By Jay D. Prince
There are a lot of elements that go into any tournament entry form. The critical parts, like divisions on offer, the location, and the dates of the event. While knowing which division you might enter is important on a personal level, in my view the dates are perhaps most important.
Why? For lots of reasons. The tournament director/organizer has secured courts and taken them out of circulation at his/her club or venue. When putting together the draws, that same tournament director has to figure out how to get all of the matches played in a limited amount of time. As part of that process, it’s also important to try overlapping levels of experience in back-to-back matches for the purpose of refereeing matches by the players.
There are numerous other reasons for including the dates of the event in the entry form. And while all are critical to the success of the tournament, those dates are also included for the players! Generally speaking, along with the dates, the entry form usually includes a statement regarding the specific time by which players need to be available to play on the first day. Sometimes the information even includes the expected conclusion of all of the matches on the last day. But the part that is ALWAYS implied is that every time-slot between the start and end of the tournament is fair game. And the players are expected to be available to play!
Being human beings with busy lives, we all have things going on that may make it difficult to fit every possible match into the tournament weekend. Particularly if the event is “local.” Most tournament directors will do what they can to keep our limitations in mind and try to schedule around them.
That being said, the reality is that sometimes they can’t, especially if those scheduling conflicts arise after the tournament starts. But be honest, how many times have you truly had “something come up” unexpectedly after a tournament begins? I’m sure that if you’ve played tournaments for a number of years that you’ve no doubt had a couple of those. But I’m also quite certain that, more often than not, those conflicts were probably anticipated before you even entered. Which is where trouble begins to brew.
Maybe you’ve got friends coming in from out of town; or your kids have a game to play; or you really don’t want to play early on a Sunday because, well, it’s early; or your spouse has something going on and you might need to be with your kids; you can fill in the blanks for more things.
Now I ask you to take a step back and consider your potential opponents and how they might be impacted by your busy life. The out-of-town players in your draw have not only made the effort to enter and get themselves to the event, but they’ve also committed to playing throughout the weekend and paid potentially huge expenses to travel and stay in hotels. They entered to play every match they can until they are eliminated. Period.
You can probably tell where this is going. We’re talking about defaults for no legitimate (injury, illness, or emergency) reason. Most of the time these happen in the consolation rounds of tournaments. But, I’m sorry, that doesn’t fly with me. And it shouldn’t with any of us. I want to win the tournaments as much as the next guy but, when I lose, I wallow in my sorrows for an hour or so and then move on. If that means I might play four or five more matches in the backside of the draw, then that’s what I’m going to do.
To me it’s a matter of respect—for myself, for the tournament director, and for my potential opponents who, I assume, want to play their matches.
At the U.S. Skill Level Championships in Baltimore, I lost a long five-game match in the 4.5 to the eventual winner. I ultimately finished fifth—without playing another match! Both of my next two opponents, one who was a local, defaulted. I’d rather have lost in one of those matches than be handed a plate that I didn’t even have to earn.
Please, when you enter a tournament, you have an obligation to respect every facet of it. In addition to a fun weekend of squash, you have a commitment to everyone involved. Live up to it.
