USTA League Nationals for 2025 begin this weekend! The schedule is slightly less compressed this year being played in five instead of four weekends, but still more compressed than past years where it was seven weekends.
This weekend has four events, 18 & Over 2.5W and 5.0 in Scottsdale, 3.5 in Surprise, and 4.0 in San Diego.
I’ve been doing simulations since 2018 and have found that the four semi-finalists are usually in the top six to seven projected teams, and more often than you might think, I project the four semi-finalists perfectly. There are surprises sometimes and a mid-pack team overachieves and advances, that is why the matches are played on the courts and not on a computer. Still, it is interesting to do these simulations and see how the projections do.
Why do these simulations you ask? The primary reason is that the format for USTA League Nationals is now a flight-less random round-robin where each team plays four other random opponents. This introduces significant variations in schedule strength, the possibility of an undefeated team not making the top-4, and teams vying for the top-4 perhaps not having played head-to-head and unfortunate tie-breakers being used. The simulations aim to educate folks on how it all works and look at what may happen. Also see this write-up for some things to know about Nationals.
Because of the fairly compressed schedule, I likely won’t have the time to do previews/simulations of all events, but will try to do a few. Let me know which you’d like to see!
Like I did last year, I’ll be primarily just giving the data from the simulation and not writing a bunch of words. Most of it is self-explanatory, but the favorites and contenders will be listed in alphabetical order. The strengths are based on played averages. Contact me if you want to learn more.
On to the projections from the simulation, first up, the 18 & Over 4.0 men.
Teams: 17
Chance of 3 undefeated: 11%
Chance of 4 undefeated: 1.0%
Chance of 5 undefeated: <1%
Chance of tie for last spot / most likely size: 92% / 4
Strongest / weakest team strength: 4.16 / 3.96
Toughest / easiest schedule: 4.11 / 4.03
Favorites: Eastern, Intermountain, Mid-Atlantic, Texas
Contenders: Florida, Missouri Valley, NorCal, Southern
Have a chance: Middle States, Midwest, SoCal
The simulation likes the top team a lot due to an easy schedule but still just 38% chance of 4-0. But then there is a group of four teams with a 33% to 60% chance of making the semis, and five more with a better than 12% chance. Overall five teams have a most likely record of 3-1 and then eight are at 2-2, so a competitive event it appears so court records and the tie-breakers will be important.
What do you think?