College Feature
ITA Reviews Rankings Because of Covid-19 Impact
by Rhiannon Potkey, 8 April 2021
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The rankings at all levels of tennis have been impacted by Covid-19 in the last year. Tournament participation and match schedules for players and teams have varied across the country.
Given the disparity, finding data points that properly measure where a team or player ranks has been harder than ever.
Among the causes of the challenges cited at the college level by the ITA are:
- Some conferences, along with individual institutions in specific geographic regions of the country, chose to play conference-only schedules with few exceptions this spring, resulting in limited to non-existent non-conference play, while other conferences chose to maintain traditional scheduling practices that more closely resemble past years.
- Some individual institutions were forced to start competing later than many other schools, significantly reducing or eliminating non-conference play opportunities for those teams and their players.
- Some conferences competed during the Fall 2020 season while others chose not to compete during the Fall of 2020.
Although not the only data point used by the NCAA, the ITA rankings have factored into the selection of the NCAA team, singles and doubles championships. The ITA office and the NCAA have been in communication about the challenges of the rankings this year.
The ITA announced it has made the following decisions regarding team, singles, and doubles rankings for the week of April 5th:
- Team Rankings – beginning April 7th, the ITA will publish both the ITA Computer Team Ranking Top 50 as well as the ITA Coaches Poll Top 50. The ITA is prepared to provide both sets of data to the NCAA as early as this week.
- Singles & Doubles Rankings – The ITA has decided to pause the publishing of ITA computer singles and doubles rankings for the week of April 5th as the staff and coach governance committees continue to review the best path forward for providing coaches, players and fans the most accurate collegiate singles and doubles rankings.
More information will be released as it becomes available.
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About Rhiannon Potkey
Rhiannon Potkey is a veteran sportswriter with more than two
decades of experience in journalism. Potkey has covered many
sports at many levels and has a passion for finding great stories.
Potkey has covered the U.S. Open, junior sectional and national
events, college conference championships and Davis Cup matches.
Potkey is currently Content Strategist for Tennis Recruiting. You
can reach Rhiannon by email at
rhiannon@tennisrecruiting.net.
