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HOW ABOUT A COMBINED AGE 125 The new popularity of combined age tournaments for senior men brings up the intriguing question; why not institute a National Championship with an eligibility of a combined age of the partners set at 125 or maybe even 110, or 100 or 90? There is a precedent, of course. A 145-combined age National Championship is already being contested although that tournament has been corrupted from its original purpose. The first argument against such a plan is that there are too many tournaments on the schedule now. That is true. It also is true that many of these National Championships do not have the draw size that they should. The purpose of a combined age event is to enable partners to be chosen from a larger field. In a 125 tournament, for example, a 70-year-old has a choice of partners down to age 55. As there are fewer men in their 70’s, getting partnerships for the 70+ Nationals becomes more difficult. Likewise, because of the low birth rate in the 1930-1945 period, the available number of male candidates for the 60+ and 65+ Nationals is hurting. With a 125- combined age National Championship, this group also is stronger in terms of number of teams that could participate. This is what the thinking behind the change in the 145-combined age event sought to help. The APTA wanted to get more teams into the draw. Initially the idea was to enable those 75+ to keep going in National Championship competition. They were encouraged to get a 70+ partner to the total of 145. In the last two years this was changed to allow the partnership to total 145 even if both partners were less than 75 years of age. I have protested this change to no avail. It is primarily a duplication of the 70+ Championship although it has been won by a less than 70-year-old with a 75+ partner. I submit that the Senior Men’s leaders on the APTA Board of Directors should look seriously into considering additional combined age National Championships for future years. Even if it meant, at least temporarily, eliminating the 65+ and 55+ Championship tournaments, it seems worth a trial. |
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