The calendar has turned to April and the 2019 season is in full swing. Now you might be wondering why the title of this article is *Rule Change!* Well I am here to let know you what the madness is all about. Let's do a quick breakdown of what the Iowa HS Tennis world has changed up.
Rule Topic: Individual State Tournament Seeding
Past protocol: An individual or doubles pair that has finished runner-up in their district/regional, may not be seeded at the state tournament.
New protocol: District runner-ups are ONLY eligible to be seeded at the state tournament if:
-A district singles runner-up was a state individual tennis tournament champion or runner-up the previous year, in either class;
-BOTH players on the district doubles runner-up team were part of the same doubles team that was a state individual tennis tournament champion or runner-up the previous year, in either class.
(cited: IAHSAA)
Why has this rule change come up? In the past 10 years, there has been 4, yes 4 instances where this has happened to players. These players had made the state final match one year, and the following year they were not allowed to be seeded at the state tournament because they did not win their districts. Here are the 4 examples: (If anyone knows of other examples, please let me know! These are the ones that I could come up with in a couple hours.)
Singles
Example 1 - 1A Boys
2009: #2 seed Lane Luhring of Aplington-Parkersburg reached the state singles final and was defeated by #1 seed Carter Giese of Dubuque Wahlert
2010: Aaron Chalstrom of St. Edmond Fort Dodge defeated Luhring in the district final. Because of that result, Luhring was not allowed to be seeded at the state tournament. Unseeded at state Luhring beat #4 seed Chalstrom in the final.
Example 2 - 1A Boys
2010: Aaron Chalstrom was the singles state finalist (see above)
2011: John Ellis of Boone beat Chalstrom in the district final. Because of the result, Chalstrom was not allowed to be seeded at state. Unseeded at state, Chalstrom made it back to the state final match but ultimately fell to #4 seed James McManus of Waterloo Columbus.
Example 3 - 2A Boys
2016: #1 seed Jiung Jung of IC West defeated unseeded IC City High's Joe Hoff in the singles state final. (Hoff could not be seeded because Jung defeated him in districts)
2017: Once again, Jung and Hoff were in the same district where Jung won the final match. Because of the result Hoff was not able to be seeded at state. Unseeded, Hoff made it back to the state finals in a rematch with #1 seed Jung, but ultimately Jung was victorious.
Doubles
2016: #3 seed Cole Schneider and Jack Wenzel of IC West finished runner-up in state doubles to Pleasant Valley's #1 seed of Sriram Sugumaran and Charlie Humes.
2017: Rami Scheetz and Ty Sherman of CR Wash defeated Schneider/Wenzel in the district final. Because of this result, Schneider/Wenzel were not allowed to be seeded in the state tournament. Schneider/Wenzel ended up defeating #1 seed Scheetz/Sherman in the state doubles final.
Here we have 4 examples in the last decade that suggest something should be done about state seeding. Is this a good rule change? Do the district/regional tournaments need to be mixed up more? Regardless, this new protocol will help with these types of instances that are bound to happen in the future. In fact, I sense this rule will come into effect this year in the 1A girls field involving Fairfield. Anatta Charoenkul and Yana Gaskell are two of the top players in 1A, they not only played in the state final last year, but are teammates as well. As they are teammates, they will be in the same regional, and before this rule change was made, one of them was not able to be seeded. They both should play again in regionals this year allowing the new rule to take effect this state tournament.
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