jcgatennismom
Hall of Fame
From time to time people post because they think UTR gets rankings wrong. However, give UTR more credit-they dont limit their mistakes to one category. How about colleges in the wrong states-maybe I could understand how the D2 national champions Columbus State (in GA) is listed as located in Miss according to UTR, but come on Univ of Idaho in PA? According to UTR, if you do a search by state, Univ of Idaho is the 4th highest ranked university in PA. Columbus State is 3rd best in Miss (ahead of Southern Miss) after Miss State and ole Miss. Pity the poor recruit who decides to use UTR to search for in state colleges. Also what about all those foreign players listed with US nationalities-I am not talking about those who are dual nationals or foreign born US residents. I am talking about college players who play Davis Cup for their home country but are listed on UTR as US nationals-lots of players on UTR with US nationality have a totally different nationality on the ITF listings. How about missing matches too? Out of curiosity I was looking to see how many D2 teams were in the state of GA (as one recently was cut), and I saw there was one team Fort Valley State where no player on their roster had a UTR singles rating (a few had dubs ratings). The D2 team actually has played 15 matches this year, but no team matches are on UTR since spring 2018. Dont know if that is a UTR or R2 Sports issue. Or how about the multiple entries for a single player especially for Spanish players who may have 4 names and 3-4 variations on those names on UTR. UTR should link or check against ITF database. Before trying to add millions of rec tennis results, UTR should have made sure its core base of college, pro, and junior results and identities were correct. Players should not input their own nationality; nationality should pull from ITF with possible override on request for special situations like dual nationals, foreign born residents, and other players who have a choice of nationality for tennis.
If the ITF didnt have enough problems with the fiasco of new Tour, the major tennis organizations including ITF, USTA, ITA, and national federations should own their data, set up one massive linked database of verified results, and then lease or sell data to UTR rather than have a commercial enterprise own the data. The ITF made a lot of mistakes on the Tour, but they did send out 5-6 months of 130+ page long shadow rankings before the change without obvious mistakes. ITF may have poor judgment but good data, computer systems and software. Then UTR could add on to its database adult USTA rec results, academy matchplay, high school results, and other more manipulative results. Of course the ITA R2Sports had error-filled launch this year-still many backdraw matches and some complete tourneys results missing from early fall. Some Sept matches were not entered into R2Sports until Dec and those late results still aren't in UTR. Cant blame UTR for R2Sports mistakes but I can point out that UTR needs to work on their US college geography.
As a person who had it drilled into me early in my career that data should be complete, accurate, independent, and audited, these tennis systems are a bit of a farce.
If the ITF didnt have enough problems with the fiasco of new Tour, the major tennis organizations including ITF, USTA, ITA, and national federations should own their data, set up one massive linked database of verified results, and then lease or sell data to UTR rather than have a commercial enterprise own the data. The ITF made a lot of mistakes on the Tour, but they did send out 5-6 months of 130+ page long shadow rankings before the change without obvious mistakes. ITF may have poor judgment but good data, computer systems and software. Then UTR could add on to its database adult USTA rec results, academy matchplay, high school results, and other more manipulative results. Of course the ITA R2Sports had error-filled launch this year-still many backdraw matches and some complete tourneys results missing from early fall. Some Sept matches were not entered into R2Sports until Dec and those late results still aren't in UTR. Cant blame UTR for R2Sports mistakes but I can point out that UTR needs to work on their US college geography.
As a person who had it drilled into me early in my career that data should be complete, accurate, independent, and audited, these tennis systems are a bit of a farce.
