No bump up with 100% winning record?

[Avles]

Originally Posted by Counter

Here in Holland, we have a dynamic rating system that I tend to think is very good, and that combines the following three features:

(1) For any given match, the effects on players’ dynamic ratings are determined ONLY by which player wins the match; scoreline is irrelevant.

(2) However, the strength of the opposition in any given match IS taken into account. Basically, the extent to which your dynamic improves as a result of a match win depends upon the dynamic rating held by your opponent.

This seems like a sensible system to me. I wonder why USTA doesn't do things this way.

[gmatheis]

Originally Posted by Winning Ugly

Here's some evidence of your green cheese, gmatheis: http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/showthread.php?t=432853. And, there's more if you search. Further, I was not the OP with the undefeated guy story, which I also felt was somewhat hard to believe given his performance at sectionals (hard to find a poor player there, although I did play one this year in a sectional doubles match.)

But, looks like they are finally fixing it. It happened to me so I know. Granted, it must be a DOUBLE BAGEL. 6-0 sets have never been dropped.

I got you mixed up with the OP , sry.

I still want the OP to provide a link to the tennislink record of a player that went 13-0 and was not bumped up.

Like they say in online gaming "screenshot or it didn't happen"

[JLyon]

Originally Posted by schmke

Your challenge is that you are in a league that only plays a handful of matches and there may be a number of self-rated players you play with or against each year. I didn't check each and every one, but if you play only 4-5 matches and 2 or 3 are with/against self-rated players, you may only have a match or two that counts and that either isn't enough to move you or is too few to calculate a new dynamic rating so your previous year rating just carries over.

There were two self-rate in the 5.0 league this year and I played one doubles match with him, and played twice against the other in doubles, the other 2 doubles matches played with a player who just appealed down to 5.0.

Last year 1 new self-rate who played again this year.

Lack of players, playing league is a huge issue, so same team continually goes to sectionals, so sample is small.

[storypeddler]

The system that the USTA uses currently is not a particularly flawed one in spite of of what some naysayers continue to complain about. It is not perfect because it attempts to assess human performance and there is no perfect way to do that. Here's the deal, guys, like it or not: the USTA has modified their ratings system multiple times over the years, always in an attempt to improve it and make league play (which is based on skill level) more competitive and fairly operated. But you always have a sizeable subset of players any given year who are attempting to play at the lowest possible level in order to beat up on lesser-skilled players and stroke their own ego. This group is larger than a lot of people know or admit. Beyond that, no player at any level plays at that level of skill every match. It is ridiculous to expect that. I am a 4.0 player, but over the years I have had days when I played like a legitimate 4.5 player, and I've had my share of matches when I made average 3.5 players look good. Nobody is completely consistent with their level of performance match in and match out. The current system attempts to create a reasonable and even-handed way of keeping the playing field leveled. It doesn't always work, but as a player and captain who has played league tennis for 20 years, I can tell you for sure it is a heck of a lot better than what we've had in the past. I just grow tired of hearing people complain about the system---no matter what system is being used. Yes, some people get caught in the cogs. I know that. But for the vast majority of league players in any given year, the system works very well. Today, most league players are playing at the appropriate level. They are where they should be. The system we have is responsible for that. That is all we can ask of it. In my experience, the majority of people who go on and on about the "unfair system" are really complaining about how their level doesn't allow them to win as much as they want to. Sorry, but that's what I have seen and heard. If the system seems that poorly constructed to you, then you have a simple solution for your agony---stop playing league tennis. Play casual club tennis and stop chasing league titles. Easy fix.

[Jim A]

It's never a perfect system and it doesn't matter what is in life but people will try and often find a way to manipulate the system.

Beating someone at Districts and/or Sectionals in a thumping only means so much. Teams can look at certain lines, take a guess as to who may be playing and throw out the sacrificial lamb.

For most players in Denver getting bumped from 3.5 to 4.0 is typically a 2 year process. You have good results and that separates you from the pack of players you were in, likely in the midpoint of the range. Then you have to do it again....all while avoiding the bad loss.

Unfortunately the algo the USTA uses is essentially playing the match on paper. But it's all they have. There is no way to judge how one person's style will factor against another, if someone got into an argument at work or was up all night with their sick kid. Life gets in the way.

People who want to move up, play up. I see a lot of good local 3.5's here in CO who stayed at 3.5, even with good wins over those bumped to 4.0. Others just played up all year, went 2-10 and lost 2 and 2 most times...were bumped. Of course you can't "play down" unfortunately!

[goober]

Originally Posted by Jim A

It's never a perfect system and it doesn't matter what is in life but people will try and often find a way to manipulate the system.
!

I agree. There is nothing terrible about the algo currently used. It only is an issue with those trying to manipulate the system. So rather than trying to fix the algo forget about it- you can't fix any system if people are willing to lose matches on purpose or keep scores close. A couple years back one of the teams that went to nationals out of our region won all their matches 3-2 when they easily could have won them 5-0. When you are that much better than everybody it is easy to control the outcome. Their final match of the season when they already clenched playoffs they lost 1-4 to the last place team (one guy didn't get the "they are suppose to lose" memo) .

So what should be done is fix the incentive. These 3 things would eliminate 90% of problems over the long run while allowing those desperate for sectionals and nationals to have their shot.

1) No self rated players in playoffs.
2) Any player in nationals bumped and benchmarked for 3 years, sectionals 2 years. It is kind of ridiculous a team that finishes top 5 in nationals only has 30% of their team bumped.
3). No ESR bump downs only bump ups. Huge loop hole exploited so players that get bumped only have to remain at their new level for 6 months before going back down to their old level.

[schmke]

Originally Posted by goober

I agree. There is nothing terrible about the algo currently used. It only is an issue with those trying to manipulate the system. So rather than trying to fix the algo forget about it- you can't fix any system if people are willing to lose matches on purpose or keep scores close. A couple years back one of the teams that went to nationals out of our region won all their matches 3-2 when they easily could have won them 5-0. When you are that much better than everybody it is easy to control the outcome. Their final match of the season when they already clenched playoffs they lost 1-4 to the last place team (one guy didn't get the "they are suppose to lose" memo) .

So what should be done is fix the incentive. These 3 things would eliminate 90% of problems over the long run while allowing those desperate for sectionals and nationals to have their shot.

1) No self rated players in playoffs.

This may penalize only legitimate self-rates that would have advanced to playoffs as someone willing to game the system is willing to throw a year and will just play that first year and sandbag to get a C rating then they are golden. I prefer to tighten the "allowance for natural improvement" as particularly at 3.5 and below it seems far too large.

That said, this rule probably wouldn't affect very many, but I'm guessing the USTA resists because they think it would deter players from joining if they know from the start they can't go to playoffs their first year.

Originally Posted by goober

2) Any player in nationals bumped and benchmarked for 3 years, sectionals 2 years. It is kind of ridiculous a team that finishes top 5 in nationals only has 30% of their team bumped.

This seems a bit extreme, and I'm not sure the point of benchmarking the player for multiple years.

The only point of being a B is to indicate you played post-season against players outside your sub-flight/flight/league and thus can serve as a reference for calculations to try to normalize ratings for different areas. Making a player a B in years they didn't go to playoffs doesn't make sense.

On the bump for multiple years, this can be problematic. You have situations where a good player, A, at their level is on a team with some great players and they go to nationals. Player A usually plays court 3 doubles and wins his fair share, but isn't in the top-6 doubles players. At nationals, he gets to play a match or two after they've either clinched the semis or lose in the semis. This player A, at best a very good player at his level and certainly not low-end at the next higher level is now bumped up for 3 years? That is a huge penalty.

And this is probably pretty common with many teams that do well having a core group of players that carry the team but then have some good but not great players to fill out the roster and play in the less important matches. I was on a team that went to nationals in 2011 and had this exact situation. About half our team got bumped and the ones that didn't probably shouldn't have been. Now a few of those did continue to improve and got bumped this year, but a few still haven't. Locking those in at the higher level for 3 years is too much.

Originally Posted by goober

3). No ESR bump downs only bump ups. Huge loop hole exploited so players that get bumped only have to remain at their new level for 6 months before going back down to their old level.

Early start leagues/ratings are difficult to deal with and this perhaps has some merit.

But the core issue is that the algorithm doesn't deal with sandbagging at all. There are a couple ways to deal with this.

First, there are sections where leagues that don't advance to any nationals are still counted for rating purposes. This allows players to play all out trying to get to nationals but then sandbag in the leagues that "don't count" to keep their rating down. One approach to deal with this is to consistently across sections only count leagues that have nationals. The challenge here is you end up with less data to calculate ratings from, some players may play only 1 or 2 matches in these leagues but many more in the other leagues. Also, the real sandbaggers will still find a way like the example you cited.

Second, one could adopt something like what golf does with its handicapping system where only your best results count and poor results are thrown out. This gets more complicated, especially with tennis where you are playing an opponent rather than just playing the course, but is a good approach to dealing with throwing matches to manipulate ones rating.

[OrangePower]

Originally Posted by goober

So what should be done is fix the incentive. These 3 things would eliminate 90% of problems over the long run while allowing those desperate for sectionals and nationals to have their shot.

1) No self rated players in playoffs.

Originally Posted by schmke

This may penalize only legitimate self-rates that would have advanced to playoffs as someone willing to game the system is willing to throw a year and will just play that first year and sandbag to get a C rating then they are golden. I prefer to tighten the "allowance for natural improvement" as particularly at 3.5 and below it seems far too large.

That said, this rule probably wouldn't affect very many, but I'm guessing the USTA resists because they think it would deter players from joining if they know from the start they can't go to playoffs their first year.

I 100% agree on no self-rated players in playoffs. Would only affect a small number. I don't agree with schmke that would-be sandbaggers would then just game the system differently, by throwing an entire season to get a C rating. It takes a lot more committment and planning ahead to throw an entire season for a possible payoff only a year later! Whereas self-rating too low is easy and the payoff is immediate. The other thing is that many times this is initiated by the captain and not the player - the captain asks the new player to self-rate at the captain's level, knowing that it's too low. The player himself may not be specifically intent on cheating. Whereas throwing a whole season's worth of matches obviously requires specific intent to cheat from the player in question. As far as discouraging legit players, I think that most *legit* players new to organized tennis are joining for the sake of getting back into it, playing some matches, and developing a circle of tennis friends, and not for playoff glory... so they would not be disuaded by such a rule.

Originally Posted by goober

2) Any player in nationals bumped and benchmarked for 3 years, sectionals 2 years. It is kind of ridiculous a team that finishes top 5 in nationals only has 30% of their team bumped.
3). No ESR bump downs only bump ups. Huge loop hole exploited so players that get bumped only have to remain at their new level for 6 months before going back down to their old level.

Don't think these extra rules are really needed.

[goober]

Originally Posted by schmke

This may penalize only legitimate self-rates that would have advanced to playoffs as someone willing to game the system is willing to throw a year and will just play that first year and sandbag to get a C rating then they are golden. I prefer to tighten the "allowance for natural improvement" as particularly at 3.5 and below it seems far too large.

That said, this rule probably wouldn't affect very many, but I'm guessing the USTA resists because they think it would deter players from joining if they know from the start they can't go to playoffs their first year.

As you said this would affect a very small number of people. Only 1-2 teams usually have a shot at playoffs and those teams are most likely to have under-rated self rates. The remainder of the 90% or so self rates would not be affected.

This seems a bit extreme, and I'm not sure the point of benchmarking the player for multiple years.

The only point of being a B is to indicate you played post-season against players outside your sub-flight/flight/league and thus can serve as a reference for calculations to try to normalize ratings for different areas. Making a player a B in years they didn't go to playoffs doesn't make sense.

On the bump for multiple years, this can be problematic. You have situations where a good player, A, at their level is on a team with some great players and they go to nationals. Player A usually plays court 3 doubles and wins his fair share, but isn't in the top-6 doubles players. At nationals, he gets to play a match or two after they've either clinched the semis or lose in the semis. This player A, at best a very good player at his level and certainly not low-end at the next higher level is now bumped up for 3 years? That is a huge penalty.

Multiple year bump is the only way to make sure people don't manipulate the system to get back down to their prior level in on year or less. Maybe 3 years is a long penalty but I don't think 2 years is unreasonable. I have yet to meet a player that played in Nationals that could not hold their own reasonably well at the next level. If they are lower end of the next level for several years so what? Where is it written that it is unfair unless you are at the top half of your level? All the players that I see that didn't get bumped from nationals are still are top end players for regular local league play. Currently they just form their core from these players and then fill in from players that worked their way down from the level above and get a couple new under-rated self rates. This is how teams form their dynasties that go to playoffs year after year. The whole point of the mass bump ups by the USTA from several years ago was to address this problem. The problem is that this mass bump up only temporarily alleviated the problem and actually more players that were legitmate at the lower level probably should not have been bumped. It was an inelegant solution that was a temporary fix. But still if they wanted to go that route and say do the mass bump ups every other year it would be better than what they are doing now.

Early start leagues/ratings are difficult to deal with and this perhaps has some merit.

But the core issue is that the algorithm doesn't deal with sandbagging at all. There are a couple ways to deal with this.

First, there are sections where leagues that don't advance to any nationals are still counted for rating purposes. This allows players to play all out trying to get to nationals but then sandbag in the leagues that "don't count" to keep their rating down. One approach to deal with this is to consistently across sections only count leagues that have nationals. The challenge here is you end up with less data to calculate ratings from, some players may play only 1 or 2 matches in these leagues but many more in the other leagues. Also, the real sandbaggers will still find a way like the example you cited. Second, one could adopt something like what golf does with its handicapping system where only your best results count and poor results are thrown out. This gets more complicated, especially with tennis where you are playing an opponent rather than just playing the course, but is a good approach to dealing with throwing matches to manipulate ones rating

I like this idea of counting your best wins more heavily and throwing out poor results, but I think this would get too complicated. If they just counted your best wins against the highest rated opponents much more significantly I could see that positively affecting the ratings.

[NLBwell]

The system, of course, if flawed. However, it does give a decent approximation, since most matches within a level are pretty competitive.

One thing about using scores however:
Pete Sampras would never have been rated very high using this system. He would cruise through the set, get one break, and then just serve it out. Many clay-courters would probably be rated higher because 6-1 or 6-2 sets are pretty common with the serve not being as big a factor.

[schmke]

Originally Posted by goober

As you said this would affect a very small number of people. Only 1-2 teams usually have a shot at playoffs and those teams are most likely to have under-rated self rates. The remainder of the 90% or so self rates would not be affected.

Multiple year bump is the only way to make sure people don't manipulate the system to get back down to their prior level in on year or less. Maybe 3 years is a long penalty but I don't think 2 years is unreasonable. I have yet to meet a player that played in Nationals that could not hold their own reasonably well at the next level. If they are lower end of the next level for several years so what? Where is it written that it is unfair unless you are at the top half of your level? All the players that I see that didn't get bumped from nationals are still are top end players for regular local league play. Currently they just form their core from these players and then fill in from players that worked their way down from the level above and get a couple new under-rated self rates. This is how teams form their dynasties that go to playoffs year after year. The whole point of the mass bump ups by the USTA from several years ago was to address this problem. The problem is that this mass bump up only temporarily alleviated the problem and actually more players that were legitmate at the lower level probably should not have been bumped. It was an inelegant solution that was a temporary fix. But still if they wanted to go that route and say do the mass bump ups every other year it would be better than what they are doing now.

I don't mind the idea of being more aggressive with bumping players that go to sectionals/nationals, my issue is with the locking them in. With the young guns that you are after, this probably works. But there are a host of others that aren't so young and may be peaking to get to nationals and if they simply get a bit older or don't play quite as much their play declines, but you have them locked in at a level up now. Is it really fair to have a 54 year old on a 40+ team that goes to nationals at 3.5 locked in at 4.0 for 3 years as his skills decline?

Yes, you could vary the lock-in period based on the age division, but then you are just starting to add more and more exceptions and rules, and IMHO, a good system doesn't require a bunch of exceptions like this.

Originally Posted by goober

I like this idea of counting your best wins more heavily and throwing out poor results, but I think this would get too complicated. If they just counted your best wins against the highest rated opponents much more significantly I could see that positively affecting the ratings.

Well, this is what the benchmark calculation is supposed to address, giving more weight (50% of your year-end rating) to those matches played against benchmark players. And since everyone in playoffs is benchmark, 50% of your rating comes from your post-season results.

This benchmark calculation is also how the system today provides for being more aggressive with bump ups for those that play post-season play. But if you get to the post-season and don't do well, that factors in too and is part of the reason why some that go to nationals don't get bumped. Someone does lose there, and sometimes pretty bad.

[Jim A]

Good points Goober. I agree with most in some form or another. I like the self-rate ban on playoffs for 3.5 and up, too many self-rate's at 3.0 for it to be maintained to me.

I would think that if you made it to Nationals, you can hang at the higher level. I'd be surprised if someone who was even an average player on such a team couldn't hold their own at the higher level, especially teaming with their current 'mates.

[TomT]

Originally Posted by robert

This guy went 13-0 in singles this year. 7 of them are local playoff and Sectional. But no bump in the year end rating?

Also he bagled the opponents in Sectional matches. How is it possible?

From what other posters have said, and from what I think I've learned about USTA from other threads here, I can guess that that's possible.

As far as I'm aware, USTA has a much more complex rating algorithm than the league that I'm currently in, and therefore its ratings should, in the long term, be more precise indicators of relative playing strength.

But that's so far the ONLY thing I like about USTA as opposed to the league I'm currently in. And even with a less complex rating algorithm, the ratings in my current flex league have so far proven to be pretty accurate predictors of results.

[Winning Ugly]

Originally Posted by Jim A

People who want to move up, play up. I see a lot of good local 3.5's here in CO who stayed at 3.5, even with good wins over those bumped to 4.0. Others just played up all year, went 2-10 and lost 2 and 2 most times...were bumped. Of course you can't "play down" unfortunately!

I agree 100% and that is EXACTLY my experience -- everyone I know the last 2 years who got bumped up (after the great "upgrade" a few years back) played up. Almost without fail, great records at level, without some results "up," did not do the trick. In my case, I had a slightly better "at level" record 3 years ago that I had this year (and I am accounting for opponents skills and eventual level) but stayed down. Difference this year? Playing up and delivering 60% "competitive" (at least 6 games) matches, with 20% wins. Same thing happened to my wife about 6 years ago when she quit playing at level and only played up.

To me, that is the flaw in the current system. Even if you are at the top of your level, it is just too hard to deliver enough of the 1 & 1 wins required to get the computer to move you up.

[schmke]

Originally Posted by Winning Ugly

To me, that is the flaw in the current system. Even if you are at the top of your level, it is just too hard to deliver enough of the 1 & 1 wins required to get the computer to move you up.

But if a player can't dominate opponents at the lower end of their level, should they really be moved up?

Of course, what makes it even more difficult is you may have to face players that are themselves playing up, and it isn't enough to win the match convincingly, say 1 and 1, but you have to beat them 0 and 0 or you risk hurting your rating.

In essence, to get bumped up if you don't play up, you have to be fortunate to play stronger competition within your level plus have the killer instinct to win big and not take it easy even for a game when you play the weaker opponents.

[UCSF2012]

I've played sets where every game went to multiple deuces, but he took the set 6-1. This is just the way tennis is scored. Live with it.

[Momotennis]

I have been playing in USTA League for 2 and 1/2 seasons now in SoCal. The NTPR system seems to work pretty well in my area. Perhaps the current system works best when there is a larger pool of players, as I assume we have here in SoCal.

I am 53. I had no tennis experience when I started hitting 2 and 1/2 years ago. I self rated at 3.0, because I was a pretty good athlete back in the day. I was fortunate to pick up the game quickly and played in a Nationals my first half season. I did not lose a match that first year until the Nationals. I was bumped to 3.5B.

There was super tough competition in my first full season at 3.5, so I was just over .500, but I had some wins against strong players. I am sure my dynamic rating inproved throughout that year. I was probably inching close to 4.0 by season's end.

This year my record was about 40 and 4. A couple losses were tie breaks to top players. I was in 2 Sectionals this year. And, I start next year at 4.0B.

The players that moved up in my area all should have been bumped. The players that stayed down should have. The system seems to work very well in my area.

Mike