August 31, 2010
2010 U.S. Open Referee’s Report
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Courtesy of USATT |
1. The 2010 US Open was held at the De Vos Place Convention Center, Grand Rapids, MI, from June 29 – July 3, 2010. The official hotel was Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, a block from the venue. Most participants used a pleasant outdoor route. The venue was also available from indoors except for crossing one street. The weather was excellent throughout the week.
2. Tournament officials were Wendell Dillon, IR, Referee US Open; Larry Kesler, IR, Referee IVC; Karol Ziduliak, IR Canada, Referee NAC and Linda Hsing, NR, Deputy Referee. Joseph Lee was the Chief Umpire and Ruben Kairy was the Deputy Chief Umpire. Delano La Fatt, Canada, and Cyril Sen, Malaysia, were the evaluators.
3. Local personnel conducted racket control. Dr. Azmy Ibrahim oriented the racket controllers, who were headed by Lee Bahlman. They conducted voluntary and mandatory racket inspections. Only one racket failed the VOC test by the Enez device. Only a few rackets failed for other reasons including too thick rubber, ragged edges, and surface not flat.
4. All four referees worked as a team. We had at least two on duty throughout the tournament. Dillon reviewed all draws for the Open; Ziduliak took full control of the NAC, making all draws and advancement in events. Kesler reviewed the IVC draws but essentially let NATT process IVC matches as they did Open events.
5. Two weeks before the tournament I sent the basic umpire orientation to all officials by email, a practice I started as referee in 2008. I picked up the idea from the 2008 WTTC and it is becoming standard in international competitions. It give umpires an idea of what to expect and results in a short orientation at the tournament. I provided all referees, ChUs and evaluators with color photo albums and all officials with black and white albums. I also provided each umpire with a set of colored umpire cards with the tournament logo.
6. We used 39 uniformed umpires and 4 volunteer umpires. See Joseph Lee’s excellent chief umpire report for details of umpire activities.
7. Tournament officials were provided transportation between the airport and the tournament hotel. The Grand Rapids Open Organizing Committee (GROOC) contracted for the service and it was the best our officials have been received at a U.S. tournament. It is the normal standard for tournaments in other countries.
8. The tournament venue and hotel were both outstanding. All personnel associated with the tournament were first class ambassadors of the city of Grand Rapids.
9. Several tables had to be moved because electrical plates interfered with player footing. This could have been eliminated if we had advance notice of the nature of the plates and specific locations.
10. Because of the many events and different competitions we had an unacceptable number of playing conflicts. As we have had for about 15 years we had a conflict resolution desk to decide when matches would be rescheduled. As always, Marilyn Miller and Olga Kahan did an excellent job in resolving conflicts. The overall number of conflicts was exceptionally high.
a. The IVC duplicated events in the US Open. Only 5 players in the IVC were not in the US Open. Having these duplicate events for the same players increased the player conflicts.
b. The NAC provided numerous conflicts with the US Open Men’s, Women’s and junior events.
c. Allowing players to enter 8 events also contributed to the large number of conflicts.
d. The large number of match conflicts greatly detracted from the professionalism of the overall competition. Although there were some great matches, the conflicts are more representative of a poorly run 2 star tournament than an international open championships.
11. Draw procedures. Draws were conducted with a combination of world rankings and USATT ratings. I believe that the draws provided valid seeding in all events. However ITTF requires that ITTF world rankings should be used in the open events.
12. Players with no world ranking or USATT rating. We had many foreign players in the open draws without any information on their ability. Placed in round robin groups, unrated players frequently played the A player in a group and won. This is somewhat unfair to the highest rated player in the group. Solutions presented by John Miller, Tournament Director:
a. Not play the A player and the unrated player first. This is doable with scheduling.
b. Advance two players from the preliminary groups and have the first round of 128 players rather than 64. I support advancing two players but recommend that the round of 128 be considered a preliminary round and seeded players don’t play until the round of 64. By advancing 2 players it changes the match order so that the A player doesn’t play the lowest player first.
13. Umpire evaluations. Evaluations are very important to our umpires and our ability to draw foreign umpires. With evaluations we are getting barely enough visiting umpires to do the job. Every visiting umpire we use saves us travel costs at approximately $250 per umpire.
a. Our blue badge umpires need evaluations every year to maintain their blue badge status. We have very few opportunities for our umpires to get evaluations at foreign tournaments. The US Open is the only tournament in North American that offers evaluations.
b. Umpires from around the world also have problems getting opportunities for evaluations. The US Open is an opportunity for them. Without evaluations we would not be able to draw a significant number of foreign umpires.
c. A reasonable number of visiting umpires from several associations is necessary for the creditability of the tournament as an International Open Championships.
d. The large number of conflicts made it difficult to schedule and conduct evaluations.
14. The Liha (sandpaper) matches, although few, caused an inordinate delay in tournament events. One round robin group went 4 hours while scheduled for 3. The nature of the competition with 21 point games and the sandpaper style extended matches.
15. Recommendations:
a. That the North American Championships be conducted as a separate competition.
b. That foreign veteran players be invited to enter the many senior events in the US Open.
c. That we not conduct international veterans championships in conjunction with the US Open.
d. That draws for the championship events be made using ITTF world rankings as the primary basis for seeding.
e. That In the Men’s and Women’s Singles we advance two players from each group.
f. That if we conduct sandpaper events in the future, develop a control plan to limit disruption of the tournament schedule.
g. That NATT analyze the extent of conflicts caused by players entering many events and we give consideration to reducing the allowable events for each player.
h. That future bid documents include transportation of officials to and from the airport to the standard provided by the GROOC.
i. That future bid documents include photographs of any irregularities in the floor and a map outlining where the irregularities are.
j. That this report be provided to the referee for the 2011 US Open.
Respectfully submitted,
Wendell Dillon
Wendell Dillon, IR
Referee, US Open
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