Following are Frequently Asked Questions about the Tennisfax National Ranking Project.

What are the benefits to signing up with Tennisfax?

Each tournament that signs up gains promotional benefits that can increase entries. Your event will receive a web page at www.tennisfax.com to post news, schedules, results and even take online entries. By promoting your tournament as a member of the Tennisfax National Ranking Project, you will generate interest in your event from players who want see where they are ranked each week.

You will also receive the Tennisfax Ranking System, a tennis software program (for Mac and PC). This software will help you manage your tournament and upload your results to www.tennisfax.com for inclusion in the TennisFax National Ranking Project. The Tennisfax Ranking System includes a player database with mail merge capabilities and an automatic draw maker that generates entry forms and draw sheets. Future upgrades will include a statistical database to track player records like win-loss %, head to head results and tournament and match streaks. As long as your tournament participates in the Tennisfax National Ranking Project, you will receive all software upgrades.

Why should I sign up my tournament if its already USTA sanctioned?

The Tennisfax Ranking System actually fits quite nicely with the USTA rankings. The USTA divides the country into sections and those sections are subdivided into districts. For example, Ohio is in the Midwest section and Columbus is in the Ohio Valley district. The Central Ohio Grand Prix (the test program in Columbus for the Tennisfax National Ranking Project) further divides the Ohio Valley district into a smaller region and it includes both sanctioned and non-sanctioned tournaments to determine local rankings. Results from participating tournaments and the updated rankings are posted at www.tennisfax.com each week. Tennisfax ranks players in local regions, the USTA handles their districts and sections and Tennisfax combines them all into the National Ranking Project.

What are the differences between the Tennisfax and USTA rankings?

The Tennisfax Ranking System was designed to get people involved in playing both USTA sanctioned and non-sanctioned tournaments. In the Tennisfax rankings, 'one win and you're in'. Each match a player wins counts in the rankings. The USTA requires players to compete in a minimum number of tournaments to qualify for a ranking. However, in the USTA system, you can win matches but if the players you beat don't win a match, you don't get a ranking. With Tennisfax, you can stay home, get a local ranking and have it compiled with all of the other regions in the country in the National Ranking Project. USTA rankings are issued one a year; Tennisfax rankings are updated weekly.

How will the national rankings be issued?

The COGP is the first region to be included in the Tennisfax National Ranking Project. Starting in 2003, Tennisfax will sign up individual tournaments from across the United States for the project. When at least three tournaments in the same geographic area join the project, a local ranking will be issued for that area (local tournament directors can organize their own circuits like the COGP or Tennisfax can assign tournaments to regions). Then, results from these regions will be combined into the national ranking database and the rankings will be posted on www.tennisfax.com.

TOURNAMENT DIRECTORS:
MAKE YOUR TOURNAMENT A TENNISFAX EVENT.

For more information email nrp@tennisfax.com or call Alan Kinnard at 614-279-7175.