By JOE RAYMOND

My national championship hopes were dashed this weekend in Springfield, Mass. What national championship you ask? It's the United States Tennis Association (USTA) 4.5 men's tennis championship.

The USTA is the largest tennis organization in the world. What makes it unique is that it is one of the few sports organizations that actually declare a true national champion each year.

Team's go through a series of local level matches before moving on to district and sectional play. Then the winners from each of the 17 sections of the United States all play against each other at the national championships. This championship is played outdoors in a warm weather sites like Indian Wells, California, Orlando, Florida or Tucson, Arizona.

There are approximately 295,000 tennis players that participate in USTA league competitive tennis each season. Each player has an official USTA rating to ensure that he or she plays equal level competition.

In the old days the USTA made players go to a rating clinic to acquire a rating. These clinics were time consuming and usually very subjective to the rater. About five or six years ago the numbers for USTA league tennis were declining. To make league play more accessible the USTA developed a new system that allowed players to self rate themselves.

Since the inception of self rating USTA league tennis has flourished. Now all you had to do was log on to the USTA website answer a few questions then select a rating for yourself. The USTA rating system has a detailed description used to determine what level a player should rate at. The levels start from 2.5 and go up to 5.0 with a new level at every interval of .5.

My team for example is a 4.5 level team. The USTA describes a 4.5 player as one who has "developed your use of power and spin and can handle pace." A 4.5 player is a pretty solid tennis player. There are only four 4.5 teams in Rhode Island and anyone who is part of one of the teams is a pretty accomplished tennis player.

I have been a part of the same men's tennis team from the Fore Court Tennis club for the past five years now. The first year I started playing USTA league tennis I self-rated myself as a 4.0 player. With a good captain and a strong group of players our 4.0 team beat out seven other teams to win the Rhode Island championship. From there we had to defeat four other teams at the district level to earn a berth in the New England sectional tournament.

The trademark of our 4.0 team was that we always somehow found a way to win the match. There are five points in each USTA team match, consisting of two singles matches and three doubles matches. Throughout the season we won the majority of our matches by a slim to 3 win to 2 win margin.

At the sectionals we faced the other three best teams from all of New England. We won two out of our three matches there by a 3-2 score, but that was enough to claim the New England Sectional title and punch our ticket to Tucson, Arizona.

The nationals are truly something that should be experienced by any tennis player at some point. The level of talent is usually almost one level above your rating level. So our 4.0 team was playing mostly 4.5 level guys. Our team had some talent, but it was not enough to compete on the national stage. We lost all three of our matches in Arizona, but the experience was something that I'll never forget.

The USTA ratings system is all determined online through a computer database based on your match performance. Because of how well I played during that season my USTA rating was bumped up from 4.0 to 4.5. If a player self rates themselves as a 3.5, but they go out and win every match by a 6-0, 6-0 score the computer will red flag the player. The USTA is very secretive about how their system works, but if a player receives too many of these strikes against him he can be disqualified from league play and all his victories are removed from his team.

Many players play USTA tennis for years and never get a chance to go to nationals. I already had the opportunity to go once, but I was hungry to go again. This year I felt like my 4.5 team had a chance to do it.

With only four teams in Rhode Island winning the local league was a little easier than at the 4.0 level. We also got a break because the region that we were scheduled to play in the districts did not have a 4.5 team so we advanced directly to the New England Sectionals.

The sectionals are three consecutive days of matches. In our first match we scored an upset victory knocking off a team from Portland Maine that had not lost a match all season. On day two we faced Massachusetts, a battle tested team that had played through a tough district qualifier. We battled them hard, but lost the match 3-2.

Now our destiny was out of our hands. Even if we won in our last match we still could not advance to nationals without some help from the other teams. All we could do was go out and give it our best and hope for some divine intervention. It was not to be however as the Mass team won their final match clinching a spot in the nationals. It is hard to describe the feeling of being so close and not winning. You never know if this might be the last chance to go to the nationals. Teams change every year. Players get bumped up or cannot make the commitment to playing again. My lasting memory will be how it felt to just miss this year. That is why I'll play next year. For one more taste of victory.