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Tennis League I
The Tennis League I was a competition-based collection of tennis matches organized by Gallers that took place within the span of one month, from November to December of 2007, and while relatvively informal in nature is considered to technically be the first site-sanctioned tournament, in addition to being foundational for the more complex-in-design tournaments that were yet to come.
Origins
Gallers drew inspiration for the idea from a Billiards League that he played in at the time, in which a group of players all pair up and play games against each other until eventually everyone has played everyone and every game is voted upon for winners of each round, with the eventual winner being the one that has acquired the most points. The Thread was created on November 12th explaining his version of the idea as pertaining to YTP Tennis, which at that time had only been around for almost 3 months to the day with roughly 67 completed matches in existance.
His idea called for at least 8 players, all of whom would tennis each other once on a weekly basis. Each Round that would be voted upon would be equivalent to 2 Rounds, or a volley from each side, with a total of either 2 or 4 rounds to allow for a tie-in or a draw. 'Round points' would be awarded to the player who recieved the highest votes per round, and the player with the highest round points at the match's end would recieve 3 additional 'match points', with one point going to each in a tie. The winner would, like in the billiards varient, be the player with the total amounts of points by the end.
Development and Members
RabbitSnore was initially reluctant of idea, reasoning that it wouldn't work due to tennis not getting the attention it deserved much of the time. Gallers in response modified the required number of players to 4, making it in his terms a "mini-league". Other conditions were later outlined as
"videos 1-2 minutes maximum 36 hours between videos 3 source videos to begin with, up to 3 may be added afterwards 4 participants for the league"
conradslater was much harsher and expressed his dislike for the idea entirely before being cushioned by RabbitSnore who saw that Gallers was determined and at that moment volunteered to join if more support was garnered toward the event. PapaGonzales and Misscelaneous10 comfirmed their participation subsequently, though it was lobbied between discussion within the thread (mostly by Conrad) that Gallers should play a tennis match first to get a better understnading of the game since at that point he had not played anyone yet, which led to a match between him and Crash2991 during that time. RabbitSnore then later upon the advice of Conrad (who famously regarded regular members as "citizens" and didn't trust them, especially for managing events) and the expression for assistance by Gallers became the events co-host, with SushieBoy joining in as the last player despite saying at an earlier time that he was unavailable. With everything in place, matches could finally be organized.
Matches
Signature for Tennis Leagues that would follow into its second and third incarnations were the match draws, all planned out and shown for the entire course of the event rather than organized as the event went along. The draw for the First League was as follows with the date listed for when the first round was to be ready:
Gameweek 1 (Sunday 18th November)
SushieBoy vs Misselaineous10 RabbitSnore vs PapaGonzales
Gameweek 2 (Sunday 25th November)
SushieBoy vs RabbitSnore Misselaineous10 vs PapaGonzales
Gameweek 3 (Sunday 2nd December)
PapaGonzales vs SushieBoy RabbitSnore vs Misselaineous10
Because the makeshift tournament was on such a small scale all the matches threads were made simply within the regular Tennis section, which would be done so for all the leagues organized and the Tournament Section would not be created until the formation of the first Tennis Cup; the first event officially billed as a tournament. Every match being only 4 rounds long was quite brief, and therefore every gameweek was finished several days ahead of schedule and duly completed with haste, making it the only tennis competition ever to not have players drop out, as well as the one with the fewest late responses.
SushieBoy vs. Misscellaneous10
Miscellaneous10 vs. PapaGonzeles
RabbitSnore vs. Misscellaneous10
Eventually it came to be that PapaGonzeles garnered the most total votes and thusly was pronounced the winner of the event, and was also the first recipient of the Tennis Tourney Winner medal that came to characterize the "prize" to gain from playing in tournaments. With the success of the event, support and enthusiasm for future tennis events inevitably spiked. Questions toward a Second League came up almost immediately upon Papa's win, and thusly one was organized soon, also by Gallers, which officially commenced in January 2008 with three times as many players.
