Interesting comment about UTR
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D
Deleted member 23235
Guest
a junior, hitting a "junior" overhead, if placed directly in my eye... would also cause damage.
what's your point?
dsp9753
Semi-Pro
Pretty sure the average junior at my UTR level hits harder groundstrokes then I do. Whats protecting me from them?!?!
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
Have you watched singles tennis lately? If either the junior or woman wandered in from the baseline at any point in their match with the man, it would be a shock for everyone. So I'm not sure how many instances you'd see of one person being up at the net hitting an overhead much less both players.
Methinks the clubs guys concerns are overwrought. I think men are just scared to lose to a woman or child. Their poor fragile egos, you know.
Isn't the difference obvious? Adult vs junior making the decision to play?
UTR also has doubles ratings
D
Deleted member 23235
Guest
or methinks the club guys that OP hangs out with, are silly enough to saunter to net when their opponent has an easy OH
D
Deleted member 23235
Guest
this is not an mma or boxing match....
Yes, the concern being raised was small girl vs big man, with big man being of the same level or worse as the girl.
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
So the club guys have never heard of USTA mixed leagues where a 3.5 woman can be playing against a 4.5 male? At least with UTR, the woman in the doubles group will be higher rated than the males.
The women that play in mixed doubles leagues and tournaments with men are quite aware of the risks and know how to react accordingly to overheads. It's only a problem in social mixers where a low level woman, not used to male overheads gives the old "deer in headlights" look as the man winds up.
5sets
Hall of Fame
I'd pay to watch that.
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Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
You'd have to have a hell of a 10 year old girl to beat a 3.5 male. I've watched some pretty impressive 10 year old girls who wail at the ball but they still can't hit serves or return serves worth a damn. Not strong enough yet.
BallBag
Professional
I don't actually have a 10 year old daughter but my hypothetical 10 yo daughter has been playing 12 and under this year and is doing ok. She'd have trouble with a 80 mph flat serve but I would be more worried about the ones that sail into the fence than the ocasional one that goes in.
Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
A good enough girl to compete against a 3.5 male would have the footwork to dodge those serves handily. And even still, its not likely to hit anyone in the eye from 80 feet away. People are being quite hyperbolic about their concerns. I've watched our 15 year old junior girls champion take on the 4.5 guys in our club and face those 100 mph serves. She does just fine. If you are good enough, you are good enough. That's what UTR is about. To reset the farce that is USTA ratings where a 4.0 woman is nowhere near the same level as a 4.0 male.
BallBag
Professional
My hyperbolic concerns a limited to the lower levels. I've had good time playing UTR and I like what UTR is trying to do but it's a bit naive to say that all you need for a good match up is being good enough. You are going to have some odd demographic matchups in the lower levels and not everyone will be a good sport about it.
Also, the resolution in 4 and under UTR is not good enough, it has all women's tennis 4.0 NTRP and under (which is most of women's tennis), 3.5 NTRP men and most 12 and under juniors.
Nostradamus
Bionic Poster
I hit just as hard as junior. they are not good, not consistent
MathGeek
Hall of Fame
I'm not scared, and I have lots of practice.
A 3.5 UTR male is not so impressive and I've seen quite a few 10 year old girls who can beat them.
3.5 NTRP male is a lot better. A 3.5 NTRP male would be close to 6-8 in UTR. A pairing with a similarly rated 10 year old girl is unlikely.
BallBag
Professional
I am a 3.75 NTRP (TR) and 6.15 UTR. I would say both ratings are accurate. I have seen some some high speed 3.5s get to low 5 UTR but never close to 6.
Vox Rationis
Professional
That is...not accurate at all. 6-8 were the UTR ratings of most players that played in USTA 4.0 nationals 2 weekends ago. And those are supposed to be the top 4.0s in the nation.
UTR itself says that NTRP 4.0 translates roughly to 4.5-7.0 on the UTR rating scale. https://www.myutr.com/media/UTR_Player_Range.pdf
D
Deleted member 23235
Guest
what age/level tourney do your reference to juniors play?
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could you provide a single verifiable evidence of 3.5 NTRP male being let's say 7.50 or higher UTR? in singles, with at least like 10 matches so it is somewhat reliable....
Vox Rationis
Professional
No need for the 10 match minimum. I don't think you could find a 3.5 with a 7 UTR, period, that isn't horribly out of level.
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MathGeek
Hall of Fame
I've personally known some USTA Juniors with 3.5 NTRPs who are as high as UTR 8s. Perhaps the Junior NTRPs are not comparable with those of adults?
Verifiable? I'm not going to violate their privacy by posting links.
How is posting a link to a record in publicly available database violating privacy?
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Vox Rationis
Professional
I know nothing about Junior NTRPs to be honest. I figured we were strictly speaking about adults.
D
Deleted member 23235
Guest
hehe, just noticed a buddy who is a ntrp4.0, and plays tourneys.... he's utr6
have you actually played them?
for sure, if i were a 3.5 captain, i'd tell them to self rate low...
UTR8 would crush most 3.5's by just hitting to their bh...
also, i though ntrp is for 18's and up... ie the kid is no longer a "junior"?
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Dartagnan64
G.O.A.T.
That seems pretty fair for singles. I can't see anything awful happening other than the juniors being exposed to some colorful language. But if that's the concern, parents can keep their kids out of a UTR tournament with adults or the organizers can make it an 18+ UTR event. Lots of our juniors play with adults at our club and there isn't any problems that I've seen. Most 3.5 men are not a hazard on the court at least in my experience.
BulldogLouisiana
Rookie
Eh, unless it's a hit to the eye...a tennis ball doesn't seem likely to really hurt anyone.
MathGeek
Hall of Fame
Pretty sure posting that detail about Juniors violates the TT privacy policies. Also, I'm not sure that Junior NTRPs are as widely available as adult NTRPs are. USTA seems to keep a tighter lid on those. I happen to know my son's and those of some other juniors close to our family. Tournament Directors have access to more records than the general public for use in seeding and making competitive brackets. (This is true both in USTA and UTR as far as I can tell.)
In any case, the Golden Rule still applies. Someone with sufficient Google skills might be able to find most of my sporting history online somewhere, but I'd probably prefer they not be posting links on TT to win an argument. I was never real comfortable even with the amount of Junior info USTA puts out there on my son. We've had a few issues with stalkers and creepers over the years. We tolerated it with some care, because as an older teen my son was not really at the same level of risk as our children were when they were younger, and because we maintained certain attention to privacy and care in other aspects of USTA (PO Box rather than home address, etc.)
Traffic
Hall of Fame
I looked up my 15y/o son. His UTR is 8. I'd say he would beat most good 4.5s. If he played a 3.5NTRP male adult, the adult should be careful not to get hit with his serves and OH and ground strokes and volleys.
MathGeek
Hall of Fame
Can you look up his Junior NTRP? If you are willing to share that would provide an additional data point.
The other thing about juniors is they often have strokes at a much higher level than their actual competitive ability. They may have the strokes to play with adults at a certain level but they don't have the mental game to actually realize the winning potential of their strokes. Ultimately NTRP and UTR are both based in winning games, not one's strokes.
I was talking more about junior girls, who may be good, but careless and get hit by a guy with a big tummy standing close to the net.
Traffic
Hall of Fame
The only thing I saw was a USTA rating of 3.4 this summer. He's probably under rated. I agree that his strokes are much better than 4.0-4.5. What he lacks in experience and strategy, he makes up for with speed and endurance.
He played a rather hard hitting adult and won. The adult said that too many of his "money" shots were coming back because of my son's speed and so the adult would ultimately make the first UE.
My son will lose to a good 5.0 that played in D1 college. Not only does he fall behind in strokes but also strategy and reading his opponents.
How about the Stanford college players you played with?
It is not, but that was one of the reasons the Junior section was removed from this board. Problem was people used publicly available data to go on a rant about someone else's son or daughter, including comments about their dress and appearance when they were able to track down pics or videos.
FiReFTW
Legend
UTR is not accurate, especially across genres, juniors are different than adults etc... also UTR vs NTRP is extremely unreliable, all in all its not a reliable way to measure skill unless you are comparing 2 similar juniors with a UTR, but once you start comparing a junior vs adult, or a female vs male, or UTR vs NTRP, it gets extremely unreliable and inconsistent.
@J011yroger you have experience with this don't you
@J011yroger you have experience with this don't you
J011yroger
Talk Tennis Guru
BallBag
Professional
As long as everyone has been well medicated that day than you won't have issues. I had the pleasure of getting my ass handed to me by a 13 yo girl. Her dad was not happy with the quality of ass beating she was producing and was berating her the whole time. That made it awkward for me since my dad has lost interest in my tennis a long time ago and would not come to my matches.
Doubles
Legend
Agreed. If you don't play a dedicated tournament schedule I don't believe that it adequately reflects level. Tracking USTA matches in UTR doesn't seem to help, either. I've seen 4.0's with UTR's of 6 and other 4.0's with UTR's of 8 or 9. On my 4.5 team this past summer there was a UTR 6 and a 12.
MathGeek
Hall of Fame
My wife and I have had some pretty positive UTR experiences, including a doubles match with a father-son pair. We expected a close match based on UTR and managed to win the first set, but once the dad was able to coach the son in not falling for our tricks, their skill and youth won the day and they captured the second and third sets. It was a fun and competitive match, but even more fun was watching the dad and son work together. They kept their strategy talks private, so I'm only triangulating what was said from what I saw result on the court.
Most of the time, I prefer to play my peers over 50, but there is something just plain exciting and interesting provided by the variety one encounters in UTR. My body takes much more of a beating against younger opponents, but it is a lot more fun and memorable that the old geezer sessions that hurt less and more vaguely resemble the sport formerly known as tennis. And even in losses, the youths usually acknowledge I/we brought something to the table they don't usually see. Youth tennis and their training is pretty cookie cutter these days, and UTR interactions gets them out of that mold as much as it gets my wife and I out of old geezer tennis mold.
Why? I think Serena is a 12 while Murray is 16. This is the kind of spread you would expect and the reason male college players act as practice partners for female pros.
Apart from the danger issue I mentioned, why does gender and age matter if UTR is the same?
J011yroger
Talk Tennis Guru
D
Deleted member 23235
Guest
agreed... but hoping that over time, it will become more accurate...
BulldogLouisiana
Rookie
I’ve never seen a guy with a big tummy actually hit the ball very hard. Fat dudes saying they would be afraid of hurting a girl, is just an egocentric way of saying “I don’t want to lose to a girl.”
I’m overweight, and often get told that I look very intimidating at the net. I’d hit the ball a lot better if I lost 30 pounds.
I have. I am talking about big tummy + big body overall. Some of these guys have brutal arm power.
MathGeek
Hall of Fame
For me, the question is not "accurate" or "not accurate" but rather, "How accurate is a rating system for a given purpose?"
One way to frame this question is to ask, "How likely are UTR ratings within 1.0 of each other to produce a match that is not a blow out?" For me, I tend to appreciate matches as long as no one is bread sticked or bageled, so I'll set the threshold at at least 4 wins for the loser in a best of three 6 game set match. That's an overall game split of 12-4, so I'll set the threshold for "not a blow out" at the loser winning at least 25% of the games.
With this threshold, I can then look at a number of local tournaments I've attended or tracked and consider what percentage of matches that meet the inclusion criteria (UTR ratings within 1.0 of each other) produce matches I can appreciate. My analysis has tended to focus on the UTRs of my friends and family, and I find that both this analysis AND our personal experience has been that UTR produces a satisfying number of competitive matches (well over 50%).
One can compare this easily enough with USTA events based on the same NTRP rating. What percentage of USTA matches in your area are competitive enough to be interesting for the players? From what I can tell perusing local histories, it's about the same. Some subsets of the USTA world tend to be more competitive than others. So the one that matters for a given player is the one they actually compete in.
Then it comes down to other preferences: scheduling, costs, driving distances, venues, and style of play. I prefer UTR, because it allows me to face opponents who I would not normally play. I also prefer the scheduling of UTR, because it allows a more a la carte approach which suits my travel and lifestyle well. It's hard to commit to every Sat AM or every Thu PM for 8-10 weeks for a USTA league, and there are very few USTA tournament options. (There are UTR tourneys about 3 times a month at convenient locations.) The UTR events tend to be more expensive, which is suboptimal, but I am willing to pay for the other advantages.
I also enjoy plenty of events that are neither USTA nor UTR, and in fact, most of the events I played in 2018 were unaffiliated with either group. These are a combination of club level deals with unaffiliated organizers and events affiliated with the Senior Olympics.
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