The Belton Tennis Center

Seeding is very important, but it is also important that players, parents and coaches understand what seeding is and is not. According to Friend At Court, “Seeding merely represents the committee’s subjective ratings of the various players’ chances of winning the tournament. These ratings may not be based on whim, caprice, or hunches, but instead shall be justified by a reasonable amount of factual evidence. The committee shall consider all available evidence, including, but not limited to, rankings, current records, types of surface and particularly head-to-head encounters.” Two outstanding singles players who are paired in doubles, but have little or no doubles record, should be considered for seeding. Current standings are used, but are not the final seeding.

Seeding will be done as accurately and fairly as possible. Seeding will be done by a committee consisting of tournament and state officials. The following criteria will be used for seeding:

2008 player record, especially results against other state players
2008 national, sectional and state standing
2007 final national, sectional and state ranking
Whether or not the player is competing in an older age division other than their final 2007 ranking
Past Palmetto result

In some cases, the seeding committee will be required to make judgement decisions. A specific criteria, formula and/or state standings alone cannot be used when considering players with no head-to-head (or split head-to-head) results and varying number of matches and tournaments played. In such cases, seeding will be a committee decision.

There will be approximately one seed for every four players in the draw. Seeds 5-8 (and 9-16 if necessary) in the main draw will be alphabetical, and all seeds in the qualifying will be alphabetical (but may be in two alphabetical groups, example: 1-8 and 9-16).

Seeding for the qualifying will be based on the 2008 USTA South Carolina standings as of May 27. The standings will be the only criteria used for the qualifying.

The seeding will be published to the internet at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 1.

Draws for the 10’s and 18’s main draw, the 12’s, 14’s & 16’s qualifying and all doubles will be posted to the internet at 5:00 p.m. on Monday, June 2. The main draws for the 12’s, 14’s & 16’s will not be done until after the qualifying rounds have been completed and will be posted as soon as possible on Wednesday, June 4.