Tennis Recruiting Appearance on Parenting Aces Show

[dallasoliver]

Hey gang -

FYI, I was the guest on today's Parenting Aces Internet radio show. I know, I know - I'm famous now. I'll try not to let it get to my head.

We discussed a number of things about Tennis Recruiting, ranking systems in general, how players/parents use the site, the impact of USTA changes on our rankings, etc. I had fun with it, and I thought that some of you might be interested in the discussion. Here is the link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ur10sne...parenting-aces

Best regards,
Dallas

[ga tennis]

Well done. Thanks for all you do!!!

[TennisCoachIN]

Thanks for the link Dallas

[Chemist]

Dallas, Thank you for posting the link. You did a great job in the interview! I have one question - do you take into account of a close loss, such as 5-7,6-7, to a much higher ranked player in deciding rankings? Thanks!

[dallasoliver]

Originally Posted by Chemist

Dallas, Thank you for posting the link. You did a great job in the interview! I have one question - do you take into account of a close loss, such as 5-7,6-7, to a much higher ranked player in deciding rankings? Thanks!

Thanks - listening back, I seem a bit long-winded. But what are you going to do?

To your question - no, our ranking algorithm does not currently use scores to distinguish between close wins and blowout wins.

Best,
Dallas

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by dallasoliver

Thanks - listening back, I seem a bit long-winded. But what are you going to do?

To your question - no, our ranking algorithm does not currently use scores to distinguish between close wins and blowout wins.

Best,
Dallas

Sorry I did not ask a good question. Please allow me to ask again - would your ranking system give a boy, a junior ranked #125 some credit for having a good fight, a close loss 5-7/6-7 to a blue chip junior? I wish the answer is yes. I recall that you mentioned sometime ago that you or somebody at TRN sometimes made manual adjustment in the ranking order.

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by Chemist

Sorry I did not ask a good question. Please allow me to ask again - would your ranking system give a boy, a junior ranked #125 some credit for having a good fight, a close loss 5-7/6-7 to a blue chip junior? I wish the answer is yes. I recall that you mentioned sometime ago that you or somebody at TRN sometimes made manual adjustment in the ranking order.

I think I know what Dallas will say. In the meantime, to make this happen, I think you'd have to take away credit for a good fight/close win. Do you really want to go there?

Coaches who are interested in a player......from the Ivies or anywhere else.....can read the scores, don't you think?

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by Misterbill

I think I know what Dallas will say. In the meantime, to make this happen, I think you'd have to take away credit for a good fight/close win. Do you really want to go there?

Coaches who are interested in a player......from the Ivies or anywhere else.....can read the scores, don't you think?

I would surely hope that the coaches would see it

[dallasoliver]

Originally Posted by Chemist

Sorry I did not ask a good question. Please allow me to ask again - would your ranking system give a boy, a junior ranked #125 some credit for having a good fight, a close loss 5-7/6-7 to a blue chip junior? I wish the answer is yes.

You asked the question just fine before - perhaps my answer was unclear.

The short answer is "no" - in our system, all losses are treated equally. There are several reasons for this policy, but the most important one is technical - scores are not always available or coded consistently. Using scores would be opening ourselves up to logistical nightmares.

Originally Posted by Chemist

I recall that you mentioned sometime ago that you or somebody at TRN sometimes made manual adjustment in the ranking order.

No, no, no! Our rankings are completely objective and based only on the match data. The only corrections we make are to the match data when the original results are recorded incorrectly.

Best,
Dallas

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by dallasoliver

You asked the question just fine before - perhaps my answer was unclear.

The short answer is "no" - in our system, all losses are treated equally. There are several reasons for this policy, but the most important one is technical - scores are not always available or coded consistently. Using scores would be opening ourselves up to logistical nightmares.



No, no, no! Our rankings are completely objective and based only on the match data. The only corrections we make are to the match data when the original results are recorded incorrectly.

Best,
Dallas

It's really clear to me now! Thank you again!

I saw quite a few high ranked kids often "retire with an injury" when they were losing a match (and they still played doubles afterwards). Looks like they just wanted to make an excuse for losing the match. Now I understand that faking injury would not lessen any negative impact of the loss to their ranking.

[GRANITECHIEF]

Question about your algorithm Dallas; How does getting multiple wins in futures quals over atp ranked players affect the ranking?

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by GRANITECHIEF

Question about your algorithm Dallas; How does getting multiple wins in futures quals over atp ranked players affect the ranking?

Only junior tournament results are included now. It may be a good idea for TRN to include the results from Futures to have a better differentiation at the top. In addition, the TRN ranking list doesn't seem to include juniors who have already turned pro. It would also be interesting to find out from Dallas how his algorithm would rate wins against non-ranked foreign players in some junior ITF events.

[Misterbill]

It's Tennisrecruiting.net.

Why should they rank pros?

[GRANITECHIEF]

Originally Posted by Misterbill

It's Tennisrecruiting.net.

Why should they rank pros?

There are several teenage college prospects that have started playing futures and have ATP ranking points. Seems like that experience would carry more weight than junior results.

Say you are a college coach looking at the TRN lists and there are 20 blue chips above your blue chip. Dig a little deeper and you see that the 20th ranked kid has been getting wins over guys on the lower end of the atp list, whereas the higher kids on the list have tried and not yet had that level of success.

Wouldn't that tend to swing the needle a bit?

[gplracer]

Great site Dallas, Does your site take age into consideration? All of the boys from my state ranked ahead of my child except one are almost a year older. They just started school late and they are in the same grade.

[ga tennis]

Originally Posted by gplracer

Great site Dallas, Does your site take age into consideration? All of the boys from my state ranked ahead of my child except one are almost a year older. They just started school late and they are in the same grade.

All they look at is grade.

[gplracer]

Interesting. It would seem that birth year and month would be helpful information.

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by GRANITECHIEF

There are several teenage college prospects that have started playing futures and have ATP ranking points. Seems like that experience would carry more weight than junior results.

Say you are a college coach looking at the TRN lists and there are 20 blue chips above your blue chip. Dig a little deeper and you see that the 20th ranked kid has been getting wins over guys on the lower end of the atp list, whereas the higher kids on the list have tried and not yet had that level of success.

Wouldn't that tend to swing the needle a bit?

Yes.

Just as the needle might be swung by talking to the kid's coach to see about character, and talking to the teachers, the doctors, and seeing what the parents are all about.

But in a head-to-head ranking system, all the competitors need to be in the database, or the match just doesn't count.............I think. Unless TRN turns into an international pro-am ranking service, I don't see how you include matches against players who don't have "connectivity" to the pre-defined connected universe of tournaments.

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by gplracer

Interesting. It would seem that birth year and month would be helpful information.

That information is available to coaches who subscribe to TRN. Are you saying it would be helpful for parents? Players?

[gplracer]

I think it would be helpful to parents and players. Younger players can make tremendous improvements in a year.