On NTRP

[jdubbs]

Its interesting, I'm playing 4.5 and expected a big jump in skill level, but haven't seen it yet. I see less dropshots/lobs and more topspin but its not huge strokes or anything. Just solid, good, high percentage tennis. I've won about half of my matches at this level, so I know I'm at the right level.

The main difference between 4.5 and 4.0 is just consistency. You really have to grind out matches and I expect to have long rallies and really have to finish points vs waiting for my opponent to make a mistake.

[skiracer55]

Originally Posted by Xisbum

I'm pretty much with you on this one, Ski. I do enjoy the competition, but I also get just as big a thrill - maybe more - out of just hitting with someone for an hour or two. And I don't mean just swapping the same strokes over the center of the net; I mean both players using all their shots, corner to corner, angles, drops, etc., for a full-court workout. I just like the physical act of hitting a tennis ball; when you inject competition and scores into that, things can and often do get testy.

The problem is finding others of like mind who don't have to have competitive structure to enjoy the game. While USTA claims its team tennis structure is growing tennis, I actually think it strangles local tennis except in places like Atlanta where local tennis rules.

...I have a couple of hitting partners and we do the kind of hour or two of working on everything that you describe, then play points, maybe sets. Yep, you have to do some work to find like-minded folks, but they're out there.

The USTA's team tennis structure is growing its revenue. Once they have their money, all the USTA has to do is maintain a wins/losses database and a set of rankings, which a reasonably intelligent chimpanzee can do with a laptop. The team captains, league coordinators, and so forth, do all the work, and I'm pretty sure they're not on the USTA payroll.

I agree that team tennis is strangling tennis, and not just local tennis. The USTA will continue to provide NTRP leagues and the associated stuff as long as it's easy and profitable for the USTA. It looks to me like there's a rising tide of dissatisfaction with NTRP and while the USTA tweaks things, it doesn't look like it's for the better. If the USTA gets enough static about NTRP and how it's working...or, more accurately, not working...the USTA will drop NTRP like a hot potato.

[skiracer55]

Originally Posted by ronray43

For those in the bottom half of an NTRP range who get very few wins in a year, I'd say yes, it would be a solid measure of success. Again, using the golf analogy, if I lower my golf handicap over the year, I really don't care if I won a single match. Would be nice to do the same in tennis. NTRP to the hundredth point would effectively become your tennis handicap, and simply moving up a few points every year would be a measure of success, even without a single win.

...but I can't do anything about it, nor can anyone in this forum. You're a USTA member, you're supposed to have a voice, what you're talking about sounds like a reasonable proposal, so go voice it directly to the USTA and see what they have to say...

[ronray43]

Ski, Have done that a couple of times over the years, to include writing an algorithm to adjust the end of year NTRP based on win-loss record with a variable limit where the USTA can set the degree win-loss recored would have on overall NTRP. The National office basically said using win-loss would have too great an effect on a person's NTRP, even though I gave them a variable in the formula where they could set the limit themselves--they really weren't interested.

As far as the NTRP to the hundredth goes, USTA national is in agreement with you that it would create even more sandbagging and rating manipulation.

I think as long as their leagues are growing and the dollars are coming in, the USTA isn't going to change much. For the majority of folks in the middle or top of an NTRP rating, the system probably works fine. It's the folks stuck at the bottom end of a rating where the system fails.

[skiracer55]

Originally Posted by ronray43

Ski, Have done that a couple of times over the years, to include writing an algorithm to adjust the end of year NTRP based on win-loss record with a variable limit where the USTA can set the degree win-loss recored would have on overall NTRP. The National office basically said using win-loss would have too great an effect on a person's NTRP, even though I gave them a variable in the formula where they could set the limit themselves--they really weren't interested.

As far as the NTRP to the hundredth goes, USTA national is in agreement with you that it would create even more sandbagging and rating manipulation.

I think as long as their leagues are growing and the dollars are coming in, the USTA isn't going to change much. For the majority of folks in the middle or top of an NTRP rating, the system probably works fine. It's the folks stuck at the bottom end of a rating where the system fails.

...I think it's commendable that you spent the time to make the proposal to USTA, I'm also unsurprised that they turned it down. As you've noted, they have a license to print money, and there's no incentive for them to change.

Yep, it's a difficult system for anyone, regardless of whether a player is at the bottom of an NTRP level or elsewhere. If you go through this thread from the beginning, one of the things I was trying to suggest was "Stop obsessing about your current or desired NTRP rating. Just go become the best player you can be, and your ranking will sort itself out." Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case...which is, I think, an advertisement for purging NTRP from your consciousness and becoming the best player you can be...

[nyc]

After all this time.....still a GREAT thread, and deserves a bump.

[pkshooter]

Originally Posted by skiracer55

Here's where I start to expand my discussion from simply "NTRPers who want to improve their level" to "tennis players, at large, who want to get better." And here, I will say that I'm still going to stay somewhat within the NTRP model, because it provides at least a semi-objective measurement of a player's skill. If I *think* I improved a ton in the last year, but I didn't have an NTRP rating to start with...how do I know I really improved? To me, this is one of the best advertisements for NTRP...you have a tool to track your progress on the court.

So you want to get better...what's the first step? Okay, let's pretend I'm coaching everyone listening in out there in radioland, and I have Total Control of the situation. I'm the coach, and you get to do what I tell you, just like my coaches used to do to me in high school. So here it is, campers. Drop your tennis rackets, and pick your running and biking shoes, because you aren't going to see a tennis court for at least two months. I want to see you putting in at least 75 miles a week on a road bike, I want to see you pumping iron for two hours twice a week, and you're also going to be doing a ton of agility exercises like running tires just like the football players do. Keep a journal, we'll meet once a week or more often to chart your progress, and if I like what I see in two months or so, we'll talk about getting back on the tennis court again.

Collectively, as tennis players, I think we forget that tennis is both a game and a sport. And to play any sport well, you have to be an athlete. I'd love to take an accomplished triathelete out on a tennis court and basically teach him or her the game from ground zero. I'll bet it would take about a week, two hours a day, and her or she would be a 4.0, minimum, at the end of that two weeks. So that's my sermon for this morning: You want to be a better tennis player, become a better athlete.

This forum is about NTRP, which is irrespective of age, but I don't think I'm making any rash assumptions when I say that most of the posters are probably 30 somethings or older. There are age groups in tennis, well, there you have it. Most other sports have Masters competiton programs, ski racing, my winter sport, being one of them. I just finished my season with the tech races (SL and GS) at the US National Masters Championships at Copper Mountain, Colorado. One of the male competitors was something like 86 years old, and he didn't get any slack from the course on race day. He raced the same course I did, which one of the Austrians in Men's Class 9 (65 plus) said was as tough as any World Cup course he'd ever skied.

This 86 year old gent was strong, limber, and fit, and he didn't get that way, I'm sure, just from skiing. Every Masters racer I know is basically doing dry land all year long, more in the summer than in the winter, but it's still a required activity any time. For me, in the summer, two hours twice a week of weights, 50 to 75 miles a week on the road bike, 4 to 5 days a week of hard tennis two hours a day (tennis and skiing are excellent cross training for each other).

If you're not putting in time cross-training off the court, you're not the athlete, or the tennis player, you could be. It's also, I believe, a good thing to do other sports. I know people who play tennis all year, 12 months a year. That's burnout city for me. If you get away from the sport and do something else, you come back fresher and more motivated. When I was teaching skiing, we used to say "We learn to ski in the summer, we learn to play tennis in the winter..." Words to live by...

Your thread killed me... ^ far as i got sorry