Wednesday, November 18, 2015

8.0 over 40 Mixed Nationals - You Wont' Believe This One





I'm a little late on this one but I was trying to do some behind the scenes research.  Didn't get many insights but its a crazy story nonetheless. 

Texas was represented by Fort Worth at this national event.  However, as some of you already know, Fort Worth didn't actually win sectionals.  Dallas won it.  There were some intervening grievances filed with the DTA and Fort Worth ended up representing Texas.  I'm sure someone could probably write a book on what happened on the court and off regarding the grievances and the subsequent rulings, but I don't know enough to really address it.  Luckily, I have no doubt that several anons will be able to shed some light on what happened.  If anything I've heard about the grievances is true, that part of the story is actually relevant to the nationals story.  So what happened?

Fort Worth heads out to Nationals and wins its flight.  And it was a really tough flight.  As has been a pattern this year, Texas was in with Caribbean again.  They also had NorCal, Midwest and Northern.  Having two tough teams and the five team flight, FW still managed to get through at 4-0 (10-2).  However, the other three flights were showing advancing teams that were all undefeated and just as dominant. 

The semis pitted FW (10-2) against Florida (8-1) and also saw SoCal (7-2) against Mid-Atlantic (8-1).  As you may know by now, FW lost to Florida 3-0 - swept.  For me, that was hard to imagine.  Granted, all three lines went to third set tie breakers so it couldn't have been any closer but I never imagined this team could be swept.  The other half had SoCal defeating Mid-Atlantic 2-1.  Then FW played the 3 versus 4 match and lost again.  It's true that many people can tell you how hard nationals really can be, and some years are tougher than others, but this had to be an extremely tough year.

If your thing is to get on here and disparage individual players (I'd suggest you might want to take up a new recreational hobby), you'll at least have to look up the individual results yourself.  But the story does get stranger.  I guess this is a new thing, or at least I've never heard of it before, but guess who won the sportsmanship award?  Yes, Fort Worth did.  As I understand it, this is voted on during the course of flight play and awarded late Saturday.  But it is voted on by the players at Nationals. 

And here's where you guys or girls will have to help me out on the background, but if I understand it correctly the grievances were based on unsportsmanlike conduct and winning too much.  I'm sure there's more to it, feel free to fill in the blanks.  But with that back drop, somebody lost twice and was on the team awarded the sportsmanship trophy by their fellow competitors.  You're making this stuff up, right? 

I win enough and lose enough that those aren't my biggest issues.  But when I heard FW won the sportsmanship trophy I nearly fell over laughing.  Not because I felt them undeserving, I'm sure they're very nice people and isn't FW always nicer than Dallas anyway.  But to see this saga come full circle was too ironic to almost believe.



30 comments:

  1. Feel free to help fill in the blanks if you can.

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  2. Mike Kelly and Associates win the sportsmanship award. Did I read that right? This has to be a joke.

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  3. From a post on November 6, 2015 at 7:14 PM:

    "Mike was suspended for lack of effort in a 3-1 win. Alan was suspended for saying someone was acting like a female dog. Gene was suspended for pushing someone. Gene never touched a person.

    After the suspension, we turned in my appeal and the dta lost it. They actually said that We didn't turn it in. We did exactly what they told us to do and they said we did turn in an appeal. That was total bs."

    The scores show Greenhill/Carlson winning 2-1 against Springpark/Abbruzzese. Kelly & partner win their line 6-4,6-1; Sam Huynh & partner beat Eugene Davis & partner in 3rd set tie break. The 3rd line also goes to 3rd set tie break that decided the match for Carlson.

    Another interesting event, when I checked scores on Sunday evening for the final in Mixed 8.0 40 & Over Nationals, it was reported as 1-1 with line 2 as a double default. Now when I look, the match doesn't even have a score reported. What happened in the final between Florida & SoCal?

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    1. rain out so both teams got participation towels .. I mean Co-Champions. Apparently the remaining line was going into 3rd set MTB for the all the marbles

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    2. lack of effort, how about Sammy H tanking all year except in MXD and Combo or Tony winning Nationals but can not win at home in local league.

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  4. Not really that surprising.

    Finishing second at sectionals and then advancing to nationals because the first place team was suspended for poor sportsmanship has to be very rare. Actually taking one of those players that was suspended with you to nationals has likely never happened before.

    All of the players on the FW team are first-class, frankly I'm surprised they agreed to take MK after his suspension but if they did I'm sure it's only if he promised to be on his best behavior and not embarrass them.

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  5. FW took Kelky because they knew the whole bs story from the Dallas grievance. It was about canyon creek not putting a team together because they felt like they couldn't win. That was brought up during the committee meeting and was vital in the decision of the suspensions.

    The double default was because the two teams got into an altercation and both teams were dq'd. They double defaulted both teams for poor sportsmanship.

    I think there may be a post outlining the Springpark suspension after nationals this week with 7.0.

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    Replies
    1. most ridiculous nonsense I have read in a while. If canyon creek was looking to file a grievance against a team they could not beat in mixed, they would have to file one against just about everyone, not just the cheaters at Springpark.

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  6. Will be nice if Alan or someone willing to stand behind their statements steps up with an explanation. These notions that MK was suspended for "not trying", that SP's appeal was "lost" or that Canyon Creek instigated this because they couldn't win 8.0 are absurd.

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  7. It is comical how the SP folks blame everyone else for the results of their own actions.

    Don't tank and no one here would say a word....except maybe job well done.

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  8. 7.0 team this weekend just junior tankers.

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  9. DTA knows they are on their best behaviour when at any Cities, Sectionals or Nationals events. I have personally been told in such events MK and all SP behave like adults - as surprising as that sounds to all of us. It is just an act.

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    1. Does the DTA know the other teams are just as poor sports in the regular season as they are in the playoffs?

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  10. If they are such bad sports, why is this the first complaint that's been filed?

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  11. Don't know if the members would leave but who would want to play at springpark at this point?

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  12. Springpark very fun place to play at!
    Great group of people

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    1. Springpark 7.0 win both matches today.

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    2. Look like Zackary is tearing it up.

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    3. Zackary played awesome all weekend
      Other lines just not strong enough

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    4. Way to throw your teammates under the bus Mike.

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  13. And they really do have great drills and pros. Alan may be an a-hole to play against, but his drills are awesome.

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  14. 7.0 kicking ass going to semis

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    1. Springpark finish 3rd.

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    2. looks like they weren't the biggest cheaters in the world. Just the 3rd best.

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    3. I'm sure they will up their cheating.

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    4. If you win, you cheat. Does that mean every team from men's 3.0 to ladies 5.0 cheats. It amazing how loser say winners cheat.

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    5. Why can't the dta make all matches count equally. This would stop the 0-11 in men's and 45-1 in everything else. You would get bumped up based on ALL results. And if you make a national event, Automatic bump up as a benchmark. Seems pretty simple.

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    6. would be tough to include mixed in the algorithm, but it would not be tough for USTA/DTA to identify the blatant tanking that occurs in men/women leagues each Fall.

      Best answer would be to quit counting Fall towards ratings, but DTA is too concerned that registration would drop dramatically in the Fall.

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  15. Nope. Just there practice schedule. Maybe other teams should practice and play to win.

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  16. When does year end ratings come out?

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