First time exploring USTA league. Advice?

Connor35

Connor35

Professional
I just reached out and posted that I’m looking for a team. I’ve never played USTA or a team league before.

Im 49yo, borderline 3.5/4; fit and athletic . (Been playing tennis for 4 years after a lifetime of ice hockey and baseball/softball and golf).

I just finished a 3.5 singles league 6-1, only loss was 64 75 to the guy who finished 7-0. Playoffs starting soon. My best shots are my serves and net play, so can definitely hold my own at 4.0 doubles.

Anyway, in theory captains who need a player in the area are supposed to reach out to me.

Fit is important to me. I’m laid back, hate drama. Like to win and work hard, but I’m not a “hate to lose” , will be a jerk to win sort of guy. Sportsmanship is important to me.

Any questions I should ask? I know nothing about USTA leagues and what to look for as a new guy joining an existing team. Just trying to figure out how to identify a good fit so it’ll be better for me and my team.

Any advice, questions to ask the captain or other players, or things to look for in a practice and most welcome.

thanks.
 
My advice is to just be very agreeable. You may not get too many offers to join right away, depends on your rating and if the teams need anyone. I have had to play in different regions and typically start off agreeing to whomever with have me and being super flexible, then as I get to know people better or get recruited for other teams I can choose who I want to play for/with. I have yet to have a bad experience with a team.
 
I think usta teams that are “going for nationals” are the rare exception. Most teams are just guys getting together to get some tennis in. Probably most important thing is that you enjoy hanging out with the guys for the after match beer/snacks hangout, and that you can find at least a partner or two that you enjoy playing with.

If you are strong side of 3.5, you will be more in demand and have multiple offers maybe. The 4.0 captains will ignore you but don’t worry just start at 3.5 and if you’re better you’ll get bumped eventually.
 
Club and informal ratings are usually inflated by 0.5 over USTA computer ratings especially in singles. So, start off at 3.5 and play your way up. If you say you are a 4.0, join a new team and lose a lot, you will not be a popular player.
 
Do you play at a club? They can usually hook you up better than the league coordinator can. Once you identify some candidate team(s) to join, try to play a practice match with some of their stronger players to see how you fit in.
 
socallefty said:
Club and informal ratings are usually inflated by 0.5 over USTA computer ratings especially in singles. So, start off at 3.5 and play your way up. If you say you are a 4.0, join a new team and lose a lot, you will not be a popular player.
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I play Ultimate tennis. A flex league. And if you win a lot youll get moved up.

When I started playing, I went 7-0 in a 3.0 league but lost in the finals.
next season got moved to 3.5 and didn’t win a match.
Didnt sign up for a few seasons and just took lessons / played in a solid friends group. Signed up again and I’m 6-1 in 3.5. So hopefully it’s a legit ranking.
 
Yeah, Ultimate Tennis ratings aren’t the same as USTA ratings. Don’t be too sure about where you’ll be in usta, might be 3.5 or might be 3.0.

Best way to tell is to play a match or two with the guys whose team you want to join and see how it goes
 
Max G. said:
Ultimate Tennis ratings aren’t the same as USTA ratings.
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My experience is the same that every other league is inflated compared to USTA computer ratings. It sours the experience of many players in their first USTA season when they come in with a self-rating that is one level too high.
 
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Connor35 said:
just took lessons / played in a solid friends group
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I would let your coach know you are looking for a team. They may be able to point you to others who also play USTA league.

When I wanted to play USTA league for the first time, I had a difficult time finding a captain willing to take on new players. It took me a few months to finally get invited to play with a team. I would recommend that you let everyone you know who plays tennis that you are looking to join a USTA league team and keep at it.
 
socallefty said:
Club and informal ratings are usually inflated by 0.5 over USTA computer ratings especially in singles. So, start off at 3.5 and play your way up. If you say you are a 4.0, join a new team and lose a lot, you will not be a popular player.
Click to expand...
This is solid advice.

We have a gal who just joined, self rated herself at 4.0 but she's either more likely to be 3.5 or pushing it would be a very weak 4.0.

As a result she won't get on any teams. Unfortunate truth. The 4.0 teams don't want her and she self rated too high to play 3.5.
 
Im in the middle of my first USTA League experience, on 2 mixed 7.0/8.0 and one mens 3.5 team. It's been fun and I will do it again. My advice would be have fun, don't take it too seriously but serious enough to win, and stick to the higher level teams which will have better players who usually have better tennis etiquette if that matters to you. It matters to me.
 
Joining a new team is like starting a new job at a new company. Go into it with an open mind and learn the culture. Are they on the competitive or have fun end of the spectrum or somewhere in between. Once you figure this out, you'll know if it's a good fit for you. I haven't found many teams that lacked cools guys to hang out with. Its culture followed by how it's captained will determine how much you like playing with that team.
 
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Also consider what you're personal goals are. Are you looking to develop and grow your skills to advance to the next level or will you be content with staying or plateauing at that level? The team's culture can help or hinder your goals.

At one point, my goal was to advance from 4.0 to 4.5. I played on the same team for over 10 years where we did the same thing for 10 years. We had 3.5 and 4.0 players on the team. I can objectively say that none of the 4.0 guys, including myself, got any better. I'm not blaming anyone as I did enjoy playing on the team and understand that it's each individual's responsibility to develop themselves; however, if no one on the team shares the same mindset improving may become a slower journey.
 
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Connor35 said:
I think the competition and needing to improve for my team will also help push me to improve.
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Another cool thing I found out playing USTA league was just how wide each of the bands (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, etc) are. You may be surprised to learn that a high 3.5 should typically beat a low 3.5 6-0, 6-0.
 
cks said:
Another cool thing I found out playing USTA league was just how wide each of the bands (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, etc) are. You may be surprised to learn that a high 3.5 should typically beat a low 3.5 6-0, 6-0.
Click to expand...

Yes. In Ultimate Tennis, when I was first starting, I went undefeated at 3.0 (though lost the final to someone I beat twice in the regular season) , then got upped to 3.5 and lost all 8 matches!

Took some time to just improve and am 7-1 at 3.5 this season.

But it definitely seems like an Ultimate Tennis 3.5 isn’t the same at USTA. It seems like USTA could do a better job enforcing play levels.
 
Connor35 said:
It seems like USTA could do a better job enforcing play levels.
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Isn’t USTA the official organization for tennis in the US that came up with the NTRP rating scale? It would seem like only USTA computer ratings are official and any other organization using 3.0/3.5/4.9/4.5 ratings is ‘unofficially’ trying to mimic USTA ratings. The USTA play level is the right play level by definition for a NTRP rating level.

The only other rating system that has become somewhat ‘officially’ recognized especially to rate juniors is UTR.
 
socallefty said:
Isn’t USTA the official organization for tennis in the US that came up with the NTRP rating scale? It would seem like only USTA computer ratings are official and any other organization using 3.0/3.5/4.9/4.5 ratings is ‘unofficially’ trying to mimic USTA ratings. The USTA play level is the right play level by definition for a NTRP rating level.

The only other rating system that has become somewhat ‘officially’ recognized especially to rate juniors is UTR.
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Same rating scale. It’s just that human factors come into play that bias the level.

In usta league play, captains are motivated to ask new players to self-rate low. Since everyone is doing this, the self-rated level becomes the level.

In non-usta leagues or groups, or even usta tourneys, it’s human nature for players to over-rate their own abilities. So the non-usta player who believes he’s a 4.0 (because he knows guys who are 4.0 and sometimes hits with them) is often actually the level of a usta 3.5c. It’s always been this way, even when 4.0 was called ‘B’ .
 
USTA and Ultimate Tennis are not the same rating scale at all. It’s easy to think they are because they use similar range of numbers, but the fundamentals of the scale are totally different.

Usta is trying to make a national rating system, and the ratings are adjusted to make them uniform across the country. Ultimate tennis on other hand does their ratings locally - they aim to have reasonable size groups of people at each rating level in each area. This leads the rating bands in ultimate tennis to be much more narrow and also much different between metro areas.

When I joined both USTA and Ultimate, I joined in 4.0 in both. In USTA, I was bumped up to 4.5 at the end of that season and stayed there since then; in Ultimate, I was bumped up to 4.5, then 5.0, then 5.5 which was the highest rating band in that area (and I was still mostly winning; the Ultimate Tennis 5.5 players were mostly mid to low range USTA 4.5). All the rating bands were kept at the right number of people to support 1-2 flights of player.

YMMV of course based on the city. Pretty sure the rating bands in Ultimate are going to depend on the local player pool. If a hundred USTA 3.0 players make a local Ultimate league, the Ultimate Tennis rating system is going to spread them out over the 3.0-5.5 range over a few seasons. Whereas in USTA, if all the local players are 3.0... the adjustments from sectionals and nationals should keep them all at 3.0 over time.
 
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Max G. said:
USTA and Ultimate Tennis are not the same rating scale at all. It’s easy to think they are because they use similar range of numbers, but the fundamentals of the scale are totally different.

Usta is trying to make a national rating system, and the ratings are adjusted to make them uniform across the country.
Click to expand...

I agree with this, but it seems that everyone who answers the USTA's self rating questions then asks for a downgrade once they speak with a captain.
And that people stay at levels for a long time. 3.0 just seems HUGE, and to the detriment of those first entering or aging.

It's not an ego thing for me, being told to appeal to be 3.0. I want where fits. But it seems like 3.0 is a huge category if Im a 3.0 given Im 7-1 right now in UTR 3.5 against experienced weekly players.

Utlimate's system where if you play well enough to dominate you go up a level seems pretty fair.
As a number's guy, it seems so easy to compute true levels and USTA doesn't.
But I also understand their goal isn't to be fair, it's to maximize revenue.
 
Connor35 said:
It's not an ego thing for me, being told to appeal to be 3.0. I want where fits. But it seems like 3.0 is a huge category if Im a 3.0 given Im 7-1 right now in UTR 3.5 against experienced weekly players.
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You may find it easier if you can find a local USTA 3.5 league captain and ask to practice with the team. By practice, I mean to play either a single or doubles match. Another option would be to setup a match (singles or doubles) where all of the other players have current C rating NTRP. Seasoned captains should be provide feedback on where you should self rate after seeing you play with C rated players. And you are correct, that self-ratings are pretty difficult to get right, if you have never played against C rated players.
 
Connor35 said:
As a number's guy, it seems so easy to compute true levels and USTA doesn't.
Click to expand...
I mean, as a numbers guy, you should probably get that two entirely different rating systems aren't going to be comparable to each other... they're just unrelated numbers that look kind of similar for some people. I don't think it makes sense to say that when USTA put me at 4.5 and Ultimate Tennis put me at 5.5 that one was "wrong" and the other was "right", they're just two different rating scales. In USTA, I beat all the players rated 4.0 or below, lost to basically all players rated 5.0 or up, and had good matches with most players rated USTA 4.5 (mostly beating "low 4.5" and mostly losing to "high 4.5"). In Ultimate tennis, I beat basically everyone rated 5.0 or below and most players rated 5.5, and there was nobody rated above that to play. Both rating systems were basically right - within the pool of players being rated with that rating system. But it doesn't make sense for me to say "oh, USTA is wrong about all these players being 4.5, it should really narrow down the levels" or to say "oh, Ultimate tennis is wrong about the levels, it should really broaden their levels". They're just... different. It's not like there's a single objective number they're trying to measure, they've just made up different systems for ordering players to group them into leagues.
 
Specifically, my guess as to why the USTA has much wider bands is because it's designed for team leagues. A captain needs to make a group of 12-20 players of the same rating level to make a team, and you need to have a good 4-5 teams in the same geographic area to have a good league. You can get away with 3 but it's not great. So in a single area you need at least 50 and preferably more like 100 players of the same rating. If you make the rating bands too narrow, you'll start making team leagues unworkable for areas without as many players, since they'll start being split up into too many rating levels each of which is too small to support a flight of teams. And indeed, USTA basically groups all rec players into just 4 buckets - mostly everyone is 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, with just a few beginners in 2.5 and just a few very good players in 5.0.

Whereas Ultimate Tennis does individual leagues. You don't need flights of 100 players - you can have a good flex league with 10 players or so. So naturally they prefer to have much smaller ratings buckets! They would much prefer to split up 100 players into 5 or so levels so everyone has closer matchups. So it makes sense that however many players there are in an area, Ultimate Tennis will break them up into rating buckets as small as 10-20 people, if there's enough data to support that fine of a split.
 
Max G. said:
Specifically, my guess as to why the USTA has much wider bands is because it's designed for team leagues. A captain needs to make a group of 12-20 players of the same rating level to make a team, and you need to have a good 4-5 teams in the same geographic area to have a good league. You can get away with 3 but it's not great. So in a single area you need at least 50 and preferably more like 100 players of the same rating. If you make the rating bands too narrow, you'll start making team leagues unworkable for areas without as many players, since they'll start being split up into too many rating levels each of which is too small to support a flight of teams. And indeed, USTA basically groups all rec players into just 4 buckets - mostly everyone is 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, with just a few beginners in 2.5 and just a few very good players in 5.0.

Whereas Ultimate Tennis does individual leagues. You don't need flights of 100 players - you can have a good flex league with 10 players or so. So naturally they prefer to have much smaller ratings buckets! They would much prefer to split up 100 players into 5 or so levels so everyone has closer matchups. So it makes sense that however many players there are in an area, Ultimate Tennis will break them up into rating buckets as small as 10-20 people, if there's enough data to support that fine of a split.
Click to expand...

This is a really great point. Especially in smaller cities/areas (Im in South Florida with LOTS of players).
 
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