Better UTR to NTRP (to everyone else) converter...

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orig post: https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/utr-what’s-yours.610420/ but thought it deserved it's own thread...

pretty cool UTR "heat map"
https://myutr.com/media/UTR_Player_Range.pdf (where are all the McEnroe critics (regarding Serena being 700 on ATP (a compliment!)... according to the chart, Serena would struggle to even qualify for futures events on the ATP tour))
some interesting observations:
* 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5... all have a decent overlap with their neighboring levels
* 4.5 & 5.0, big gap... like there is a level missing... or more likely because they just bucket all "good players" in the 5.0 bucket (for the distribution curve thing)... so while it's possibly to be between 4.0/4.5... it's unlikely you're a 4.5/5.0 player... (ie. it's likely you're just a good 4.5, but nowhere near 5.0))
* if you're, a 4.5 guy, you're about as good as nationally ranked 12y girl (who's probably literally a third of your size)... suck it up and deal with it
* if you're a 4.0 guy,... you're not even as good as a nationally ranked 12y girl...
* d3 women? title ix programs i'm guessing...
* 2.5, 3.0, 3.5... women, yeah, that's like the same level... but since there are so many, needed to separate them
* 5.5 men... IME, they were all ex-d1...so likely just a "half life decay" issue with the UTR calc... (ie. which weights recent matches more heavily.... and many 5.5's just teach now)

discuss!
 
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J011yroger said:
No, it's very off. Last year when I played tournaments I was around 10, then it went down from playing USTA. I know computer rated 5.0s who are 13utr. It's a valiant effort but there is work yet to be done.

J
Click to expand...


Probably just needs more data points. The lower you go on the scale, the fewer matches (data points) that will exist.
 
I think UTR will be much better than NTRP like wings56 said they need more data points and more input. Then again when I was fresh out of high school tournaments were always A and B level and we always had good matches
 
According to the heat map, based on my UTR I'm 5.0 to 5.5. In reality I'm 5.0 but definitely not competitive with computer rated 5.5s.
 
One observation is about the number of UTR levels mapping to an NTRP level.

UTR is clearly finer grained than NTRP as it has a scale from 1 to 16.5 while NTRP is really 2.5 to 7.0, specifically about three times as many levels. So you'd expect a mapping to NTRP to have three UTR levels for each NTRP level, but we are seeing at least four and usually five or six, especially for the men where it is six for all levels but one where it is five. That could be due to lack of data or just UTR's algorithm allowing for more dispersion while NTRP is biased towards status quo?
 
Also College Men D3 is wrong. It says D3 players range from 7.0 to 10.5. I'm a 10, my teammate last year is an 11, and we aren't nationally ranked. The top schools have 12s and 13s in their lineups.
 
J011yroger said:
Yea, how do you like that overlap square between 5.0 woman and 5.5 man?

J
Click to expand...
probably because there's like 3 women in any one region that could play 5.5 (if ntrp was actually a skill measurement), they just bucketed them into 5.0
 
schmke said:
One observation is about the number of UTR levels mapping to an NTRP level.

UTR is clearly finer grained than NTRP as it has a scale from 1 to 16.5 while NTRP is really 2.5 to 7.0, specifically about three times as many levels. So you'd expect a mapping to NTRP to have three UTR levels for each NTRP level, but we are seeing at least four and usually five or six, especially for the men where it is six for all levels but one where it is five. That could be due to lack of data or just UTR's algorithm allowing for more dispersion while NTRP is biased towards status quo?
Click to expand...

It should be fairly easy for you to take the best and worst of a level in your ratings and search the UTR site and see if their bookends agree with yours.

J
 
Topspin Shot said:
Also College Men D3 is wrong. It says D3 players range from 7.0 to 10.5. I'm a 10, my teammate last year is an 11, and we aren't nationally ranked. The top schools have 12s and 13s in their lineups.
Click to expand...
probably have a cutoff to make the image more readable... if they covered the absolute range (vs avg range where more than X folks exist at a level), you'd have these ultra wide bands that don't tell us anything...
 
J011yroger said:
And you think they would be equal to a 5.5 man?

J
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I'm sure there's a "5.0" girl out there somewhere that could beat a 5.5 man...
ie. rankded div1 girl just graduated and recruited by the local 5.0 team to make friends/socialize in a new town, etc... vs. 5.5 teaching pro/working dad, not really "practicing", slightly out of shape
watching some of the girls play at columbia... they are like ball machines, taking everything on the rise, etc..

if i had to bet anything of value... i'd go with the law of averages... where most 5.0 women would never be competitive with a 5.5 guy.
 
nytennisaddict said:
I'm sure there's a "5.0" girl out there somewhere that could beat a 5.5 man...
ie. rankded div1 girl just graduated and recruited by the local 5.0 team to make friends/socialize in a new town, etc... vs. 5.5 teaching pro/working dad, not really "practicing", slightly out of shape
watching some of the girls play at columbia... they are like ball machines, taking everything on the rise, etc..

if i had to bet anything of value... i'd go with the law of averages... where most 5.0 women would never be competitive with a 5.5 guy.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't think their chart would count cheaters and self rates at the wrong level, and I wouldn't think that an out of shape dad could wreck the 5.0 men's field and maintain his 5.5 rating then lose to a girl.

The better 5.0 girls in our area are around 8 UTR the worse 5.5 guys are around 12 UTR.

J
 
nytennisaddict said:
probably have a cutoff to make the image more readable... if they covered the absolute range (vs avg range where more than X folks exist at a level), you'd have these ultra wide bands that don't tell us anything...
Click to expand...
But there are a lot of 10+ players in D3. And if these bands are narrow, I can't see how they allow for 5.0 women who are have a higher UTR than 5.5 men.
 
J011yroger said:
It should be fairly easy for you to take the best and worst of a level in your ratings and search the UTR site and see if their bookends agree with yours.

J
Click to expand...
For the men, UTR 4.5 range is 6.0-8.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 males I have are a 6 and a 5 (doubles 6 and singles 4) which are also off their heat map ranges. The two highest are a 10 and a 9, also off the range. That is a big range from 5 to 10 for a NTRP 4.5!

For women, UTR 4.5 range is 4.5-6.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 females I have are both UTR 4. That is off their heat map scale. The highest rated 4.5 females I have were 6's and a few weren't on UTR. Seeing just single digit I guess those 6's could really be the 6.5 from the chart, but in the handful I checked I found no 7's.

So they have truncated some "noise" it appears, but also have some strange ratings (albeit a very small sample I looked at above).
 
schmke said:
For the men, UTR 4.5 range is 6.0-8.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 males I have are a 6 and a 5 (doubles 6 and singles 4) which are also off their heat map ranges. The two highest are a 10 and a 9, also off the range. That is a big range from 5 to 10 for a NTRP 4.5!

For women, UTR 4.5 range is 4.5-6.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 females I have are both UTR 4. That is off their heat map scale. The highest rated 4.5 females I have were 6's and a few weren't on UTR. Seeing just single digit I guess those 6's could really be the 6.5 from the chart, but in the handful I checked I found no 7's.

So they have truncated some "noise" it appears, but also have some strange ratings (albeit a very small sample I looked at above).
Click to expand...

Indeed

The chart says "Lower" and "Higher" concentration. It doesn't mean there aren't any players outside the charted areas

For all we know there could be a 3.0 lady with a 10 UTR but it's just an outlier that's discarded to keep the data concise
 
schmke said:
For the men, UTR 4.5 range is 6.0-8.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 males I have are a 6 and a 5 (doubles 6 and singles 4) which are also off their heat map ranges. The two highest are a 10 and a 9, also off the range. That is a big range from 5 to 10 for a NTRP 4.5!

For women, UTR 4.5 range is 4.5-6.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 females I have are both UTR 4. That is off their heat map scale. The highest rated 4.5 females I have were 6's and a few weren't on UTR. Seeing just single digit I guess those 6's could really be the 6.5 from the chart, but in the handful I checked I found no 7's.

So they have truncated some "noise" it appears, but also have some strange ratings (albeit a very small sample I looked at above).
Click to expand...

Fyi if you don't pay the numbers you see are rounded up so 8.1-8.9 would be displayed as 9.

J
 
schmke said:
For the men, UTR 4.5 range is 6.0-8.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 males I have are a 6 and a 5 (doubles 6 and singles 4) which are also off their heat map ranges. The two highest are a 10 and a 9, also off the range. That is a big range from 5 to 10 for a NTRP 4.5!

For women, UTR 4.5 range is 4.5-6.5 and the two lowest rated 4.5 females I have are both UTR 4. That is off their heat map scale. The highest rated 4.5 females I have were 6's and a few weren't on UTR. Seeing just single digit I guess those 6's could really be the 6.5 from the chart, but in the handful I checked I found no 7's.

So they have truncated some "noise" it appears, but also have some strange ratings (albeit a very small sample I looked at above).
Click to expand...

Almost makes me look like I know what I'm talking about when I say there is too big of a gap between the top and bottom of 4.5.

J
 
I think, if anything, it does well to demonstrate why when playing 4.0 matches you get such vast variation on the level of competition, and why you will have genuinely ranked 4.0 player videos where everyone is saying 3.0 play at best. I swear USTA should make 4.0 league have a two year minimum league record before bumping anyone or allowing them to play up. And maybe a year for any 3.0 to go to 3.5. Doesn't fix SR issues, but I have seen too many players with losing records at level put together teams and play up, and also include a lot of SRs.

Anyway, I did the start of the UTR and I loved the way it said I am equivalent to a Girls 14 or a boys 12. I play with juniors weekly and while there ground strokes and consistency is at level, their overall game play and serves are below level. So interesting that UTR is supposed to be more based on match play level than general skills level? I dunno. I still don't put much stock in any of it and will hit with anyone and everyone.
 
I sound like a broken record on this but it is pretty obvious to me that there are major errors in the ratings. I'm a 5.0 NTRP player and a 6.75 UTR (doubles only). The student-athletes at my alma mater (DIII) that play top 2 or 3 in the lineup are by my estimation mid- to top-level 5.0s and they have UTRs of 11. In an 8-game pro-set my buddy (also a UTR 6.5) and I would probably lose to these guys something like 8-5. We have played no-pressure tiebreakers with them so this isn't just wishful thinking. The gap just isn't that large.

I've also seen some DIII kids that can't hold a racquet properly (not kidding). One of these kids has never won a game at the DIII level in 5 matches (0 games won; 49 games lost). He's a UTR 6.

USTA league players are vastly underrated compared to juniors and college players. My 2 cents.
 
^
Your doubles rating would be higher if you had logged matches against higher UTRs and you won the required number of games to be considered a close match. It’s a matter of specific samples and sample size as well.
 
ChaelAZ said:
Anyway, I did the start of the UTR and I loved the way it said I am equivalent to a Girls 14 or a boys 12. I play with juniors weekly and while there ground strokes and consistency is at level, their overall game play and serves are below level. So interesting that UTR is supposed to be more based on match play level than general skills level? I dunno. I still don't put much stock in any of it and will hit with anyone and everyone.
Click to expand...
are they highly ranked juniors? (ie. getting deep into L1 tourneys, nationally rankes, or ITF ranked?)
i've lost to 12y girls 2x... they've gone onto play d1, and wta...
 
nytennisaddict said:
are they highly ranked juniors? (ie. getting deep into L1 tourneys, nationally rankes, or ITF ranked?)
i've lost to 12y girls 2x... they've gone onto play d1, and wta...
Click to expand...

I get to hit with ranked juniors, but not top national often. Top 20 state ranked and such. It has been kinda cool to see them play since they were just U10's. The issue becomes just power and pace for younger players. They do compensate with young, energetic legs, and much more consistent strokes, but in general they lack pace that I am used to. And rarely have I lost serve to younger players. 16's and 18's start leveling out and I get beat up on by our high school players, which they enjoy. Of course, it is anecdotal for my experience and maybe on average nationally.
 
It has errors, but it does seem to be a lot more in-depth than NTRP ratings. I wonder if USTA will ever try to have a partnership with UTR and integrate UTR and NTRP into league play.
 
RLtennis said:
It has errors, but it does seem to be a lot more in-depth than NTRP ratings. I wonder if USTA will ever try to have a partnership with UTR and integrate UTR and NTRP into league play.
Click to expand...
as someone else mentioned, and i agree with...
NTRP is an arbitrary grouping of similar levels, with a parallel priority to normalize the distribution of buckets... so someone on the edge of an NTRP level, may find themselves getting bumped up/down every couple of years depending solely on the fluctuation of how many people are playing at various levels... folks like me, used to use NTRP as a measure of progression... for that, UTR is a better system.
 
So, am I correct to say the UTR rating does NOT include USTA league play?

As per website: "USTA: Junior Tournaments (12-18, yellow ball), Junior Team Tennis, Adult Tournaments (Open and NTRP)"

That makes the rating system inaccessible to many rec players. USTA tournaments are generally poorly attended in my area and tend to be mainly males participating.
 
emilyhex said:
So, am I correct to say the UTR rating does NOT include USTA league play?

As per website: "USTA: Junior Tournaments (12-18, yellow ball), Junior Team Tennis, Adult Tournaments (Open and NTRP)"

That makes the rating system inaccessible to many rec players. USTA tournaments are generally poorly attended in my area and tend to be mainly males participating.
Click to expand...
utr pulls in usta league play...
 
OnTheLine said:
UTR pulls "some" league play. It pulls my 3.5 matches but does not pull my 4.0 matches
Click to expand...
do you play multiple sections/regions?
i had an issue at one point... ie. utr taking a while... but eventually it got updated. if it's in usta, it'll eventually get updated.
lol, i think we all go into that day trader mode... scanning our investments every minute... similarly, for a while I was frequently scanning utr, tls, tr for changes after 1 match... yup i still suck.
 
nytennisaddict said:
do you play multiple sections/regions?
i had an issue at one point... ie. utr taking a while... but eventually it got updated. if it's in usta, it'll eventually get updated.
lol, i think we all go into that day trader mode... scanning our investments every minute... similarly, for a while I was frequently scanning utr, tls, tr for changes after 1 match... yup i still suck.
Click to expand...

oh you are so funny! day trader ... yes, back in November, I probably was ... not so much right now, except watching a few self-rates getting themselves DQed

No just one district. Just at two levels, both 40+ league. 3.5 updates (but not since Feb 3rd) and nothing, zero, nada of my 7 4.0 matches, and since I am 6-1 at 4.0, I would kinda like to see those numbers in there.
 
nytennisaddict said:
orig post: https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/utr-what’s-yours.610420/ but thought it deserved it's own thread...


* if you're, a 4.5 guy, you're about as good as nationally ranked 12y girl (who's probably literally a third of your size)... suck it up and deal with it


discuss!
Click to expand...
As a 4.5 guy, I'm hired as a hitting coach for top ranked 16-17 yr old boys and they can hardly get a game off of me (which is why I still get hired haha). They just can't handle the spin & pace men hit vs boys and neither can they play against a slice well
 
MarinaHighTennis said:
As a 4.5 guy, I'm hired as a hitting coach for top ranked 16-17 yr old boys and they can hardly get a game off of me (which is why I still get hired haha). They just can't handle the spin & pace men hit vs boys and neither can they play against a slice well
Click to expand...

Top ranked 16-17 yr old boys have ATP points and have little trouble getting games off of 4.5s.

J
 
MarinaHighTennis said:
As a 4.5 guy, I'm hired as a hitting coach for top ranked 16-17 yr old boys and they can hardly get a game off of me (which is why I still get hired haha). They just can't handle the spin & pace men hit vs boys and neither can they play against a slice well
Click to expand...
leo borg... UTR 12, 14y... pretty sure he'd smoke most 5.5's (https://myutr.com/players/274823)
didn't have a chance to find any 12y g, but a couple years ago i found leo's name at 12, and he was already UTR 10
so, yeah, "top ranked" 16-17... where? in the club? on your block? in your town?

it's cool, i was humbled, too, the first time i got beat by a preteen.
 
J011yroger said:
Top ranked 16-17 yr old boys have ATP points and have little trouble getting games off of 4.5s.

J
Click to expand...
as in top 25 in the section of Orange County. Ranked 300s nationally. ATP points is a diff story. Another one of my friends now plays for UPenn and when I was 18 he was 13 and ranked in the top 40 nationally and could not get games off me or my friends.
 
nytennisaddict said:
leo borg... UTR 12, 14y... pretty sure he'd smoke most 5.5's (https://myutr.com/players/274823)
didn't have a chance to find any 12y g, but a couple years ago i found leo's name at 12, and he was already UTR 10
so, yeah, "top ranked" 16-17... where? in the club? on your block? in your town?

it's cool, i was humbled, too, the first time i got beat by a preteen.
Click to expand...
My USTA team has ppl who used to play for UC Santa Cruz collegiate team and hes rated 5.0 (Ilya Gendelmen). The head coach at USF (Sean Dizon) is also rated 5.0 and went to 5.0 nationals. Shuhei Shibahara (brother of Ena Shibahara on UCLA women's team) played D1 for UC Irvine is rated 5.0. JR Sarmiento from UCLA D1 is also rated 5.0. I dont think any 12 yr old will beat them unless the 12 yr old is playing orange bowl, junior wimbledon etc.
 
that's nice.
Leo Borg 14y, UTR 12
Sean Dizon, UTR 9
Shuhei, UTR 10?
JR Sarmiento, UTR 10
 
jm1980 said:
I think what he's trying to say is that UTR is not accurate, and all these guys would destroy Borg
Click to expand...
probably will never know... unless they actually played in the same tourney/etc... but UTR is the best rating system out there... and seems to be accurate (to me) when making distinctions between 1 level of difference (ie. a UTR 10 vs. UTR 11). true it may not be precise for accurately rating small differences (<0.5)... but in this case UTR 10 vs. 12 is a huge difference...

so what i'm asking, what's more likely:
* he is the exception and happens to know all the players that are exceptions in UTR (ie. his UTR 10 buddies are much better than UTR 12)... OR
* UTR is a pretty decent baseline, that covers players internationally, and spends $$$ refining the data, partnering with major tennis organizations to get the data right, and 95% of time, UTR 12 is actually better than UTR 10 (at the very least, competitive)

MarinaHighTennis said:
. I dont think any 12 yr old ....
Click to expand...
Leo Borg is 14y,

but regarding 12y girls, debate... this girl won the junior orange bowl 12&under 2017
https://myutr.com/players/203337
UTR 9... which according to charts, and other UTR 9's I've played, is riding the fence between 4.5&5.0 mens

the b12 winner in the junior orange bowl 2017
https://myutr.com/players/801209
UTR 11

MarinaHighTennis said:
...orange bowl, junior wimbledon etc.
Click to expand...
played in Les Petit Ans, supposed to be equiv of the european Orange Bowl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petits_As

anywho, probably never truly... as this conversation is turning to a "could so and so of one era beat so and so of another era" but to me UTR seems accurate enough to get a baseline of how good someone is (+/- 0.5)... even if it means i really do suck.
 
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J011yroger said:
Top ranked 16-17 yr old boys have ATP points and have little trouble getting games off of 4.5s.

J
Click to expand...
Agree. There was a "fun" dual between D1 tennis committed juniors players (16-17 yrears old) versus 5.0C-5.5C players last summer at one of the local clubs in my area. The juniors won the match fairly easy. The only real close matches were against the 5.5s in singles or dubs.
 
MarinaHighTennis said:
as in top 25 in the section of Orange County. Ranked 300s nationally. ATP points is a diff story. Another one of my friends now plays for UPenn and when I was 18 he was 13 and ranked in the top 40 nationally and could not get games off me or my friends.
Click to expand...
There was a kid around here who played in the big local tournament we have every August in the "4.5" draw when he was 12 (I say "4.5" because it's unsanctioned so the director can put people wherever he wants, but has a draw that he tries to limit to 4.5 - there's Open, 4.5, and 3.5). He's a TR 5-star and was ranked around 70-75 nationally in 12s at the time. He was seeded 9th and made the QF, where he lost to a 20 year old college club player (i.e. tennis on campus) who was probably good enough to be an average D3 player if he didn't go to a D1 school.

The kid is now a 16 year old sophomore who will be one of the favorites to win the NJ state singles tournament this year. He's easily a strong 5.0 level player, probably 5.5, and would smoke any 4.5 league player 6-0 6-0. So, I agree with you about 12-13 year-olds who still haven't really hit puberty. I'm skeptical about 16-17. The top 20-25 in Middle States 16s are all at least 5.0 level.
 
i thought folks would find this interesting... http://tennisabstract.com/reports/rankingsByAge.html
16y with atp points...
which probalby means they are crushing top rec folks by 12y
UTR seems accurate, especially with kids playing alot of tourneys (ie. at the higher levels)...

15y with tour points... http://www.**************.org/tenni...-and-oldest-players-on-the-atp-rankings-list/
 
Deleted member 23235 said:
...
* if you're, a 4.5 guy, you're about as good as nationally ranked 12y girl (who's probably literally a third of your size)... suck it up and deal with it
...
Click to expand...
Reviving my old thread... i'm now coaching my daughter's Varsity (g) Tennis team... and have a nationally ranked 12y that is on the team... and she's definitely at my level (ntrp4.5) :P
 
nyta2 said:
Reviving my old thread... i'm now coaching my daughter's Varsity (g) Tennis team... and have a nationally ranked 12y that is on the team... and she's definitely at my level (ntrp4.5) :p
Click to expand...
Same experience here. I'm a USTA 4.5 guy and I played a few practice sets with a nationally ranked 12 year old girl, we're about the same level. She was a 7 UTR at the time.
 
gsung said:
Same experience here. I'm a USTA 4.5 guy and I played a few practice sets with a nationally ranked 12 year old girl, we're about the same level. She was a 7 UTR at the time.
Click to expand...
yep, same, girl on my team is about a utr7 too
really humbling :P
 
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