News obliges, for the 1st article of this new section “the investigations of the Swiss army knife” by Line Meites. She comes back to the new proposals of the French Tennis Federation for the start of the school year concerning the new points scale according to the categories of tournaments of padel. You will see, a particularly hot topic.
Summary of the controversy
Small summary for those who discover the problem. The Padel has been under the bosom of FFT since 2014. Many changes have taken place since: creations, approvals and charter to organize tournaments in France. As well as a ranking system.
4 categories of tournaments exist at the moment: P100, P250, P500 and P1000. Just like what the ATP does, each category of tournaments corresponds to a number of points awarded to the winning team, as well as the minimum prize money to be distributed in the final table.
For example for a P500, each winner gets 500 points; Minimum 500 € are distributed between players (usually up to 1 / 4).
Depending on the category of tournament, but also according to the number of teams registered and the lap in which one loses, the number of points awarded to the players differs. Those are the results of the 10 best tournaments on the last 12 months that are taken into account to establish the French ranking.
Why updated price lists
In early summer, after several meetings, the Federal Commission validated a number of proposals to promote all categories of tournaments and players of all levels.
Indeed, until now, on the one hand the players prefer to take the risk of losing the 1er tournament of a P1000, rather than take the risk of going at least in the final of a P500 ... Why? The points (explanations below).
On the other hand, some weekends have seen several P500 (and / or P1000) bloomers, which have allowed local players to take their game and take a lot of points ... while the best were taken. elsewhere at the same time and place.
For exemple :
- in 2018:
- to lose in 1 / 8 of a P1000 reported between 300-550 points (according to nb registered)
- lose in 1 / 8 of a P 500: 75-290 points
- lose in 1 / 2 of a P1000: 650-800 points
- lose in 1 / 2 of a P500: 250-400 points
- In 2019:
- lose in 1 / 8 of a P1000: 90-160 points (according to the result of classification .matchs)
- lose in 1 / 8 of a P500: 45-80 points
- to lose in 1 / 2 of a P1000: 360 or 460 points (3ème and 4e places)
- lose in 1 / 2 a P500: 180 or 230 points.
An outcry of "players tops"
We can see the enormous differences and evolutions between 2018 and 2019. The tournaments of padel (other than P1000) were in general increasingly abandoned by players of all skill levels and even beginner players who preferred to play P1000s.
We also saw clubs complaining because when a club offered a P250, the neighbor outbid with a P500, seeing his own local players go to the highest bidder ... The FFT has reacted.
But with the new regulation of the FFT, we have seen an outcry from the players.
Especially since the FFT plans to release the September rankings with the 2019 scales ... and therefore back on the 10 last best results! This may change a lot of things in the French hierarchy ...
The solutions of Nicolas Trancart and the group of players
Nicolas Trancart (player of Toulouse) wrote an email to the players, after discussions with several, to propose solutions. Here are the proposals made:
- Modification of the scale of the P1000: 350 points in 1 / 8; 500 in 1 / 4; 650 in 1 / 2; 800 in the final and 1000 to the winners. With this scale, players losing in 8ème are no longer protected because there will be fewer points than on a p500. To have 500 points or more, it will be necessary, at least, to go in 1 / 4.
- In 2019, Limit to 18 the number of P1000.
- Limit to one P500 per weekend maximum on French soil. NB: This mainly concerns men. Women have a lot less tournaments on offer, let alone P1000 (2 third less)!
- For P500, you can allow 2 x P500 the same weekend, with a minimum geographical distance to respect.
- If the P2000 are created, limit their number to 6 / year, giving priority to quality for players and players.NB: even if I think we will not have many organized P2000, for us, girls ...
- Harmonize and communicate at the start of the year on the dates of the regional championships and the French championship, to prevent 2 major events from overlapping on the same weekend (National Padel Cup, My Padel Tower, Head Padel Open, Padel Infinity…).
- Finally, in addition to prohibiting players in the Top 100 to participate in P100 and P250, the players propose to prohibit those ranked after the 800th place to participate in P1000 ... For the tournaments are more consistent from the 1er laps. NB: towards a series sketch like tennis?
On this last element, it is believed that the French Tennis Federation makes a mistake to prohibit players from participating in tournament categories of padel. It must absolutely reason in terms of weight per team and not according to an individual classification.
For example, for a P100 or P250, we could see the thousandth French player playing with the French 10e. Why not ? it would also allow the teacher of the club to participate in the tournament of his club ...
What do you think ? Ideas ?
React ,,, Discuss ... Stay fair 🙂
Line Meites is one of the best French players in padel. It's the voice of your live on Padel Magazine. But not only, she also hosts the column “Investigations of the Swiss Army Knife”. Every month, she will come back to a controversy or a theme that is close to her heart.
I do not have too much opinion on the reform because it concerns only the highest ranked of which I do not belong.
On the other hand I find the classification system super bad and I think it will go degrading:
According to my experience (a dozen tournaments), the level is not very different between p250 and p500 (or even p100) and doing the same perf on the field we will earn points of the single double .
When we start the tournaments, the tables are made in such a way that we take the best and therefore we lose and therefore we do not score points and therefore we remain at the bottom of the ranking and we take the best at the tournament. 'after. And so
Those who started long ago are very good
This will be accentuated because more and more players will start
I hesitate now to play with a buddy who starts in tournament because I know that with his classification we will not be able to make points (I made 4 tournois like that)
In the end the ranking does not reflect the levels (up to 200 / 400eme I would say 90% of the classified) and the number of tournaments necessary to reach a ranking reflecting its level seems to me too big and it will be accentuated with the number of players .
Progressive tables and a reward of the performance compared to the ones we beat (and not where we end up in the tournament or the importance of the tournament) would be welcome
The opening of assimilations thanks to the tennis ranking is a good thing. This 2/6 cut would have helped me a lot last year! It would nevertheless have to be opened more at least until 15/2 (classification to be able to claim tennis and therefore be able to teach padel! It is a bit of a stain that the teacher of padel be classified 4000th!)
Hi Xavier, your remark is relevant. I don't know what year you are, but my generation knew the fact that "cons" was counted (yes I'm old). It's kind of the idea you are defending if I understood correctly. Beautiful puzzles to come for the JA (referee for novices) 🙂
It's an effect, in my opinion, an interesting idea (even in tennis, between us)… an idea to (re) propose maybe? To be tested on "small tournaments" to see if it already works?
Line
Hello,
Yes unfortunately I am old and I have known the cons. But unlike many I think it's good to have fired them. So I don't want to see them at the padel, it is too anxiety-provoking and by putting this in place there would be fights in the pairs after the defeats!
On the contrary, I would like to reward the perfs rather than the rank in the tournament and the importance of the tournament. This would allow to have rankings corresponding to the level of the players and to converge quickly towards his level of play.
It's a good idea. Now we have to think about how it is possible to reward the perfs… not easy. We can already bring up the info and submit the idea for the future!
-Bareme of points
It is normal in my opinion to reinforce the attraction of the smaller tournaments and to reward the victory which is never completely acquired even with a classification higher than the others. So giving as many points to 1/8 finalist of P1000 (who in some cases will only play one match) as a winner of P500 (who wins at least 4 matches) was an aberration. Giving 500 points for the 5th of a P1000 (which will therefore have won 2 classification matches plus at least one other match) would be rather fair enough and would also attract the best to the P500.
- Reason in team weight
I do not practice padel for a very long time but as an enthusiast I have observed that the level of a team is close to the level of the weakest player. Why ? Because at padelUnlike tennis, which can be played with 2 strokes of the racket (or even 1), patience is the key word and the weaker player of a pair will generally make a decisive error before his partner. It is therefore common to see a pair ranked 50/350 lose against a pair 200/200. This is the reason why we must absolutely reason on the weight of a pair rather than on the ranking of a player to deny him or allow access to tournaments. We do it well in addition to determine the seeds.
Bj Alexandre, I completely agree with you concerning your remark on the weight of the teams. That's why it might be good for the FFT to think about a minimum team weight for tournaments… that will solve some problems I think. And as Francki says, would allow the club teacher to participate with students in certain "small" tournaments ...
As for the other remark, yes we hope that the FFT will come back to all that and do something more coherent… for everyone!
Line