Are big changes to USTA and NTRP on the horizon?

[Vox Rationis]

@schmke wrote an interesting blog post speculating a potential change from NTRP to the WTN (World Tennis Number). WTN is being created by the ITF with the backing of USTA, LTA (Britain), and FFT (France). This would be an absolutely massive change if his speculation were to come true. What do you think? Is such a change to a completely new rating system in league play a likely occurrence? Would it be a welcome change?

Blog post: Could the NTRP as we know it be going away?

 

[Nostradamus]

it would be welcome as long as quantum computers are constantly accurately keeping the each player's level

 

[OnTheLine]

Good read and I think in terms of "tea leaves" definitely a possibility.

For me, I don't care what USTA uses as long as I get good competitive league matches. I would say that NTRP has worked well for me in that. At level very few blow out wins or losses ... a lot of 3rd set tie-breakers.

As long as new system provides the same balanced levels, don't care what they call it.

 

[Moveforwardalways]

Agree with @OnTheLine - I don’t care what they call it or what the relative numbers are as long as it works.

 

[RVAtennisaddict]

I hope if there is a new system, i can self rate as world #1.

 

[dcdoorknob]

Interesting. I noticed that WTN is, like UTR, intended to be gender neutral. I wonder if the usta potentially switching to WTN might also pave the way to some gender neutral leagues or tournaments.

I’d be all for it. Would the general population be on board? Not so sure.

 

[Vox Rationis]

Interesting. I noticed that WTN is, like UTR, intended to be gender neutral. I wonder if the usta potentially switching to WTN might also pave the way to some gender neutral leagues or tournaments.

I’d be all for it. Would the general population be on board? Not so sure.

I could see it being a good thing at the higher levels. As it is a lot of higher rated players don't have too many competitive playing options. Combining genders in one rating system might make some leagues, like 5.0 league or 9.5 combo, more viable.

 

[S&V-not_dead_yet]

I was wondering when the USTA would fight back against UTR.

 

[BallBag]

WTN will be implemented for junior competition in 2021 but I don't think it could happen for adult league that soon, if ever. The premise of WTN is an open algorithm and simply switching the rating system from one number to another would introduce some issues.
If everyone knows their exact rating it would make it much easier for some to manage their rating. People do that anyways so its probably not a huge issue.
WTN also separates your singles and doubles rating so the USTA would have to create a third number which is some sort of an average. So now you would have 3 ratings.
The USTA can also control how many players they have in each league on a regional basis. They would lose that control if the rating is out of their hands.
Even officially endorsing and showing WTN ratings on tennislink could be a problem because then players would complain about someone getting bumped even though their WTN rating is lower than someone who didn't get pumped. People were doing that using tennisrecord.com ratings and the USTA simply said that those have nothing to do with them or NTRP, which was right. That wouldn't work if WTN is officially on tennislink.
A switch to WTN would probably require sliding scale league level boundaries. I think I remember schemke proposed that before. Instead of 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 and so on, you would have something like A, B, C and the boundary levels would be determined at the end of the year. That's a pretty big change and I think the USTA would want to give everyone plenty of warning if they were going to do that.

 

[CHtennis]

That's a pretty big change and I think the USTA would want to give everyone plenty of warning if they were going to do that.

I agree with everything you said except this. The USTA has a habit of making changes suddenly and without much feedback beforehand.

 

[schmke]

WTN will be implemented for junior competition in 2021 but I don't think it could happen for adult league that soon, if ever. The premise of WTN is an open algorithm and simply switching the rating system from one number to another would introduce some issues.
If everyone knows their exact rating it would make it much easier for some to manage their rating. People do that anyways so its probably not a huge issue.
WTN also separates your singles and doubles rating so the USTA would have to create a third number which is some sort of an average. So now you would have 3 ratings.
The USTA can also control how many players they have in each league on a regional basis. They would lose that control if the rating is out of their hands.
Even officially endorsing and showing WTN ratings on tennislink could be a problem because then players would complain about someone getting bumped even though their WTN rating is lower than someone who didn't get pumped. People were doing that using tennisrecord.com ratings and the USTA simply said that those have nothing to do with them or NTRP, which was right. That wouldn't work if WTN is officially on tennislink.
A switch to WTN would probably require sliding scale league level boundaries. I think I remember schemke proposed that before. Instead of 3.0, 3.5, 4.0 and so on, you would have something like A, B, C and the boundary levels would be determined at the end of the year. That's a pretty big change and I think the USTA would want to give everyone plenty of warning if they were going to do that.

All very valid points, and probably closer to what will actually happen (WTN used just for Juniors/high school/college), but still fun to speculate.

 

[BallBag]

All very valid points, and probably closer to what will actually happen (WTN used just for Juniors/high school/college), but still fun to speculate.

I think it would be a good thing if they did. It opens up the opens up the opportunity for mixed leagues and can help with rating manipulators. It also does away with all the weird T and M ratings. It can also cut down on the self rates if some come in to adult league with an accurate rating from junior or collage play.

 

[BallBag]

I agree with everything you said except this. The USTA has a habit of making changes suddenly and without much feedback beforehand.

Being so close to 2021, I think 2022 is the earliest.

 

[J_R_B]

Interesting. I noticed that WTN is, like UTR, intended to be gender neutral. I wonder if the usta potentially switching to WTN might also pave the way to some gender neutral leagues or tournaments.

I’d be all for it. Would the general population be on board? Not so sure.

Gender neutral ratings would mean the end of mixed doubles leagues. The ratings are currently set up so that the distribution of men's and women's ratings are about the same by level. (i.e. 4.5 = top 10%, etc.). If you go gender neutral, then whatever is the equivalent of the current "4.5 mens" is top 10% for men's, but basically D1 varsity for women's. It would be a folly to make a mixed league out of that because you'd have 10 men for every woman in the league.

 

[Moveforwardalways]

Gender neutral ratings would mean the end of mixed doubles leagues. The ratings are currently set up so that the distribution of men's and women's ratings are about the same by level. (i.e. 4.5 = top 10%, etc.). If you go gender neutral, then whatever is the equivalent of the current "4.5 mens" is top 10% for men's, but basically D1 varsity for women's. It would be a folly to make a mixed league out of that because you'd have 10 men for every woman in the league.

That is my intuition as well. However, they could still make combo mixed leagues. Like have UTR 5.0 mixed where you can have a 6 male and a 4 female, but that introduces a whole new set of problems also.