Well said. Any system that has people zipping up and down levels as much as they would in ohplease's system is never going to happen.
Look at how bizarre his system is. It's bad enough that people are harping about someone who wins most of their matches and how that's proof they should be rated up. Now he's talking about moving 50% (yes 25+25 = 50%!) of the particpants out of there own level every year! Regardless of their record!
That's insane. And it is insane because as some other people (like Ace) have commented on, you cant have 25% of one level playing in another level. There is a diffrence in the levels and even more so there is a wide range of players within each level.
And it's so crazy that it's never going to happen so not much point even talking about it.
The current system is fine. If the USTA had some sort of human element to it and got rid of the appeal system it would be better. But they are never going to cater to all the people that worry about sandbagging (at least not at the local level).
The only thing about your silly rule that might make sense is if they applyed it to players on teams that advanced to a certain level in the playoffs (kind of like the move up / split up rule in nationals) because that's the only normal justification for someone going as far as sandbagging usually. But if it's some guy on your 3rd or 4th place team who happens to win most of his matches, that's just silly to think about, espeically if it's playing doubles (which the far majority of us do).
If the current system's so fine, why has tennis participation been declining? Why are there so many complaints? Didn't someone in this very thread say there should be a dedicated subsection to this board talking just about USTA issues? Wasn't that someone you?
You can't have it both ways. People can't squawk so much in even your estimation AND there be nothing wrong with the current system.
1) As it is right now, there is almost zero overlap between the USTA's description of what each level should be, and what each level actually is. Either their descriptions are incorrect, or the level of play is incorrect. I say both, because countless people self-rate incorrectly, and because people who used to play USTA at a particular level 5 or 10 years ago regularly say they can't compete at that same level today.
2) Consequently, why bother with the current levels at all? Force bell curves on the entire system. As I said before, the USTA can already rank, from top to bottom, every one of it's participants across all levels.
Now throw those levels out, and re-normalize. The middle 50% is 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5. The tails are 2.5, 3.0, and 5.0, 5.5. Does this mean some supposed "4.5" players are now 5.5s? Absolutely. Ask anyone who's seen regional or national play at 4.5, and I'm not sure they'd have a problem describing those cats as 5.5, anyway. Most players will remain unchanged at 3.0/3.5, since the curve is currently left-shifted to a huge degree.
End of season, cull the best and worst. Now, there's some fiddling that needs to be done between levels. For example, since 5.0 and even 4.5 would be smaller in total population size by design, 1/4 of 4.5 down wouldn't be the same size as 1/4 of 4.0 up, so maybe the 4.0 bump up is only as big as the 4.5 bump down. Which means it ultimately gets harder to get pushed out of your level outside of the heart of that bell curve (3.5-4.5).
The end result? Most club players stay right where they are, likely at 4.0, with occasional visits to 3.5 or 4.5. Further, the level of play at each level is tightened up. No more club hacks at the bottom of 3.5 or 4.0, and club pros in hiding at the top.
Want to argue that results don't matter as much as quality of play? Well here you go. Tennis is implicitly a social sport, which means everyone cares about where they are relative to everyone else. Install metrics that formalize that ranking (what? That's impossible? We do that already, the pro tour does it, etc. - how we do it doesn't really matter), then work the resulting bell curve.
Professors in colleges (good ones at least), often put up the histograms of their students' performance. Then they draw lines. The A's are obvious, as are the D's. Line through the middle of the bell curve divides B's and C's. The average could be 20, could be 90. Doesn't matter - nor does it matter what the level of play is like at 4.0 - either now (where again, 4.0 represents the best 25% of tennis players who are rabid enough to play USTA), or in the system I'm proposing.
Since this is all so crazy it's not worth talking about, I'm sure Javier will have nothing else to contribute on the matter. Should that not be the case, he must be wrong on that point, too.
