Personally, I feel that in the regionals when there are very low numbers in
particular gender then it is worth making the tournament mixed gender. The
Newcastle regional wouldn’t of been as great a tournament as it was if it
wasn’t for this happening. However I agree that if they are going to be strict
with the rules on the nationals in other areas, then we should be having a
separate male and female British Champion.
Best wishes
Roy
Sent from my iPhone
On 1 Oct 2018, at 22:39, monica smith (Redacted sender "monica.smith1" for
DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi, I was really surprised to find this out too. I believe we should have
separate gender draws with two separate champions. I don't like the chopping
and changing that happens depending on numbers entering each competition.
We also need to find out why the numbers are so low this year. A drop of 8
is not good for the game. I have my suspicions but we should try and find
out.
Thanks for addressing this.
Monica
-----Original Message-----
From: b1-tennis-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:b1-tennis-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Nikhil Nair
Sent: 01 October 2018 21:15
To: b1-tennis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [b1-tennis] Mixing the genders - or not - for the B1 singles at the
nationals
Hi all,
[I'm sending this both to the email list and the B1 players' Facebook
group, in the hope that I'll catch as many players as possible.]
This is mainly for the attention of those of you who are playing at the
nationals this year - though everyone else is welcome to chip in too, of
course.
I received an email from Steve on Thursday informing me that the B1 singles
events would be mixed genders in this year's nationals. I presume the rest
of you who are playing the nationals also got the same email.
That... surprised me, given the strong stance the TF have taken since early
2017 that the B1 division should be separate genders - and my understanding
was that that strong stance was prompted by player feedback. Yes, we've
had some regionals that have been mixed gender (actually quite a few this
year), but, with only one exception (Newcastle 2018, which had logistical
issues, because the two B1 courts were in different venues), that was
always because the number of entries from one or other gender was very
low. We had separate men's and women's British champions last year, and I
was under the impression everyone felt that was appropriate; likewise, we
have separate gender points tables for the singles this year. Of course,
everything in the international arena is strictly separate genders - from
selection for the GB team, right through to separate gender world
champions.
Merging the genders for the singles in the nationals, though, would throw
that away for this year, and give us only one B1 British champion.
Whichever gender lost out would have no British champion at all - which
doesn't feel right to me. To me, merging the genders is a much bigger
thing when you're looking at the nationals, than when you're looking at a
regional tournament, due to the loss of a British champion that should have
been.
The numbers situation is currently that there are 6 men and 6 women in the
B1 singles. You can easily arrange a tournament of 6 players to start with
two groups of 3, the top 2 from each group going through to the
semi-finals; then, as well as the final, you can have a 3rd-4th playoff,
and a consolation match between the players finishing bottom in each group.
That way, everyone would get at least 3 matches, and 4 out of the 6 would
get 4 matches.
(As a comparison to the last two years, the 2016 finalists, and everyone
who got through to the semi-finals last year, all played 4 singles matches;
so 4 is about right, particularly as we're now using full sets to 6, with
tie-break at 6-6 if needed.)
I do get that, in general, a draw of 12 is more satisfying than a draw of
6; but, to me, that isn't worth sacrificing the principle of separate
gender British champions.
There are a few other arguments I could add, but I'll put them in a
separate section below, to keep this top part a bit shorter.
The bottom line is that I'm considering emailing Steve and Kirsty, asking
them to reconsider this decision, and listing the arguments I can think of
to support separate gender draws. However, I'd like to have some idea how
the other players who'll be involved feel: if the majority prefer a mixed
draw with only one overall champion, I may well back off and allow things
to proceed without my interference. (I'm not promising that, mind...!
We'll see, if that happens.) I am, of course, hoping that the majority
feel the same way I do, so that, when I email Steve and Kirsty, I can say
that more than half of the players agree with me on this.
So, particularly if you're one of those players who'll be at the nationals,
please speak up! Do you think we should have separate gender draws with
two separate champions; or a mixed draw with just one champion; or are you
happy either way?
I'll ad further arguments below - but feel free to skip them if you've
already made up your mind and don't want all the detail!
Cheers,
Nikhil.
Additional arguments:
1. There's plenty of time to reconsider, since the draws aren't scheduled
to be published until Sunday 14th October.
2. The precedent, from other categories in previous years, is that draws
go ahead with 4 or 5 players, let alone 6. Last year, there were 5 in each
of the men's B2 and the men's B4/B5, while there were 4 in each of the
women's B2 and women's B4/B5 categories. None of these were merged with
other categories (whether that was a different sight category or mixed
gender), though that would have been possible in at least some cases.
3. Last year, an argument could have been made that a draw of 18 would
have been more satisfying than a draw of 9, so there should have been one
mixed gender draw of 18 B1 players. That route was not taken - and rightly
so, since 9 was plenty of players for each gender group, resulting in the
top players each playing 4 singles matches each.
4. This year, while there are only 6 players of each gender, that can
easily be arranged to result in 4 matches for each of the 4 top players
(with two groups of 3, leading to semi-finals, then both a final and a
3rd-4th playoff; a consolation match between the 3rd placed players in each
of the two groups would result in everyone getting at least 3 matches).
5. In the separate gender scenario, even if there was an additional
withdrawal resulting in only 5 players for one gender or other, a round
robin of 5 players would still result in each player getting 4 matches.
6. While the numbers are down this year, most of the top players, both men
and women, did actually enter (the main exceptions were those who aren't
playing much anymore and didn't play any regionals this year, particularly
Kelly, Qas and Dawn). Hence the lower numbers is simply a form of
self-selection, where the more confident and stronger players still enter,
while some of the weaker players choose not to. This is a perfectly
reasonable direction for the sport to go in, and isn't something that needs
to be covered up in any way.
7. This year, there are fewre B4/B5 players than B1 players; and there has
been past precedent, at a regional tournament, for a mixed B4/B5
competition, when numbers were low. However, the B4/B5 are going ahead
with separate genders. Why, then, should the B1 categries be merged, with
higher numbres than the B4/B5?
