Rules and Regulations of USA Table Tennis Teams Leagues

2008 Season

Overview:

The USA Table Tennis Teams League consists of a regular season and national championships divided by region in five ratings/skill divisions.  The League is sponsored by STIGA; through it’s distributor Paddle Palace and the American manufacturer, Escalade.  There is a total of $5,000 in prize money, furnished by Escalade to be awarded as a result of play.  The season runs from January 1, 2008 to April 20, 2008.  Each team within the league plays each of the other teams twice within a season.  The maximum number of teams per league is eight, which would require each team to play 14 ties during the 16-week season. 

Eligibility:

The League is open for play by anyone, regardless of his or her USATT membership status or competitive history.  There is no age limit, either upper or lower.

Regions:

For administrative purposes, and to provide playoff structure, the US is divided for the 2007 season into 36 Regions, which are detailed at the USATT Team League Website.

Regional Coordinators:

Largely autonomous, Regional Coordinators are responsible for recruiting all the teams and players within their Regions, resolving disputes that arise from play, and monitoring leagues for completed fulfillment of schedule obligations.  Regional Coordinators can create and apply local solutions with the prior approval of the League Office for situations or ideas that arise. 

Scheduling:

A broad schedule is created for each league.  The teams involved in a scheduled match must work together to confirm a date, time, and location that they will play.  Should the match not occur, both teams will be penalized as described in the final standings section.  It is understood that in some regions teams are separated by large distances.  In this case, teams are given the scheduling consideration to have League Meets where several teams get together to player several team ties in one day.  So long as each team competes with each other team twice during the season, the teams that finish best in that region will be eligible to compete in the post-season national championships.

Regions with One Team:

Regions where only one team has registered for a Division will receive an automatic invitation for the National Playoffs.  Thus an ‘orphaned’ team is not penalized for lack of participation by others.

Regions with less than eight teams: 

Regions with less than eight teams will be allowed to compete.  If teams would like to withdraw from the region due to low participation, they must do so prior to playing any ties.  Once a tie has been played, they are considered active and cannot withdraw from the season.

Roster Requirements:

A roster requires a minimum of three players, with a maximum of 8 persons allowed per season.   (Note that no more than 3 roster members can play in any single tie between teams!)  One of these players must be designated as the ‘Captain’.  Captains are responsible for posting league results to the Teams League website in a timely manner.  After January 31st, rosters are immutable without approval by the League Office, with the exceptions listed below.

Substitutions and Multiple Rosters:

Sometime a team faces a situation where a roster member is unable to attend a tie and a complement of three players that conform to the Division Requirement cannot be met.  In such a case, an unaffiliated player, not on a current roster, who has a verifiable USATT Tournament or Singles League rating that would make the complement correctly may be substituted on the roster rather than forfeit that one tie.  A substituted player is then affiliated with that Team for the duration of the season.  There is an exception to the one roster per player rule, which is very specific.  A player may appear on two rosters, provided the two teams are in separate divisions, do not meet in the regular season schedule, and the player is within the Max Rating cap for each of those two divisions.

Method of Play:

USATT Rules and Regulation for match play will be followed. For the most part, ties will compete with the “N.A Teams format.”  In that system, two teams select three players each, and nine singles matches are created.  The first team to win five of those nine matches wins the tie.  We have elected to allow some flexibility, however.  An acceptable alternate method is the ITTF Olympic Teams format.  In this system, only five matches are played, one of which is doubles.  For this format to be used, it must be decided by the region through a vote of the team captains in competition.  This shall be overseen by the regional coordinator.

ITTF describes that system this way:

No player will play more than two matches in each fixture.  The contest will start with two singles’ matches. The third match will be doubles and must include the player who has not been selected in either of the preceding singles matches.  Following the doubles, there will be two further singles matches; those involved being the player who competed only in the doubles and the player who did not participate in the doubles.

Team captains may select the order in which the players appear and they must initially nominate which two players will compete in the first two singles matches.  Following those matches, the team captain can then decide who plays doubles with the player who has not participated in the first two singles. The system avoids any repetition of matches; no players can face each other on two occasions in singles matches in one particular fixture.

An example of the NA Teams Tie Sheet

An example Olympic Format Tie Sheet

Competitive Divisions:

The five divisions of play in the League are defined as U3000, U4500, U5700, U6600, and Open.  Each team, based on the sum of the ratings of its three players at the tie, and also complying to the specific division’s individual max rating, will be given a designation within these five divisions.  Wherever possible, leagues will be formed by like teams, that is, Open Teams will be grouped with Open Teams, U3000 with U3000, etc.  However, geography may require that a league include teams of more than one skill level.  That does not eliminate teams from post-season competition!  If two U3000 teams compete in a mixed league, the highest finishing of the two teams will still be invited to National Championships for the U3000 title. 

Ratings:

To establish the divisions above, ratings used will be the USATT Tournament Ratings as of 9/30/07 for the 2007 Season.  This rating list is also used for the 2007 U.S. Nationals and can be found at http://www.usatt.org/events/2007/nationals/ratings.  Unrated players can be given estimated ratings using the ‘self-ranker’ on the Leagues website.   Also, a USATT certified coach might also assign a Rating to a player.  This assignment must be submitted to the league office by email.  The ‘Default mode’ will be that matches do not count for USATT tournament ratings, but locally, each league can exercise an option to make the matches count for tournament rating.  This will require the league to meet and approve that option, and the Regional Coordinator to be informed.  This option will require that two-thirds of the players in the League involved approve the move.  Each player participating in a ‘ratings active’ league must pay the $4 rating fee for the season to USATT HQ.  This fee will be collected by the Regional Coordinator and forwarded to USA Table Tennis through the League Office.

As far as USATT is concerned, there are 2 ratings:

1)       The official tournament rating

2)       A league rating

Tournament ratings are used as the starting point for eligibility since that is typically a more stable and mature number.  If a player did not have a tournament rating, then the league rating would be used if a player had one.  If they had neither, then a self-rating would be used.

As far as the ratings that will be affected during the Team League, we will take all of the results that a player has played every month, and then submit them to adjust their USATT league rating only.  It will not affect their tournament rating at all.  Also, there is no separate team league rating; just the regular league rating that already exists.

The National Championships will be counted towards USATT Ratings.  Participants will not have to pay a rating fee for this event.  Also, non-USATT members who compete at the National Championships will not have to pay for the rating or membership fee.

Appeals and Grievances:

The vast majority of matches will be played without an umpire officiating the match.  Therefore, we urge that two teams engaged in a tie appoint a person from one of their teams to perform scorekeeping functions in each match.  While not an umpire, per se, the scorekeeper can keep track of score, service rotation, timeouts and lets, removing a great many possible disputes.  If two teams cannot agree on a match outcome or dispute the reported results, the first recourse is to seek a ruling from the Regional Coordinator.  If dissatisfaction continues beyond that point, or if an RC is unable to make a judgment, the disputing parties can request the RC to forward their problem to the League Office.  Assisted by USATT’s Head of Officials, Wendell Dillon, a ruling will be made which is final.  No further appeals process exists beyond the League Office. 

Results:

The scores and outcomes of matches played are to be submitted through the League’s website by the Captains of the teams involved in the tie.  It is each Regional Coordinator’s responsibility to have all results of ties submitted before either team plays again. 

Final Standings:
Final standings are counted as such.  2 Points for a win.  1 Point for a Loss.  0 points for a default loss.

Post Season:

Post Season decisions regarding location, time, and place for regional playoffs will be determined during the season.  The Finals will be scheduled and held at the US Open.