Is the UTR Power 6 the best way to measure the quality of a team?
H.
No, the UTR Power 6 is definitely not the best measure of a team's ranking. It is useful to compare the relative strengths of conferences or to get a general idea if a recruit is a good fit for a team or conference.
Here's some reasons why the Power 6 might not be the best reflection of a team's strength
1) UTR was originally created for users to find competitive matches. Its rankings predict which matches should be competitive, not who will win. Suppose there were two players that both played 5 matches vs UTR 13.5 players. If Player A won 4 matches in 3 sets but lost the fifth 0, 2 that player would be rated lower than Player B who lost 4 matches in 3 sets but won one match 0,2. Now which player would a college coach put in his lineup, and which would he sit on the bench? I see players that are ranked .5 above their highest win because they have a few dominant wins (allow 4 games or less) and then I see players who are ranked .75 below their highest win and .5 below their hardest 3 set loss. Thes latter are guys that play almost every match close; they have a high win % but they are penalized because they dont soundly beat lower ranked guys-maybe they lose focus during the easier matches. UTR gives a lot of weight to dominant wins. However in college a win is a win and a loss is a loss; in UTR there is not much difference if any between a 3 set win and a 3 set loss.
2) The top 6 players on UTR may not even be the players the coach will play. I checked some teams I follow; for one the top UTR ranked player was playing 3 and the line 4 player actually had the 8th highest UTR but he is winning 60% of his matches at line 4
3) Freshmen could be considerably under or overrated on UTR. Freshmen who were US juniors tend to be overrated but drop over time. If I look at the current US freshmen, probably 80% are .5 lower than their UTR rating when they played Kzoo in August. International players who did not play on the circuit or junior ITFs may be under rated at the start of the season.
4) It also depends on how the Power 6 rating is split among the players .e.g a team with a 75 Power UTR could have two 14.5s and four 11.5s, The team could win 1 and 2 but lose the rest of the lines. Another Power 75 team could have two 13s, two 12.5s, and two 12s. A team can have a high Power UTR but if it is top heavy, it could lose the bottom lines.
5) Unfinished matches are not included in UTR. However, the coach is going to remember and play the guys who were leading and close to winning when the match was called. Those may be the guys who show up in the lineup even though they are not in the top 6 for UTR. Maybe one of the UTR top 6 is a guy who lost in 3 sets and still has a good UTR rating but cant close matches.
From the UTR website:
How are UTRs calculated?
UTRs are result-based and are generally calculated using a player’s last 30 matches within the last 12 months. The main factors are
percentage of games won and opponent’s rating.
Therefore similar to my example in 1) a player who beat a 13 1,3 and then lost to another 13 in 3 sets would have a higher rating than a player who beat two 13s in 3 sets because the first player would have a higher % of games won even tho that player was 1-1 and the 2nd 2-0 as far as wins vs 13s. UTR penalizes players who pace themselves, e.g. players in a 128 Circuit Qualifier or a junior in a large draw tournament or even college players playing a doubleheader. In those situations, players may not run down every ball; they may use early rounds as a warm up.
