Determining a High School Team Ladder

Some high-school tennis coaches determine their team ladder by ladder matches, and others pick the team and assign them ladder positions.

When I began coaching high school, I was skeptical about ladder matches. I just didn't see how you'd find enough time to play enough of them to be reasonably sure of the results.

For, on any given day, a kid can play badly, and you don't want that messing up your ladder - all because of ONE challenge match.

And if your real No. 3 is playing No. 4, you win easily at No. 4, but you may well be losing matches at No. 3 that you would win if your team's real third-best player was playing at that spot.

And I didn't like the idea of shortening ladder matches to fit them in, because, generally, the more abbreviated the the format, the more likely upsets are. Upsets are great, but the whole team suffers when they screw up your ladder in ladder matches.

Another thing that can happen is that Player B usually beats his or her teammate, Player A, because of a purely psychological dominance, as we often see among siblings or friends who have played together for a long time. But you still want Player A at the higher ladder position, because he or she will win more matches at that level than Player B would.

So, I started coaching high school without ladder matches. I didn't want that responsibility though, because, hey, I'm not infallible either. Some players just LOOK better than others because their strokes are prettier.

So, I gave ladder matches a shot. And I never looked back.

What a relief. No more agonizing over these decisions. No more wondering if the kids thought I was playing favorites.

In fact, I found that these matches are very important before the season starts. Competition among themselves prepares players for meets much better than any other kind of practice does. Hey, the pressure is actually DOWN when they go out there for their first meet of the season! And they are in competitive mode, never caught unready by the season's first meet.

And, as for the kid who just couldn't beat his older brother? Well, guess what? When he knew he had to, he learned how.

I made it work by varying the format a lot. Some matches were little 21-point matches. Often I'd work these into a round robin of four players close in ability. Others were a single no-ad set. Yet others were a pro set. Occasionally we went best-of-three no-ad. That way I had sizable database of scores to go by.

So it was normally pretty clear what the ladder should be. And if the record was unclear between two particular players, then I'd have them go best-of-three while the rest of team practiced.

So, that's my two-cents' worth. Once I switched to letting the kids slug it out for their positions, I never thought of going back to the old way.

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