Tennis Recruiting Appearance on Parenting Aces Show

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by gplracer

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

Yes, players can improve in a year. How will it help them to improve if they know the birth date of someone whose TRN page they click on, is the question I have.

I understand this can satisfy curiosity.

[10ismom]

Originally Posted by gplracer

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

You are gonna get answers like..... TRN is mostly for college coaches recruiting players. They don't care about the kids' age. The older is the better so coaches may recruit 19 year old mature senior (might have been even held back or lie about grad year) over 17 year old. You see when they compete in college, freshman might have a match against a senior.

You must have just started to explore TRN ranking. Welcome to the world of TRN. You will eventually find/run into some juniors being held back a grade or two so the ranking and stars go up. Some were really held back but some were fake or falsely reported on the computer. Some juniors will not play a match in consys, afraid of losing to lower ranking players. Some will just sandbagging. Some not playing for a while (not injury or illness) so the ranking drops then start again.....triggering a "Hot list" for coaches.

Don't jump on a bandwagon of TRN's world especially when your players are in elementary or middle school. High school....maybe...since that's when coaches start to really look for your players.

If you want head-to-head comparison ranking that goes by age, you might have to "file petition", lol, for the USTA to bring it back.

IMO, for younger players or kids before high school, TRN helps parents and players see who their kids beat or lost to ie. a 3 star lost 2,4 to a same grade blue chip is not bad. A four star won a match in tie-break against five star (same grade) is also a progress. For kids before high school, you can use TRN to track your player's development.......not for social comparison.

[gplracer]

Originally Posted by Misterbill

Yes, players can improve in a year. How will it help them to improve if they know the birth date of someone whose TRN page they click on, is the question I have.

I understand this can satisfy curiosity.

It is just nice to see how your child compares to other children the same age. For instance is the other child in the first year or the second year of the age division. I am not saying that birth date information be on the site for the public to see. It just might be helpful if it was incorporated into the rankings. What if your child is really smart and has skipped a grade? He would be compared with kids who are older not kids who are the same age. Thus he might be a really strong player especially considering that he is in the first year of his age group.

[Misterbill]

Originally Posted by 10ismom

Welcome to the world of TRN. You will eventually find/run into some juniors being held back a grade or two so the ranking and stars go up.

My experience tells me this is the world of youth sports, not the world of TRN. All of you who are involved in other youth sports, don't you see "redshirts" all over the place.........or is my frame of reference unusual?

[ga tennis]

Originally Posted by gplracer

It is just nice to see how your child compares to other children the same age. For instance is the other child in the first year or the second year of the age division.

Dont even look at it!!!! Try your hardest to avoid social comparisons!!!!

[gplracer]

Originally Posted by ga tennis

Dont even look at it!!!! Try your hardest to avoid social comparisons!!!!

You are correct! I also realize it is about improving and not results early on.

[jma]

As another junior parent near the end of the recruiting road, I urge you some caution about getting caught up in TRN. It can be a helpful tool for understanding the historical strength of an opponent, but as with any system it has its limitations, and it can detrimentally influence your junior's mindset if you aren't careful.

In our experience, once you get outside of the top 75 players (blue chips and 5 stars), TRN's predictive accuracy is mixed and can vary by 50% or more. For example, at this last weekend's L3, just looking at players in the same grade (sr vs. sr, jr vs. jr) a player ranked 151 beat 51, 178 beat 92, 327 beat 179, and 278 beat 95, among others. That's just from one tournament site, but I'm sure there are others.

I’m not sure why the discrepancies are so big, but having watched this for a while, TRN appears to have an inherent lag with players that are improving and is slow to degrade on those that are not. Some of this may come from the question Chemist posted about "close matches" which TRN doesn't factor and some believe this can be a predictor of future movement (there are systems that factor closeness of match). I also think some of it comes from the way tournaments are aged and outlier results. A really "bad" loss will stick around for awhile, which is why some people pull their kids from backdraws.

Having talked with college coaches who recruit outside the top 75, they love the "dashboard" element of TRN and that it captures a lot of the background about a player, but they also commented that it has limitations. They referred to that 4 or 5 star recruit who was much better as a junior than in college (though it's always a guy on another team ) and they liked to talk about the 3 or 2 star diamond in the rough they found. While they use the TRN's year-on-year progression to get some sense of trajectory, a number use additional tools to give them a sense of where a junior is in their development.

Coaches seemed to understand juniors are rapidly changing physically and mentally and they want to make sure they are catching the upside of the swing, not the downside. Were all the coaches we talked with like this? No. But many of those whose program results were improving used other tools to help with recruiting. What we heard most frequently was Universal Tennis and that there is no replacement for watching a junior play.

So, if you are on the younger side of developing a junior, look at TRN as a tool, but be careful not to use it as a guidepost.

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by jma

As another junior parent near the end of the recruiting road, I urge you some caution about getting caught up in TRN. It can be a helpful tool for understanding the historical strength of an opponent, but as with any system it has its limitations, and it can detrimentally influence your junior's mindset if you aren't careful.

In our experience, once you get outside of the top 75 players (blue chips and 5 stars), TRN's predictive accuracy is mixed and can vary by 50% or more. For example, at this last weekend's L3, just looking at players in the same grade (sr vs. sr, jr vs. jr) a player ranked 151 beat 51, 178 beat 92, 327 beat 179, and 278 beat 95, among others. That's just from one tournament site, but I'm sure there are others.

I’m not sure why the discrepancies are so big, but having watched this for a while, TRN appears to have an inherent lag with players that are improving and is slow to degrade on those that are not. Some of this may come from the question Chemist posted about "close matches" which TRN doesn't factor and some believe this can be a predictor of future movement (there are systems that factor closeness of match). I also think some of it comes from the way tournaments are aged and outlier results. A really "bad" loss will stick around for awhile, which is why some people pull their kids from backdraws.

Having talked with college coaches who recruit outside the top 75, they love the "dashboard" element of TRN and that it captures a lot of the background about a player, but they also commented that it has limitations. They referred to that 4 or 5 star recruit who was much better as a junior than in college (though it's always a guy on another team ) and they liked to talk about the 3 or 2 star diamond in the rough they found. While they use the TRN's year-on-year progression to get some sense of trajectory, a number use additional tools to give them a sense of where a junior is in their development.

Coaches seemed to understand juniors are rapidly changing physically and mentally and they want to make sure they are catching the upside of the swing, not the downside. Were all the coaches we talked with like this? No. But many of those whose program results were improving used other tools to help with recruiting. What we heard most frequently was Universal Tennis and that there is no replacement for watching a junior play.

So, if you are on the younger side of developing a junior, look at TRN as a tool, but be careful not to use it as a guidepost.

I would bet that these huge upsets happened in girls. A lower ranked girl could be a year younger. A lower ranked junior girl often beat a higher ranked senior. Girls are slowing down after they get their driver's license. Hanging out with boys is a lot more fun than sweating on tennis court. Dallas can confirm if I am right that there may be more sophomore girls sit on the top of his master ranking list than seniors. BTW, #1 ranked junior, Ana Konjuh just turned 15.

[jma]

Originally Posted by Chemist

I would bet that these huge upsets happened in girls.

It was actually boys, and the results were from kids in the same grade.

With boys it is still true you can have a 15 yr old in the junior class playing a 17 yr old who is also a junior, yet these two boys can be at vastly different levels of physical maturity. If you've ever read the book Outliers it provides a fascinating account of how age within a given bracket can influence perceived achievement.

Personally, I like that UT doesn't care about age when it does it's rankings, but I also understand college coaches need to know who is in a recruiting class. UT gives no indication of how old a player is or when they graduate. Some combination of the two would be ideal.

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by jma

It was actually boys, and the results were from kids in the same grade.

With boys it is still true you can have a 15 yr old in the junior class playing a 17 yr old who is also a junior, yet these two boys can be at vastly different levels of physical maturity. If you've ever read the book Outliers it provides a fascinating account of how age within a given bracket can influence perceived achievement.

Personally, I like that UT doesn't care about age when it does it's rankings, but I also understand college coaches need to know who is in a recruiting class. UT gives no indication of how old a player is or when they graduate. Some combination of the two would be ideal.

The age difference may be the cause, as you suggested. Perhaps, my son is an outlier. He was one of the 15 yr old juniora 3 months ago. Ranked about 125, his record against 2-3 stars (seniors included) was 24-0. If the tournament is one of the USTA Regionals, would it also be possible that a lower ranked boy is from a strong section, like FL or SoCal and his higher ranked opponent is from a weak section, like Northern; or the lower ranked boy is just coming back from a major injury and he was ranked much higher a few months ago? The TRN ranking is also getting more accurate if one plays more tournaments, especially, national events.

[jma]

Chemist, congrats on your son's success. It is tough being one of the youngest in a class year.

As for your comments, I'n not sure the national experience applies since it's hard to qualify for an L3 without some previous success at a tournament with national points, which puts you on TRN's radar screen.

However, your comments about geography interested me, and here's what I found. 151 beating 51 was Mountain/SoCal. 178 beating 92 was Norcal/Norcal, 327 beating 179 was TX/Norcal and 278 beating 95 was Mountain/Southwest, so at least 3 of the 4 matches were cross-geo.

Initially, I was surprised by which geos succeeded in these match-ups. However, I've suspected there is a potential bias in TRN rankings which may assume that some geos are stronger than others when it does to resolve conflicts in the data. To be fair, I have no basis, other than the numerical upsets in cross-geo play for suspecting this, and I know that folks at TRN have said they need cross-geo play for calibration, but they had to start somewhere.

In addition, knowing that in at least one case it was a younger sr. beating an older senior, that upset doesn't surprise me either. I've long thought TRN underestimated boys competing against other boys currently aged 16-17 (mostly juniors, but some young seniors). At least in our geo, this group (those who recently aged up or are in the process of doing so) is quite deep and is pushing very hard on the boys immediately ahead of them, many of whom played up early and didn't benefit from the tougher competition.

All-in-all the good news is that the competition is strong and getting stronger, at least until USTA National has their way .

[38yrsn10s]

[quote=10ismom;7180025]

If you want head-to-head comparison ranking that goes by age, you might have to "file petition", lol, for the USTA to bring it back.

[38yrsn10s]

TennisInformation.com still does head-to-head rankings by age division like they used to do for years for the USTA. These are published every Saturday afternoon. They can be viewed here -- http://www.tennisinformation.com/ran...tstandings.asp

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by 38yrsn10s

TennisInformation.com still does head-to-head rankings by age division like they used to do for years for the USTA. These are published every Saturday afternoon. They can be viewed here -- http://www.tennisinformation.com/ran...tstandings.asp

The lists would not be age specific either. For example, B16 includes all boys age 16 & under. The 18s list may look very much like TRN's secret master ranking list. I have a feeling that the list is not very accurate. A few kids lost to my son recently, but ranked ahead of him

[ClarkC]

Originally Posted by gplracer

It is just nice to see how your child compares to other children the same age. For instance is the other child in the first year or the second year of the age division.

In that case, TRN is already doing what you want. Instead of having two-year groupings, like the USTA rankings, they have graduating year groupings: the 2013s, the 2014s, etc.

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by ClarkC

In that case, TRN is already doing what you want. Instead of having two-year groupings, like the USTA rankings, they have graduating year groupings: the 2013s, the 2014s, etc.

As a poster pointed out yesterday, a junior under TRN may be a 15-17 yr old. Actually I know a blue chip junior will turn 18 in about 2 months; another 4 star sophomore will turn 17 next month.

Has anybody noticed that Henrik Wiersholm recently changed his TRN status to junior? He is 15 and won't turn 16 until like September. This kid has a really good potential to be top 50 ATP.

[jma]

Originally Posted by Chemist

The 18s list may look very much like TRN's secret master ranking list. I have a feeling that the list is not very accurate.

I thought the same.

As someone who previously did systems work, I appreciate the challenge of trying to resolve data that doesn't behave, like when player A beats player B, player B beats player C and then player C goes out and beats player A. Juniors do this frequently and match-ups of game types sometimes bring out different things in a player's game. Candidly, if they didn't, USTA rankings would be adequate and TRN plus their other 3rd party ranking brethren wouldn't exist.

It all comes down to the judgments made about how to "weight" certain results over others. That master list, when you look at it, is pretty scary. But if it is at all related to TRN's ranking and you had the time to look into it, it would tell you a lot about how they weight certain results. Judgments are necessary to take lots of variables and produce a single list, but they also have significant influence on how that list ultimately falls. Without transparency of what those weighting factors are (which TRN would probably say is their "special sauce") you basically have to "buy-in".

I did, initially, but given some of what I've seen with results like those I mentioned, I have to remind myself that TRN is a bit of a rear-view mirror. It will tell you where you've been, but can only give you broad strokes about where you are going.

[dallasoliver]

Originally Posted by jma

It all comes down to the judgments made about how to "weight" certain results over others. That master list, when you look at it, is pretty scary. But if it is at all related to TRN's ranking and you had the time to look into it, it would tell you a lot about how they weight certain results. Judgments are necessary to take lots of variables and produce a single list, but they also have significant influence on how that list ultimately falls.

I think that Internet discussion is healthy - and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. But I wanted to make two comments.

(1) To address jma's comment above... I will state - emphatically - that there is no "weighting" of results at Tennis Recruiting. Every week, we take all results for a gender and pass them to our ranking system, and our system produces a single objective ranking from those results. There is no weighting - a win is a win. And every Monday, we throw out the previous week's rankings and start fresh with a new 52-week set of data.

(2) As a more general comment, no ranking system can get everything right., and most ranking systems do a better job with players who have long records. We like to think that our system does a good job of being predictive based on past results. Our system also employs a time decay factor so that recent play counts more than play from a year ago - to take into account that players improve/decline over the course of a year.

Best,
Dallas

[Chemist]

Originally Posted by dallasoliver

I think that Internet discussion is healthy - and everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. But I wanted to make two comments.

(1) To address jma's comment above... I will state - emphatically - that there is no "weighting" of results at Tennis Recruiting. Every week, we take all results for a gender and pass them to our ranking system, and our system produces a single objective ranking from those results. There is no weighting - a win is a win. And every Monday, we throw out the previous week's rankings and start fresh with a new 52-week set of data.

(2) As a more general comment, no ranking system can get everything right., and most ranking systems do a better job with players who have long records. We like to think that our system does a good job of being predictive based on past results. Our system also employs a time decay factor so that recent play counts more than play from a year ago - to take into account that players improve/decline over the course of a year.

Best,
Dallas

No system is perfect. But Tennisrecruiting.net is the best system out there.

I am wondering if we can pay a fee to TRN for you to tell us what my son's ranking might have been if he were a sophomore. It can be done pretty easily, first find him in the master ranking list; then find the sophomore who is ranked just ahead of him. This virtual ranking may be interesting in our conversation with college coaches. My son beat several 5 star sophomores in the past 12 months and he would likely be a 5 star if he were a sophomore.

[10ismom]

Originally Posted by Chemist

No system is perfect. But Tennisrecruiting.net is the best system out there.

I am wondering if we can pay a fee to TRN for you to tell us what my son's ranking might have been if he were a sophomore. It can be done pretty easily, first find him in the master ranking list; then find the sophomore who is ranked just ahead of him. This virtual ranking may be interesting in our conversation with college coaches. My son beat several 5 star sophomores in the past 12 months and he would likely be a 5 star if he were a sophomore.

That exactly why some people hold kids back a grade. When you (or I) who have smart kids, we would not want to do that. At least in my case, we save for college of their dreams instead. Why hold back a grade 'cause your smart child's birthday? Think about that high school kids need tons of AP classes to show for college admissions. Why hold the (smart) kids back then take tons of APs.
Does not make sense to me....unless parents already burned their college funds through tennis.