up to you! :-)

Ladder Placement:

Initial ladder placement will be based solely on the date/time that a member joins the ladder. All new members enter at the "bottom" of the ladder and must work their way up to their natural level. This will allow lower skill players to, occasionally, play more skilled players just to keep things interesting.

Each month, a player's ladder position is adjusted based on his performance. In between ladder adjustments, members can watch their basic performance by looking at their "score" in their member info or the ladder report.

The actual data values used to determine a member's ladder placement, in order of precedence, are: highest ladder score, the most matches won, the fewest games played and the highest last match's ladder score. If these fail to fully disambiguate the placement order of all members, we look at the date/time that members joined the ladder - oldest members move ahead.

Active & Inactive Members:

We expect the loose match scheduling to allow most members to work around things like vacations or business trips etc. But, we can foresee how one might need to take more than a month off from active play - perhaps for an injury. So, we do provide facility to allow members to mark themselves as "Inactive." Inactive members will remain on the ladder but they will not be considered when box assignments are made.

When a member goes inactive, it WILL have possible effect on his fellow box members during the month in which he goes inactive - meaning they will have fewer matches that month which can slow their progress up the ladder. But the other box members can play challenge matches to make up for the lack of an assigned match in that month.

Update 8/15/2010: Beginning at the end of August, 2010, box members who have not been able to play assigned matches because another box member went inactive, will receive 10 points for each match they were not able to play. Such points will be awarded at the end of the month just prior to the next month's box match assignments.

If an inactive member becomes active again, he will not be assigned to a box in that month but will in the next box assignment month. HOWEVER, he MAY still play some challenge matches during the month in which he returns to active status.

Match Scheduling:

Members are responsible for getting in touch with their assigned opponents and agreeing where and when their match is to be played.

Who Supplies Balls:

There isn't really a "Home/Visitor" relationship in the ladder matches - so - members should agree how to handle balls for the match. There's no rule that lightly used balls can't be used - but, to avoid issues, perhaps it would be best if each player brings a new can of balls to each match. The winner gets the unopened can and the loser gets the match balls.

Update 8/8/2010: Several folks have suggested that, for challenge matches, the challenger should probably supply balls for the match. Makes sense to me but, as always, y'all figure it out and agree on how to handle things like this.

Match Scoring:

All matches are expected to be best 2 out of 3 sets. We suggest a full 3rd set but, if both players agree to play a 3rd set tiebreak instead of a full set, they may do so; however, they will need to report the match score as if it were 3 full sets. We will use the USTA Flex League conversion of 3rd set tiebreak to full set scores. Details are documented on the pages where ladder matches are reported.

Withdrawals: If a player must withdraw during a match, the current set should be scored in favor of the remaining player as 6/x (or 7/x) where x is the withdrawing player's game score. Any required but unplayed set in the match should be scored 6/0 in favor of the remaining player.

Sportsmanship Note: If a player must withdraw due to an injury, then you can decide among yourselves whether or not to replay - or continue - the match later in the month or to simply score the match in favor of the remaining player.

Called for Rain: If a match must be stopped due to rain, decide between yourselves whether to replay or simply continue the match at some later date.

Ladder Scoring:

When a player reports the scores for a match, we take the match scores and calculate a ladder score for each of the two players. Player ratings are considered when calculating ladder scores: a 2.5 gets more points for spanking a 7.0 than would a 7.0 for spanking a 2.5. Ladder scores may be positive or negative.

UPDATE 7/24/2010: After several discussions about the approach to ladder score calculations, I have made a couple of small changes that will take effect as of 7/24/2010:

Box Match scores - neither player can earn less than 5 points for playing a box match

Challenge Match scores - as in the past, loser score for a challenge match CAN be negative. This is to avoid issues with a person playing a bunch of challenges and moving up the ladder even though they consistently lose.

Match Scores:

Player 1 Rating:
Player 2 Rating:

You can test the Ladder Score calculation for a given match using the form to the right. A couple of interesting examples might be...

Best Win / Worst Loss - i.e. 6 0 - 6 0 - made the loser eat two donuts
Worst Win / Best Loss - i.e. 7 6 - 6 7 - 7 6 -made winner work hardest
Middle of the Road - i.e. 6 3 - 2 6 - 6 3 - Won but in 3 sets and loser did ok in 2nd

Mobile Access:

Members can access certain ladder information from their mobile phones/devices by visiting one of several pages specifically designed to facilitate mobile access.

Ladies: http://tennispensacola.com/pls/

Men: http://tennispensacola.com/pms/

Members should enter the appropriate URL (above) on their mobile device to see the mobile page on their phone/device. These pages are "smart" enough that, if they are accessed using a standard computer and browser, they will simply respond with the standard TP Ladder page. HOWEVER, if they are accessed using a phone or other known mobile device, they will respond with slimmed down content specifically designed for quick mobile access.

The mobile ladder pages allow members to view...

a list of their outstanding box matches,
a list of all ladder members and
individual member information including name, rating, ranking and phone number(s).

Phone numbers are linked so that you can simply click-to-dial the number. Additional click-to-store links are provided to allow you to add the member's name and number to your phone's phonebook.

We are not, currently, providing mobile facility to enter scores or profile info because experience shows that typing errors are far more common on mobile devices than on standard computers. We may reconsider this in the future.

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