This weekend’s “Unplugged” posts revolve around a few “hot takes.” To me, that term does not mean cheap shots or clickbait headlines designed to provoke a reaction. A hot take, at least on this site, is a strongly held viewpoint that may run counter to conventional thinking. However, at the same time it is grounded in some degree of truth based on observation and experience. I have spent time considering these hot take ideas, and whether people agree or disagree, these are positions I genuinely believe are worth examining.
We are kicking off the weekend by considering court space. There is a growing problem in tennis: we have a court shortage. Courts are being converted to pickleball while tennis participation is rising at a rate that outstrips demands for new capacity. The current economic pressures have both public and private facilities stretched thin. It is increasingly difficult to find enough available courts to run large events, particularly tournaments.
At the same time, a large portion of existing court inventory is de facto pre-booked. USTA League play occupies a significant percentage of available courts, often locking in large fixed time blocks months in advance. From a scheduling perspective, that makes sense. League play depends on predictable match times and coordinated team availability. But it also creates an interesting dynamic when viewed through a different lens.
This brings me to the crux of this first hot take. League tennis consumes an inordinate amount of court time, but it does not effectively maximize court utilization.
League matches are typically scheduled under a model in which all lines start at the same time. This requires a block of courts equal to the number of lines that are played in each matchup to be booked for the maximum duration of the longest match. For example, if the format requires five lines, then five courts are reserved for two and a half hours. In practice, some lines finish early, while one or two matches take the full duration. Those finished courts sit empty, sometimes for extended periods, to allow for the fact that all of the matches could conceivably run long. That is wasted court space.
There is another inefficiency layered on top of that. The number of courts at a facility is almost never perfectly divisible by the number of lines played in each format. For example, an eight-court facility hosting a five-line dual match will by default have three courts unused from the outset. While they can be used for lessons and casual play, and it is essential that all facilities have some courts available for both of those things, some of that space inevitably remains idle for the entire match window.
This is not an indictment of league play, but rather a structural characteristic of how the court space operates.
Tournaments are scheduled differently. Rather than scheduling matches in large synchronized blocks, tournaments typically use continuous scheduling. Matches are assigned to courts as they become available, and when one match finishes, another goes on shortly thereafter. There is no requirement for all matches in a round to start simultaneously. The result is that courts are in near-constant use throughout the day.
The practical effect is that tournaments tend to extract more actual play from the same number of courts. Anyone who has spent time at a well-run tournament has seen this in action. Courts rarely sit empty for long. There is a steady cadence of matches starting and finishing. The system is designed to maximize throughput rather than synchronize participation.
The court capacity problem is nearing an inflection point. Before the shortage hits the crisis point, it is worth asking whether the issue is purely one of supply or also partly a function of how efficiently existing courts are used. League tennis prioritizes coordination and predictability. Tournament tennis prioritizes utilization and flow. Both are valid design choices, but they lead to very different outcomes in terms of how much tennis is actually played per court hour.
As the USTA and local organizations consider how to respond to the growing pressure on court capacity, one potential lever is not just to build more courts or reallocate space, but to rethink how existing courts are scheduled. Increasing the number of tournaments, or adopting more continuous scheduling models, could increase overall utilization without adding a single new court.
Paradoxically, league tennis often occupies the majority of available courts while producing less total play from them. Tournaments, which are sometimes squeezed out by lack of access, may actually be the more efficient use of that same space.
This weekend’s “Unplugged” posts revolve around a few “hot takes.” To me, that term does not mean cheap shots or clickbait headlines designed to provoke a reaction. A hot take, at least on this site, is a strongly held viewpoint that may run counter to conventional thinking. However, at the same time it is grounded in some degree of truth based on observation and experience. I have spent time considering these hot take ideas, and whether people agree or disagree, these are positions I genuinely believe are worth examining.
We are kicking off the weekend by considering court space. There is a growing problem in tennis: we have a court shortage. Courts are being converted to pickleball while tennis participation is rising at a rate that outstrips demands for new capacity. The current economic pressures have both public and private facilities stretched thin. It is increasingly difficult to find enough available courts to run large events, particularly tournaments.
At the same time, a large portion of existing court inventory is de facto pre-booked. USTA League play occupies a significant percentage of available courts, often locking in large fixed time blocks months in advance. From a scheduling perspective, that makes sense. League play depends on predictable match times and coordinated team availability. But it also creates an interesting dynamic when viewed through a different lens.
This brings me to the crux of this first hot take. League tennis consumes an inordinate amount of court time, but it does not effectively maximize court utilization.
League matches are typically scheduled under a model in which all lines start at the same time. This requires a block of courts equal to the number of lines that are played in each matchup to be booked for the maximum duration of the longest match. For example, if the format requires five lines, then five courts are reserved for two and a half hours. In practice, some lines finish early, while one or two matches take the full duration. Those finished courts sit empty, sometimes for extended periods, to allow for the fact that all of the matches could conceivably run long. That is wasted court space.
There is another inefficiency layered on top of that. The number of courts at a facility is almost never perfectly divisible by the number of lines played in each format. For example, an eight-court facility hosting a five-line dual match will by default have three courts unused from the outset. While they can be used for lessons and casual play, and it is essential that all facilities have some courts available for both of those things, some of that space inevitably remains idle for the entire match window.
This is not an indictment of league play, but rather a structural characteristic of how the court space operates.
Tournaments are scheduled differently. Rather than scheduling matches in large synchronized blocks, tournaments typically use continuous scheduling. Matches are assigned to courts as they become available, and when one match finishes, another goes on shortly thereafter. There is no requirement for all matches in a round to start simultaneously. The result is that courts are in near-constant use throughout the day.
The practical effect is that tournaments tend to extract more actual play from the same number of courts. Anyone who has spent time at a well-run tournament has seen this in action. Courts rarely sit empty for long. There is a steady cadence of matches starting and finishing. The system is designed to maximize throughput rather than synchronize participation.
The court capacity problem is nearing an inflection point. Before the shortage hits the crisis point, it is worth asking whether the issue is purely one of supply or also partly a function of how efficiently existing courts are used. League tennis prioritizes coordination and predictability. Tournament tennis prioritizes utilization and flow. Both are valid design choices, but they lead to very different outcomes in terms of how much tennis is actually played per court hour.
As the USTA and local organizations consider how to respond to the growing pressure on court capacity, one potential lever is not just to build more courts or reallocate space, but to rethink how existing courts are scheduled. Increasing the number of tournaments, or adopting more continuous scheduling models, could increase overall utilization without adding a single new court.
Paradoxically, league tennis often occupies the majority of available courts while producing less total play from them. Tournaments, which are sometimes squeezed out by lack of access, may actually be the more efficient use of that same space.
It also sets up a broader question. If tournaments are structurally more efficient in how they use courts, what else might they be getting right? Over the next two posts, I want to explore that idea further, looking at how tournament formats influence both how winners are determined and how players develop under pressure.