Supporting and promoting tennis in the Ann Arbor area
HomeANN ARBOR AREA COMMUNITY TENNIS ASSOCIATION
2011 City Tournament Survey Comments
We received many replies to the surveys we sent to all tournament participants this year.
Thank you for taking the time to share your ideas. Here are some of your comments followed by a reply from AAACTA. Thank you for taking to time to give us feedback!
The tournament should supply balls for each match.
We will look at this option relative to the budget for the tournament next year.
"A bunch of us from Club X signed up for the Mixed Doubles tournament. We all ended up playing each other in round one. We can do that anytime!"
Please know that the draws are computer generated once the seeds are in place in order to ensure a fair draw. Hopefully you will have a better "luck of the draw" next year. Try looking at it this way: you could play each other anytime, but this time you were at the City Tournament and one of you could go home with the champion’s trophy!
What about having a consolation draw?
This is a frequently asked question. The major obstacle is a lack of tennis courts, volunteers, and time— there just aren't enough tennis courts to run both a main draw and back draw in a tournament that has to be completed in just a few days. However, if you have a solution, we'd love to hear it.
Please offer Super Senior (60+) and Ultra Senior (70+) divisions for Singles.
Ok, we can certainly add those options to the registration form. Please help us recruit your friends and families to fill the draws!
Is it possible to have a Senior division in the Doubles Tournament next year?
Of course! It's already an option on the entry form; we just need some teams to sign up!
The doubles age requirement should be expanded to allow one youth player per team; the current age limit excludes a family team, teacher-student team, etc.
It would be nice to have another division of "father-son," or "teacher-student," where one player could be under 19. We don't currently allow that because this is an adult tournament and many adults prefer to play against other adults instead of younger/faster/stronger teens. It would also be difficult to properly rate such teams. We have pondered this question many times in the past, and our solution is to allow such teams to play in the Open division, and teams have taken advantage of this option many times. Alternatively, we could add an event to the doubles tournament called "adult-youth team." If we had enough teams enter, they could be in their own draw. Can you help us write the parameters for such teams?
It's too hot to play two singles matches in one day, and it's not fair to have to play more than three matches in two days; scheduling the semi and finals back-to-back is harsh, especially with only a couple hours between.
The only way to complete the tournament in one weekend is to have multiple matches per day. One adjustment might be to change the format from a full third set to a Match Tiebreaker. Another idea would be to limit the draw to 16, which would be just four rounds. With a draw of 16, we would have one weekday match (either Wednesday or Thursday), then round 2 on Friday, semifinals on Saturday, and finals on Sunday. This would of course mean turning down interested players once we hit the cut-off of 16. We welcome feedback on these ideas and others you may have.
"The starting times for singles matches should be absolutely no later than 10AM and no earlier than 6PM, on account of the sun and heat."
Indeed, it was extremely hot this summer, especially for the singles players. However, such constraints would make it impossible to complete the tournament in one weekend.
There was too much back-up during the singles tournament on Saturday—matches were running several hours behind schedule.
Unfortunately, we had several scheduling issues on Saturday during the Singles Tournament, due mostly to the heat (play was slower than usual and understandably so). We will definitely build more buffer time into the schedule next year.
The on-line registration is a good idea, but it's hard to use.
We know there are flaws in the system, but it's the best our dedicated volunteer who offered to create the system can do. We'd LOVE to have someone with knowledge in this area step up to revamp the system and make it work better. Anyone?
It's not fair to be forced to use PayPal.
We use PayPal as our credit card service because it is the most cost-effective way for a small organization to accept credit card payments. You do not have to have a PayPal account to use the service, only a credit card in your name. For anyone not able to register on-line, you can always print an entry form and mail it in with a check (though it's certainly more convenient for us for you to do it on-line).
Please post the schedule sooner.
Per the Tournament Rules that are part of the registration process, the draws will be posted at least 24 hours prior to the start of play. Understand our situation: once registration is closed, the tournament committee has several days of work to get the draws completed (data entry, confirming data entry, confirming payments, seeding research, seeding committee meeting, plotting out court usage, disqualified entries, searches to fill small draws, phone calls to move players from small draws to others or to combine events, triple proofing the draws and making corrections, etc.). We could make the registration deadline earlier, but with only so many days between the end of one tournament and the beginning of the next, that doesn't really solve the problem. Ideally, once someone registers for the tournament, they set aside the established tournament days to play. That said, please know that we always strive to get the draws posted as quickly as possible.
Results should be posted on the website the same night after the matches.
This is definitely our goal. We're very sorry about missing that goal more than once this year as we struggled with the interface of old software and new computers. Hopefully things will run more smoothly next year.
Tournament rules need to be stated more clearly and more obviously to avoid confusion.
We look at the rules every year and try to make them as clear as possible. We present the rules as part of the registration process and ask you to acknowledge you have read the rules before proceeding to the registration page. Anyone who would like to volunteer to help with a review of the rules for next year should contact us. We'd love your help!
"I thought I would receive an email or phone call when the draw was posted . . ."
Sorry for the confusion, but calling everyone is just not possible. Starting this year we sent an email notice to everyone on our email list when the draws were posted. Note that the tournament rules state that the draws will be posted on the website 24 hours before matches are scheduled.
Bees on the courts were problematic (to put it mildly!)
Boy, that's for sure. We were in contact with the manager of VTC as soon as this issue arose, but, sorry to say, they didn't have an immediate solution. We will definitely make sure this is remedied prior to the tournament in the future.
Access to water needs to be easier.
Agreed. We will work with VTC on this.
There should be line judges during the matches.
Sorry, that's just not financially possible. If you are having problems with your opponent, you should get the attention of the Site Director.
Please don't use the courts at Pioneer
If only there were more tennis courts to choose from! We have been spoiled by the wonderful courts at Varsity Tennis Center and have been fortunate to hold most of the matches for the tournaments there over the last several years. Remember that before VTC was built, (1997), the tournament used courts at multiple sites around the city and came together at Burns Park for the finals on Sunday. How times have changed! Understand that the courts at Pioneer offer the most courts in one location; using other locations (Huron or Skyline) mean more sites for us monitor wth our limited pool of volunteers. But we’re listening: we will try to work around the Pioneer courts in the future.
It would be nice if the trophies identified the event, e.g., "Men's 8.0 Singles."
That is a nice idea and we will look into it, but the cost for several different engraving set-ups will likely be too high to be practical. If you received a trophy, perhaps consider taking it to an engraver and have it added?
"Great work, guys." "All in all a solid tournament." "Nice job!" "People were friendly." "It's going to be one of my best memories of AA." "Thank you for organizing." "This is an incredible gift to the Ann Arbor community! Thank you." "Great fun." "I always love the City Tournament."
And to the many others who had a good time and let us know, Thank YOU!
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