Not knowing your rating

Tjg

Rookie
I play with people from Facebook groups. To find someone, you post your location and player rating. More often than not, people have an inflated view of their abilities. Someone will say they are 4.0 and looking for similar. You get to the court and they are really a 2.5-3.0. It happens a lot. I have thought about posting a photo that shows what rating is what, but I fee that will just cause drama. I have traveled 45min to play with a “4.0” and they could not hit anything back, it was the worst yet.
 

Tjg

Rookie
Sounds like online dating. You never know what you're really going to get.
Seriously. I would say this is actually worse when it comes to people’s opinions of their abilities. Comparable to saying your a Michelin Star chef while dropping fries in oil at McDonald’s.
 

Enga

Hall of Fame
Its probably because they read the general guidelines and they see things like "can control the ball left or right" and figure "i can do that". They don't know that the descriptions are completely irrelevant to the actual ratings, or that they can vary region by region.
 
D

Deleted member 769694

Guest
I play with people from Facebook groups. To find someone, you post your location and player rating. More often than not, people have an inflated view of their abilities. Someone will say they are 4.0 and looking for similar. You get to the court and they are really a 2.5-3.0. It happens a lot. I have thought about posting a photo that shows what rating is what, but I fee that will just cause drama. I have traveled 45min to play with a “4.0” and they could not hit anything back, it was the worst yet.

Ratings are now based on match play results, not your strokes. Some people could get nervous or have a bad day. They arent pro's :)
 

Tjg

Rookie
Ratings are now based on match play results, not your strokes. Some people could get nervous or have a bad day. They arent pro's :)
I don’t think they play matches. One guy recently said he was looking for a 4.0 to play with. He was not able to return soft lobs. He would try to smash nearly every ball and home run them, almost over the fences. I have no idea where he got 4.0 from.
 

chic

Hall of Fame
I feel like the disconnect is that casual tennis people playing with other casual tennis people and never encountering the club tennis world can have a very skewed understanding when reading the USTA descriptions.

They just don't know what they don't know till they actually hit with someone who's a real 3.5 or 4.0.

Conversely I feel like many people who are actually on level will undersell themselves because they know how much better others around their skill tier are at certain aspects they lack.

Viscous cycle.
 
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Tjg

Rookie
I feel like the disconnect is that casual tennis people playing with other casual tennis people and never encountering the club tennis world can have a very skewed understanding when reading the USTA descriptions.

They just don't know what they don't know till they actually hit with someone who's a real 3.5 or 4.0.

Conversely I feel like many people who are actually on level will undersell themselves because they know how much better others around their skill tier are at certain aspects they lack.

Viscous cycle.
Yeah, something else that fuels other people inflated ability is when their bad play brings other better players down. When they hit bad, short shots with no pace it makes the other person look like they can’t handle the shot when they have to run from the baseline. So now the person who hit that thinks they are making good shots that better players can’t return, so they must be a better player.

I feel like tennis is the only sport that will make bad players think they are good because their unpredictable over the net accidents win them points.
 
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