On behalf of AAACTA and the 2005 City Tournament Committee, let me thank you for helping make this tournament perhaps the most successful in its long and treasured history. A special thanks must go out to those of you that took the time to answer the Tournament Survey. We use this feedback to better gauge what we did right and what we need to improve upon for future tournaments. The tabulated results and answers to your comments follow.
On a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is “excellent,” the average responses were as follows:
Tournament dates 4.7
Order of events 4.4
Current eligibility policy 4.3
NTRP categories 4.2
Tournament publicity 4.1
Entry form and process 4.7
Entry fees 4.4
Tournament Director (singles) 4.6
Tournament Director (doubles) 4.7
Tournament Director (mixed doubles) 4.7
Tournament Director (juniors) 4.7
Tournament T-shirts 4.4
Tournament tote bags 4.0
Tournament site (VTC) 5.0
Tournament site (Pioneer HS) 3.4
Awards 4.6
Town Tennis kids games 4.6
Town Tennis food and drink 4.0
AAACTA Web site 4.0
Entry forms via: web site 39%; clubs 22%; public courts 17%; rec & ed 6%; email 6%; other 6%
In
reply to some of your valuable comments and questions:
“I would like a loser’s bracket”- We have talked about this for several years now, but are continually stopped by the costs and logistics involved in making this a part of our program.
“What can be done to ensure bracket and player rating integrity”- We think rating integrity is one of the key ingredients in the continued success of the City Tournament. If a person has a USTA rating, that is what we will and have used to accurately determine a player’s status. If a person does not have a USTA rating, we are considering revising the registration form to include a few questions that MUST be filled out by the player so the seeding committee can hopefully better determine and verify the accurate placement of this player. The committee will also have a series of checks and balances in place to reduce (eliminate?) possible data entry errors. As has always been the case, if any player notices a discrepancy, they can contact any tournament committee person and bring it to our attention for resolution.
“The Super Seniors must be a round robin event” – Done! That will be the plan for 2006.
“No matches in the middle of the day. Too hot” – I’m for that one too, but it just won’t happen.
“Please post the draws at least a week before tournament begins” – This would be nice to have for all of us involved but difficult to do because of the amount of data entry from the entry forms that goes into our tournament software, seeding committee meetings that must take place and making the draws. We will strive to get this information posted as soon as we can, but it will probably continue to be posted the week of the tournament. (Note that it was earlier this year than in previous years.)
“Combining skill levels should be avoided. For example, moving 8.0’s into the 9.0 bracket” – We try to avoid this whenever we can, but if there are not enough players to make an event worthwhile, competitive and cost-effective, then we combine skill levels. Our policy is to contact the players in the lower bracket to give them the option of withdrawing when levels are combined. The key to avoiding this unfortunate situation is to get more players involved. We’re always extremely happy to have more players rather than not enough.
“Why can’t we register on-line with a credit card” – Good idea but we’re not there yet as it is not cost effective.
“Awards should be something useable such as towel or mug
and it would be nice to have tank tops instead of t-shirts for women” –
Excellent topics for our 2006 committee meetings. Please keep in mind, however, that the
above rating for “awards’ was 4.6 out of 5.
“In the first 3 or 4 women’s doubles matches, the players played against members of their own club and that should be avoided” – That is somewhat unfortunate but the seeding committee probably would not know that when the draws are done. Depending on the amount of teams/players and seedings, this may have been almost impossible to avoid. We’re happy to have additional volunteers involved in the seeding process.
“Offer a team championship” – A good suggestion but not for the City Tournament as we see it today. But I do agree that a Team-Tennis style tournament would be nice for the local clubs to get involved with.
“It would be nice to have referees for tie-breaks” – We simply don’t have the resources for this to happen. It is meant to be a fun, competitive tournament, which, like tennis at this level in general, stresses the meaning of sportsmanship and camaraderie, especially in the juniors. The Tournament Director or Off-site Director should be used to settle court disputes.
Once again, thanks for your participation in the 2005 tournament and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the courts in 2006. If you would like to get involved with the 2006 version of this event, watch for e-mail notices next January when we form the committee for 2006 and start the planning process. New voices are always welcomed.
Bil Hinton
2005 Ann Arbor City Tournament Committee Co-Chair