Mythbusters: Tale of the Tape—Tournament Directors and Parents of Tournament Players
I’m going to take off my college consultant baseball cap and put on my ski cap for this issue. The ski cap says “Tournament Parent” on one side and “Tournament Director” on the other. With experience playing tournaments (30-plus years), coaching juniors who play tournaments (15-plus years) and being a parent of a child who started playing tournaments a couple years ago, I have formed some strong opinions on how tournaments should be run. Over the last three years, I have run almost 100 tournaments and have heard people start a sentence with “Tournament directors should … ” or “Parents should … ” I’m going to tackle both sides of some topics and award the advantage to the side of parent or tournament director.
â–şTournament director says: “We can’t post the draws and times until we know what courts will be available.”
â–şParent says: “We can’t plan our weekend because the draws and times don’t get posted until two days before the tournament.
If families are required to leave a whole weekend open for their child to play, the tournament should be sympathetic to the fact that most families have other kids, warm-ups to schedule, etc. Clubs fill their empty court time with tournaments (tournaments don’t bring in as much revenue as regular programming) but can do this immediately after the deadline, not wait until the last minute.
Advantage: Parents
â–şTournament director says: “Our job is to administer the rules the way the USTA asks us, so we will be enforcing the code (point penalty system) and sending the violations to the USTA.”
►​Parent says: “It is ridiculous to give my child a point penalty for smashing the curtain. They don’t enforce that at other tournaments.”
When I won the Eastern Sportsmanship Award and went out to California for college, my teammates joked that I won the “The Best of the Worst Award.” Simply put, the Eastern Section is known throughout the country as having the players with the shortest tempers. Just because other tournaments don’t enforce the code doesn’t make it right. There is also a large silent portion of parents who want tournaments to enforce the code. I always tell my umpires to give a “soft” warning first to a player when they do something that goes slightly over the line.
Advantage: Tournament directors
â–şTournament director says: “We had to change the surface for the event because of unforeseen circumstances.”
►​​Parent says: “I signed up my child for this tournament because of the surface, I should be able to pull my child out and get a refund."
Interestingly, it says in the USTA rules that a tournament is allowed to change the surface of a match at any time. With that said, that’s a crazy rule. If the surface change is announced after the deadline, and a player wants to withdraw, the tournament should give the courtesy of a refund if a player requests it and put “Tournament Administration Error” in the default code.
Advantage: Parents
►​Tournament director says: “Sorry, we are running late, a lot of matches ran long or there was a screw-up with the courts.”
►​Parent says: “This is ridiculous! They are running an hour late!”
The USTA recommends that tournament directors schedule matches one hour and 15 minutes apart. I admit, as a parent/coach, I hate the super tie-breaker with a passion. As a tournament director, I couldn’t live without it. With super tie-breakers, it shouldn’t be difficult to run somewhat on time. Don’t forget though that pros play on a “to be followed by” basis. If you are the fifth match of the day at the U.S. Open, you could go on at 3:00 p.m. or 8:00 p.m. With relatively limited indoor courts, it’s very difficult to run things perfectly on-time, but some clubs tournaments always run late which isn’t fair.
Slight advantage: Parents
►​Tournament director says: “You don’t need an umpire or court monitor roaming the courts. Come get someone at the desk if you have a problem.”
►​Parent says: “It stinks that nobody is on the courts roaming around. My child is getting bad calls.”
All tournaments are told by the USTA to have court monitors or umpires. Level 1, Sectionals and Super Six events are provided umpires by the USTA. Level 1B, Level 2 and Level 3 tournaments are required to provide their own umpires. Some tournaments do not have officials, presumably to save costs (cost of officials is the biggest expense to tournaments). I know of kids who left tennis because they felt like they were cheated in matches. Just having an extra set of eyes is the best preventative measure to having a conflict.
Advantage: Parents
►​Tournament director says, “Sorry, I can’t take your late entry.”
►​Parent says: “I missed the deadline, can you please put my child in the tournament.”
Interestingly, I have heard at national tournaments that Eastern parents account for a large majority of late entry requests. With that said, it doesn’t hurt anybody to put in someone else if the draw hasn’t been made. If the draw has been made, it cannot happen because the director is changing the whole randomness of the draw and one’s late entry affects others. I once had a student who has extremely responsible parents who booked the hotel, airline and made arrangements for me to travel with her and one other girl to the national hard courts in Kentucky. I noticed three days before the tournament that her parents forgot to enter her into the tournament! The draw hadn’t been made yet, but tournament director held her ground and couldn’t add her to the draw. Those are pretty extenuating circumstances, but they were the right ones. It would be nice for a director to add someone before the draw is made, but be appreciative if they do … and never call their cell phone around midnight to enter your child after missing the deadline. That’s a surefire way not to get in.
If draw is made: Advantage directors and if the draw is not made: Even
►​Tournament director says: “The court monitors are impartial.”
►​​Parent says: “There must be some kind of connection between the court monitor and my child’s opponent because the court monitor was being very impartial.”
From my experience, this is total paranoia from the parents. One might not like an overrule, a foot fault call or a decision the umpire made but rarely if ever is it because the umpire is favoring one child over another. Truth is, the goal of these officials is to have a fair match and avoid conflict with players and parents. Sometimes even to err on the side of doing nothing to avoid conflict. I got a handful of complaints this year from parents who contended the umpire favored their child’s opponent due to a conflict of interest. In every situation, the umpire didn’t know either child in the match. Over the last 30-years, I can remember calls I may not have liked but to my knowledge it was never because the umpire “liked” my opponent more than me.
Advantage: Directors
In the next issue of Long Island Tennis Magazine, I will continue along this theme. I’ll give the edge in topics regarding trophies, player time requests, spectator viewing, warming up at the facility before the match, arriving late and more.
