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| DEAKSY'S
CORNER Heywood Broun. What a true statement. Sport places a person’s character under stress, and it is only then that their character is totally revealed. Racquetball is lucky in that it has many different personalities, but in general, they are many good ones. Which brings me to say that at the Australian it was mentioned to yours truly that I should play the game in the spirit it was supposed to be played in. The comment at the time was extremely aggravating, but I held my tongue, believing that perhaps I had already said enough. What drove me to be annoyed enough to have this comment thrown at me? Some of you may have noticed that there are two basic ways to structure a tournament. One: the matches are laid out in a particular order and follow one after the other. (Example the Australian at Bairnsdale). The court number and locality does not matter, as long as the matches are played in a correct order. The other system is that matches are allocated a particular court and are played in that order. Unless a particular court is running behind time and then a match may be shifted to allow it to catch up. The problem with the former system is that an Open match may follow a D grade match meaning that the refereeing and scoring is of a standard that is not applicable. It is true the other way. I know some open players that struggle to give correct interpretations and decisions in a lower graded game. Some centres also have courts that vary considerably in standard. (Upwey – the home of the Mtn.Classic - is a prime example). The higher graded players, not always, but in general, should be given a better quality court. The problem with the second system is courts running too far behind and therefore players not knowing when they are playing. This problem is easily rectified if you have a competent tournament organiser that can see a court that has a potential problem and acts accordingly. When structuring the days play the tournament organiser should be mindful that the match following a particular game is of an equivalent standard or as close as possible. This is not possible when using the former system, where a match is ‘on the next available court.’ The particular match that I am referring to that caused me to be upset was refereed by somebody I did not know and scored by somebody that seemed unable to score. It is a little silly for two open players to be continually telling the scorer what the score actually is. My problem is not with the two that unfortunately copped a little ‘Deaksy verbal’, but with the organisers that placed both myself and the ref and scorer in this predicament. The Bairnsdale tournament organisers continually commit this fault. When organising a tournament it is important to remember that every match is important to everybody. This may not be the case. For example I don’t care about plate matches, or mixed doubles matches, whereas I do care about about men's doubles matches. Others may care about plate matches and not men's doubles. The point is: the tournament organiser should care about every match. Therefore they should make sure that every match is given the attention it deserves. I am fully in favour of people learning how to ref or score higher grades, but it should be one grade higher, not two, three or sometimes four. For any tournament organiser who wishes to improve their skills, I have numerous books and pamphlets that advise organisers on different tournament structures, and attitudes to take. A further comment I would like to make is that the VRF Tournament Committee is doing all it can to ensure that people play in the grades they should be in, and that players are placed in draws where they should be. The tournament ranking points system has two aims. One: to reward those that win matches; and, two: to reward those that continually support events. When setting their draws the tournament organisers do not always faithfully follow the rankings. The tournament committee is continually attempting to ensure that this does not happen in future events. At the end of 2003 we published a list of recommended grades that players should be entered into. At the Australian, this year, this was not strictly adhered to. To those players affected we strongly apologise to. In future we will be attempting to get player lists from tournament organiser’s and then placing players in the draws ourselves. Hopefully this will eradicate players playing in grades they should not be playing in. It will also stop mistakes such as occurred at the Victorian in 2003. In one particular grade 3 of the top 4 ranked players were placed on the same side of the draw. Rankings are not a perfect system. But, what it attempts to do other than the above two aims is to cut out personal bias. There is one tournament organiser in particular who is often accused of bias. In an open singles event last year the best two players in the event (who had proved this was the case repeatedly) were drawn in the same half of the draw, which meant they met each other in the semi final. This meant not only frustration for the loser, and a subsequent complaint, but also a loss of prize money. The subsequent final, a replay of the Australian Open final, was a joke. The loser of the subsequent final, though a legend of the game, and clearly better than most other players in the draw, was obviously not up to the standard required. This player had also had some influence on where players had been placed in the draw. Anyway, that’s enough from Deaksy. Congratulations to all those that competed at the Australian at Bairnsdale over the Labor Day weekend. The next tournament is the Mtn.Classic, and entries are now due. The VRF Gala night is to be Saturday, April 10th and everybody is most welcome. Cheers, Deaksy |
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