Second Serve Tennis

Weather and Short Sets

• Second Serve with Carolyn Roach & Erin Conigliaro • Episode 247

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Have you ever played short sets for an important tournament? Did it end well? Have you ever had to consider the conversion ratio for the scores?

We really enjoyed having Dave and Tom on the show to discuss their experience playing short sets at the USTA state tournament.  They are both 3.0s who have been to states and sectionals numerous times.

We are replaying a few of our most popular episodes and this was one of them! 

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Carolyn:

Hi, this is Carolyn, and I'm here with Erin and we're really excited to have Tom and Dave back with us again. They were with us previously and did one of the most popular episodes we've done on how to choose a tennis partner. So if you haven't listened to that one, please go back and listen. But tonight they're laughing and hugging each other right now. Tonight we're going to talk about short sets or pro sets or playing them at states. You know, the thing I love about adult tennis is that you play outside, but the thing I just dislike about adult tennis as well is that you play outside when the weather's bad. Like about adult tennis as well, is that you play outside when the weather's bad, and Erin and I, before this podcast started, started asking each other what is a short set, what is a pro set? We've played them before, but we couldn't like. We both thought they were different things. Can you guys talk a little bit about what a short set or pro set is, or what you played at States?

Erin:

Yeah, what you did at States, because we had about 50 texts go back and forth about what we thought was the correct answer and we found out there's multiple answers. So tell us what you guys did.

Tom:

So for us and it's and a lot of it depends on States and what the weather's going to be like right. Uh, for us it was pretty clear the weather was going to be bad all weekend. Uh, you get some in on Friday. Saturday looked like an almost washout. Sunday didn't look any better. So they decided they were going to do the shortest thing possible, which is the short set, which is you play two sets and the first of four wins.

Erin:

First of four by two Okay.

Tom:

But at four all you do go into a, uh, into a tie break. So you go to a just standard seven point tie break for a set tie breaker. But it's fast. Yeah, um, you know, you get, you do an eight game pro set. It's a little. It's a lot different. Right, it's, it's a little. That's a little closer to a regular match than a, than a true short set, with only, you know, the first of four.

Dave:

It's, it's A lot of times I don't know how you start, but sometimes I feel like it takes one or two points to actually get the rhythm going, especially if you're in the tension and the pressure heavy pressure of a tournament. Yeah, recreational tournament, but you still feel this. You get going, you, I remember being ready to switch sides and move on and they go no, it's next set. I was like what? Wow?

Tom:

but you know, and it's you know. I'm sure everybody's lost count of the score during a long point. Right, and you get done, you go. I don't even remember what the score is. Same thing happens in the short set. I did the same thing, we had won, and I walk back. I'm getting ready to serve and my partner looks at me and goes oh it's over, we won. Oh wow, if you're not paying attention, it goes fast.

Erin:

So you do two of those short sets. But here's my question Do you, if you do two of those sets, do you do the same switches, like, do you switch at game one and game three? Yeah, so you could potentially just switch. I mean you could switch once, I suppose. No, you'd still switch at one and three, and then it's over, it could be over, and then it's over. I take four games just to warm up. Not points, but games.

Tom:

And I mean the amazing thing about that is only switching twice. You're doing this because the weather's bad, right, so if one side's worse than the other and you're going to pick, you know you flip the coin. Do you want to servers? That question gets a little interesting now because picking the side could really make a big difference at that point, because we had some where the wind was just coming from the one side and you couldn't hit a ball out, no matter how hard you tried after that one side that actually happened so.

Dave:

So I had a guy, um, lobbed the ball, so I think we both rushed to the net and he lobs the ball over us and it's like, oh, that one is gone now. This is a windy weather, uh, very gusty, and so we relaxed, turned around, go get the ball.

Erin:

It landed on the line, but it was so far gone, but it went above the windscreen of the chain-link fence and changed direction, got caught in the Gulf Stream. It literally had its own weather pattern. Yes, wow, so that's another interesting thing. In that situation, lobs probably can really work in your favor or to your. You know, obviously, if your opponents do it to you to a disadvantage.

Tom:

This actually happened to be a 6-5 combo, which meant he and I were not partners.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

So we were playing with other people and I played with a partner I had never played with before and he had seen me play in the past. And apparently this guy loves to lob and he wants his partner to run to the net all the time. Right, and he had seen me play. So tom likes going to net. I want him as my partner and we'll go ahead and play. And first day it wasn't so bad. Um, the second day, his lobs. Would you know he? He'd hit him, they'd lob, and then they would just stop right at the net on a string for the guy to just nail it back.

Tom:

Or he hit one and I thought, oh, that's a perfect lob and it ends up six feet out to the other side. But his game was the lob game and it really the weather impacted him a lot more than it would impact him.

Carolyn:

Right, did you guys win your short sets?

Tom:

I won some yes.

Carolyn:

How many did you play? Did you play just one or did you have to play it throughout the weekend?

Dave:

There was five matches planned for the weekend and the weather was terrible forecast for Saturday and Sunday, so Friday we played four matches, okay.

Erin:

And normally you would play like one or two. Yeah, oh, good, okay so you play four matches in one day One day. But, they were short sets, Carolyn.

Carolyn:

Still, that's a, I mean.

Erin:

Yeah right. She's stressed already.

Tom:

And old man tennis? No, that's even worse.

Carolyn:

Did you guys get injured? I would be injured by the end of it, even if it is short set.

Dave:

At least we didn't have the hot weather. I mean, what was difficult is this has been the warmest fall we've had. I mean, every weekend was gorgeous and all of a sudden, the weekend of the tournament, it became 40 degrees and moist and rainy and just miserable, horribly cold. And so two things One is you've got to adjust and be ready for anything that happens in a tournament.

Dave:

The other thing is, when it comes to the scoring on these short sets, there's a little tweak to it because, guess what, all software, tennislink, usta, everything is based on a six-point match. You can't put in a score that says 4-2. So they provide a conversion chart and they only kept it at the tournament coordinator's table. So it became very difficult because you got, like you said, so much going on, so much stuff to remember. But if you had a match that or a set that you won for two, if you got four points, the rule was you added two points to that, so that could become six. But if you got two points, the rule was you added two points to that, so that could become six. But if you got two points, if you're losing, you only got one point added to your score, so that becomes 6-3 in tennis length.

Tom:

And then how they calculate tiebreakers and everything else. So I think that's the other part about being flexible is you know? It's really important. The captain has to understand the rules, but every court needs to understand the rules because the tiebreakers and we lost this state in a third, the third tiebreaker, we lost the state championship in a third tiebreaker. So understand what they are and what you got to do, because we could have, like you said before about hunker down, and if we would have taken one more set along the way, one more game along the way, it would have been different wow, it came down to that.

Carolyn:

It was that close, huh was it around, robin, so that it you didn't go down?

Dave:

everybody once, right, no semifinals. Yeah, there's a total of six teams, five matches and, um, it was interesting what happens on the scoring, because if you have a set where you won 4-1, 4-2, instead of being two or three points added to more than the other team got added, you actually got three or four points more than the other team got added. So, because of that conversion, now does that mean if we we want all straight sets, if we had won all five matches, it doesn't matter. But what happens is when so two teams had won four and lost one. And so you go into those tiebreakers, you look on the other columns down the row and all the way down on the far right, um, total games won, which is not games one, it's actually the points one.

Dave:

You know you get six for every point, every match you win, or whatever every set, um you know they pulled out ahead, you know so that they earned it and they got it, and we all agree by the scoring and that's how it goes, but it does, is it the dynamics? That's all I really want to say, and just be prepared for that.

Erin:

Yeah.

Dave:

It changes.

Erin:

Yeah, that stings, though, when it comes down to it it came down to a conversion and, like you said, you could have won one extra game or one. But you don't know that when you're just playing and you're you're trying, you know you're just trying to win the match you know you're just trying to win the match.

Dave:

Honestly, I think it'd be more fair if they go to short sets to have the software adapted so that it could just be squarely you know I have a question would you guys have won if there had not been the conversion?

Carolyn:

like, if it really was for two, like, did you add up all your games and compare it to their see if it was not converted?

Dave:

I thought about going into all the detail of looking at every match, that every we play, that's what 15, we played five matches time, so 15. And calculating, recalculating all that and especially, I actually thought about that and I said you know what?

Erin:

It still stings. It might just sting worse, if you really know.

Dave:

But I will say this there definitely is a potential that it could change that tiebreaker outcome. Yes, and if it did change the tiebreaker outcome, it's still because they won by the opponent won by a greater amount than you did. It's just the variation is amplified. The variation is amplified and you know you could analyze this to death, but it does make a difference.

Tom:

And how many games you get right, because it's basically multiplied by 1.5. So you're converting four to six. You multiply it by 1.5. So if you get zero, if you get beat 4-0, zero times 1.5, you still get zero. But if you get one, it's now 1.5, which makes it two 1.5, you still get zero, but if you get one, it's now 1.5, which makes it two. So it's, it's interesting to go. Well, I got a little more if I only got one than that. You know the ratio goes. But it's uh, we didn't go back and check, I we did.

Tom:

I don't think, I don't know, I don't go back and check the uh, the rankings of the people who beat me either, Cause I just don't want to know.

Carolyn:

I think, know, I think I would I probably would.

Dave:

I should say, because tom is smart, carolyn and I yeah, carolyn, and I would obsess about it and call each other 50 times and I think we won yeah right right but you have to watch what you allow to get into your head because, yes, it can drive you nuts, yeah, and you know we're talking about the short set, but but just weather in general at States can be a big impact.

Tom:

We played our spring States for 3-0. And Dave and I were playing and the weather actually seemed pretty good. It was good and we were winning pretty handily and won the first set pretty well. We were up in the second set and the skies opened up.

Dave:

Wow, Just I mean not just a light rain, this was like cats and dogs all over the place.

Tom:

So we're waiting around, we're thinking well, this is over. There were clay courts. There was no way that they were going to be good to go. But they also had indoor courts and, depending on the tournament, they may or may not do the indoor, Because a lot of times they have to pay the extra money to get the indoor courts. But they did so. Our match moved inside after about an hour.

Dave:

Yes, I mean there was a whole big delay and some guys left and some you know it was like, oh, we don't know. Well, you can't leave because they haven't called it. We don't know, but you can tell the courts were not going to dry out today. But, sure enough, about an hour later they said, yeah, they opened up the indoor courts and all of a sudden we're playing and you go from playing on an outside sunny day to a dark, neon or LED light indoor court and you only have a quarter of the game left or the match left we lost.

Erin:

It didn't end well yeah yeah, I had a friend years ago at States and same thing. We started outside on hard courts, we got moved indoors about an hour away, luckily towards home. So those of us that were leaving after the match were able at least an hour towards home and a friend of ours had to go and play two points. She had to wait around, I know, and that was not necessarily a deciding match, but it was like you don't want to retire a state's match but you also don't want to drive an hour to indoor courts to play a couple extra points. Even if those two went her way, you know it wasn't, it wasn't going to end well but not two games.

Carolyn:

Not two games, two points.

Erin:

They ended in like yeah, yeah, it wasn't even two games, it was well, Tom, you had that this spring in just a regular USTA match Got rained out in a tiebreaker.

Tom:

Good thing we're playing them again the next week. So we just said well, we'll just show up early.

Erin:

That's a smart way to do it.

Tom:

That didn't end well either, so we'll pick another topic, because this isn't really working.

Erin:

We have figured out the title to our episode. It's not going to end well, it's not going to end well.

Carolyn:

Thanks very much to Dave and Tom for speaking with us. We have a part two of this episode discussing more about weather and short sets. If you'd like to see a picture of Dave and Tom, please check out our website, which is SecondServePodcastcom. You can also check out previous episodes and we've even included a resources section that has the websites we go to to check for ratings and the rules. Thanks so much for listening and hope to see you on the court soon. Outro.

Tom:

Music.