Voluntary Consolations

Implemented as a new rule in 2009, all participants in all non Round-Robin events in Senior and Super Senior Major Zone Tournaments (except Mixed Doubles) are eligible for Voluntary Consolations. Yep, this means doubles as well as singles! There is NO MANDATORY consolation in singles or doubles!

This has an impact on all participants of the tournament, not just those that elect to play consolations after they lose. If you are only playing singles, and stay in the main draw, you probably won't even notice a difference from any other tournament. If you are only playing doubles, you might notice that some matches are played earlier in the day than what you may be used to. If you end up playing consolation singles, some events will have consolations played after their main draw doubles matches. IF you end up playing singles AND doubles consolations...watch out, as that doubles consolation may be late at night. It is possible that someone could play a singles main draw match, a doubles main draw match, a singles consolation match and a doubles consolation match in the same day. We'll try to avoid that, but we won't know what will happen until it does...

Everyone looking at the draws for the first time...

You'll notice that there are no Consolations match times. Why is this? Because the events are all voluntary, there is no way of knowing ahead of time if all first match losers will want to play, if no-one wants to play, or if just a few want to play. Because of this, Consolation draw matches can't be scheduled ahead of time.

If you lose your first match

Everybody that loses their first match has a right to sign up for consolation. You must sign up for the Voluntary Consolation event at the Tournament Desk immediately following your loss. When the winner of the match comes up to report the score, the loser of that match should also come to the Tournament Desk and ask for the Consolation Sign Up sheet. There will be an individual sheet for each event. If there are enough participants signed up by the time the last person in that event gets to play their first match and loses, then a brand new draw will be made for the consolations. Only then can match times be assigned, WHAT THIS MEANS: Consolation events cannot be configured until everybody in that event has had a chance to lose. If there are defaults that push a person's first match later than originally expected, we must wait until that match is over before we can do anything...we can't make a new draw until we know how many people are playing, so that puts everybody's start time even later.

Lets take a look at a draw from a tournament here at CYTC last week and see what would happen.

If this were NORMAL consolations, we'd already have a consolation draw posted with match times, and courts prepared for 8 main draw and 8 consolation matches after the first round, probably around the 3pm time. Everybody could play those pre-scheduled matches, except 13-16 who got defaults/withdrawals and couldn't play their first match until 3pm. In this case, no big deal as the consolation event would actually get a bye in the 13-16 spot as there is no other loser in that section. However, in VOLUNTARY consolations, we wouldn't know until after the 13-16 3pm match, maybe at 5pm, how many people would be in consolations, so a new draw could not be made until then, and obviously court times would have to be later than that.

Let's look at another example from the past.

All quarterfinals were suppose to take place Saturday morning, with the consolation draw all set to play early afternoon Saturday. Looking at the bottom of the draw, we see that Elizabeth Davis didn't get to play until 8 am Sunday. Since she lost that match, probably at 11:30ish (assuming it took that long to lose 6-4, 4-6, 6-2), she now opts for Voluntary Consolation. Only at this time could a Voluntary Consolation draw be made, involving Elizabeth Davis, Randi Schnur, Terrilee Tatum, and Pollyanna Held...if they had all signed up to play. If they did, consolations could not begin until 12:30 Sunday. 

How will you know when Consolations will happen?

If you have signed up to get Twitter messages (Tweets!) on your phone, you will get notice that way. Since this is the first year we are doing this (we very well may be the first tournament ever to do this), we consider it an experiment, and would like your feedback on how well it works. After the tournament is over, you merely opt on the Twitter website to stop receiving mobile messages to your phone!
 

I think the idea behind this is to only have people in Consolations that want to play Consolations, not the people forced into it who are going to withdraw anyway, leaving some Consolation draws a shambles. I'm sure many of you have had the experience of waiting to play consolations, and waiting , and waiting, and no one ever shows up, and you win the consolations by default...yet you have wasted $$ in unneeded hotel bills! This new format may take some getting used to, as it not the normal way everyone has become accustomed. Since it is new, I might be just about as confused as you are on how it will all play out. There may be unforeseen glitches, as this is the first time this has been done, but the USTA's goal , as is certainly ours, is to make consolations a better experience for everyone.