Receiving a player background form indicative of grievance filed?

demunbrun

demunbrun

Rookie
I recently received an email from a USTA staff saying I needed to fill out a player background form in case of any grievances or questions regarding my current rating. I'm 3.0C so I didn't think I could have grievances filed, but that's last updated from 2021 and I've been having very strong results in 3.0 and have won some 3.5 doubles matches against highly rated 3.5 teams. I wasn't sure if someone maybe filed a complaint or if this is something that just makes the rounds on everyone every so often and just wanted to see if this would affect my involvement in league play. Thanks for any help!
 
Have never heard of anyone I know being asked to fill out the form. My guess is someone filed a grievance and they want to verify that you did not lie when you self-rated.
 
Have you improved a certain stroke vastly since being rated that would stand out? I assume someone filed a grievance on you thinking you are playing out of your level.
 
I didn’t know you can file a grievance against a computer rated player. But no I don’t hear of random background checks
 
HBK4life said:
Have you improved a certain stroke vastly since being rated that would stand out? I assume someone filed a grievance on you thinking you are playing out of your level.
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I've played outside of USTA a lot and only played mixed and USTA that didn't impact NTRP in 2023 so those results weren't factored in. Have improved overall since then most aspects so I could understand the grievance being warranted, just would prefer something more direct I guess but understand why that might not be appropriate.
 
schmke said:
I know of a few cases where a grievance was filed on a C rated player due to self-rating egregiously low in the prior year. Effectively the USTA found that they self-rated too low and because of that were able to get an inappropriate C rating.
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Good to know, thanks for sharing this. I'm definitely not trying to false rate and just wanna play to improve, but after really lopsided 3.0 wins I learned pretty fast I should be playing up and joined a 3.5 league so I'll hopefully get bumped. Do you know what else transpired in that given instance?
 
demunbrun said:
I've played outside of USTA a lot and only played mixed and USTA that didn't impact NTRP in 2023 so those results weren't factored in.
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I was told at an annual captains meeting that USTA is trying to find a way to enforce the ratings more strictly in mixed. It takes a while for mixed-only ratings to catch up to people who play little or no adult league. In my experience there are more egregious sandbaggers in mixed because you don't generally have to worry about DQs if the player isn't playing adult tennis.
 
time_fly said:
I was told at an annual captains meeting that USTA is trying to find a way to enforce the ratings more strictly in mixed. It takes a while for mixed-only ratings to catch up to people who play little or no adult league. In my experience there are more egregious sandbaggers in mixed because you don't generally have to worry about DQs if the player isn't playing adult tennis.
Click to expand...
I think a lot of players would appreciate this. I was super disappointed to see my mixed and fall/winter matches not get factored into my rating once I learned how the system worked. Seems so weird that only one season goes into it. Thanks for insight.
 
Roforot said:
You've probably seen this. So long as you didn't play highschool tennis all 4 years and ended up #1 singles/doubles you should be okay.
THe other thing that forces you to rate 3.5 is if you have a solid game built over years of matchplay which doesn't seem to fit your history.

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I am assuming these are not requirements. Every male under the age of 36 that played for a D3 school must rate themselves at a 4.5 or higher??

"Division III men also have a broad range from UTR 3.0 - 12.0"

College Tennis Features Range of UTR Ratings

UTR Sports examined UTR Ratings and found there are thousands of opportunities for players of all levels to play college tennis.
www.utrsports.net www.utrsports.net
 
Here’s a trick to get your local college-level players to play at rec levels: have them self-rate as soon as they turn 18, before they start playing for a college team. Then they can self-rate at 4.0 or 4.5. Have them play enough matches to get a C rating. Once they are in college, try to get them to play at least the minimum number of matches to keep their C rating. Add them full time to your team once they graduate, even though they would have to self-rate at 5.0+ if they were to start at that time.
 
Last edited:
Moon Shooter said:
I am assuming these are not requirements. Every male under the age of 36 that played for a D3 school must rate themselves at a 4.5 or higher??

"Division III men also have a broad range from UTR 3.0 - 12.0"

College Tennis Features Range of UTR Ratings

UTR Sports examined UTR Ratings and found there are thousands of opportunities for players of all levels to play college tennis.
www.utrsports.net www.utrsports.net
Click to expand...
No, those are guidelines that you are required to follow when self-rating. You can file a self-rating appeal that will be reviewed by actual people and not just a computer algorithm, and if you really have a 3.0 UTR, it should be granted. Most former D3 players under 36 should be at least 4.5. There are exceptions, but the USTA forces the "too low" players to get to the appropriate level by appeal rather than allowing the actual 4.5 caliber players to rate lower without human intervention.
 
time_fly said:
Here’s a trick to get your local college-level players to play at rec levels: have them self-rate as soon as they turn 18, before they start playing for a college team. Then they can self-rate at 4.0 or 4.5. Have them play enough matches to get a C rating. Once they are in college, try to get them to play at least the minimum number of matches to keep their C rating. Add them full time to your team once they graduate, even though they would have to self-rate at 5.0+ if they were to start at that time.
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who on earth has a five year plan to sandbag-to-win a rec league
 
time_fly said:
Here’s a trick to get your local college-level players to play at rec levels: have them self-rate as soon as they turn 18, before they start playing for a college team. Then they can self-rate at 4.0 or 4.5. Have them play enough matches to get a C rating. Once they are in college, try to get them to play at least the minimum number of matches to keep their C rating. Add them full time to your team once they graduate, even though they would have to self-rate at 5.0+ if they were to start at that time.
Click to expand...
Usta guidelines includes people who have committed to play for college
 
silverwyvern4 said:
Usta guidelines includes people who have committed to play for college
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Two years ago, they refined the question to include a follow up that says something like "I was a practice player or walk on who didn't make the team" or something like that that allows for a 4.0 self-rating instead of 5.0. This is true for a lot of low/mid D3 "commits" who are still in High School and are committed to a college (most of the time for non-tennis reasons) and the coach lists them as "committed" for marketing purposes on TennisRecruiting even though they are non-scholarship players who just told the coach yeah, I'll play for the team when I get to school.

The USTA never revised the published guidelines to recognize this question, but it is on the self-rating questionnaire and allows high school kids who have picked their school and are listed as "committed" on TR to self-rate at 4.0 as long as they are not scholarship players or big time tennis recruits. I had a kid on my team 2 years ago who is the son of one of my friends/teammates who was listed as a TR "commit" who got a 4.0 rating this way. Another captain filed a grievance over the listed commitment but it was denied with the reasoning that the school was not a strong tennis school and he hadn't even played for the team yet. He was clearly a 4.0 level doubles player, probably borderline 4.0/4.5 singles (being 18 and athletic with big but inconsistent topspin groundstrokes) but definitely not clearly out of level or inappropriate for the level.
 
time_fly said:
I was told at an annual captains meeting that USTA is trying to find a way to enforce the ratings more strictly in mixed. It takes a while for mixed-only ratings to catch up to people who play little or no adult league. In my experience there are more egregious sandbaggers in mixed because you don't generally have to worry about DQs if the player isn't playing adult tennis.
Click to expand...
The 4.0 teaching pro I know that sandbags to stay at 4.0 who puts together fellow travelers to play with 3.0 girls to dominate 7.0 isn’t going to appreciate this.
 
time_fly said:
I was told at an annual captains meeting that USTA is trying to find a way to enforce the ratings more strictly in mixed. It takes a while for mixed-only ratings to catch up to people who play little or no adult league. In my experience there are more egregious sandbaggers in mixed because you don't generally have to worry about DQs if the player isn't playing adult tennis.
Click to expand...
just use utr/wtn?
 
HBK4life said:
The 4.0 teaching pro I know that sandbags to stay at 4.0 who puts together fellow travelers to play with 3.0 girls to dominate 7.0 isn’t going to appreciate this.
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hehe, i know a few of those... basically 5.0's who self rated as 4.0 to play mixed with their 3.0 students who are often also (a) paying for the matches and court time at the pro's club or just paying the pros fees (b) paying for doubles clinics (c) paying for lessons...
 
HBK4life said:
The 4.0 teaching pro I know that sandbags to stay at 4.0 who puts together fellow travelers to play with 3.0 girls to dominate 7.0 isn’t going to appreciate this.
Click to expand...
Mixed in the US sounds like such a nightmare

Where I live you would not be able to pair a significantly weaker female player with a significantly stronger male player (much less optimise for it)

The goal is to get balanced pairs, so if anything the woman ends up being a higher level than her partner
 
Cashman said:
Mixed in the US sounds like such a nightmare

Where I live you would not be able to pair a significantly weaker female player with a significantly stronger male player (much less optimise for it)

The goal is to get balanced pairs, so if anything the woman ends up being a higher level than her partner
Click to expand...
It is a joke. I have seen teams where they just stick the female in alley to volley incase it guys there. That’s it.
 
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