Self-Rating Rules

[Moon Shooter]

You're just ******** to hear yourself ***** (yet again). Every league I've ever played in (or even seen) has teams that know they won't make the postseason before the season even starts. Not a single one thinks they're "not getting their full money's worth". You have a special penchant for picking the absolute dumbest arguments possible.

LOL I just agreed with your argument in another thread.

Don't take it too hard.

I have never played on a team that was sure it wouldn't make post season - I doubt I ever played against such a team either. I know there are some B teams in my area of central Illinois, but it is very rare probably less then 5% of teams.

 

[schmke]

LOL I just agreed with your argument in another thread.

Don't take it too hard.

I have never played on a team that was sure it wouldn't make post season - I doubt I ever played against such a team either. I know there are some B teams in my area of central Illinois, but it is very rare probably less then 5% of teams.

Teams/captains may somehow think they can compete, but in my area at most levels we'll have 2-4 flights at every level with 8-10 teams in each flight, and I can tell you at the start of the season the 2-4 teams that have an actual chance at finishing in the top-2 and advancing to local playoffs. Whether the other 4-6 teams think it or know it or not, they don't have a chance. That is simply the nature of level based play with the ranges we have for levels.

But before you say the range for the levels is what is wrong, consider that in every pro sport you pretty much know at the start of the season that several teams are very unlikely to make it to the playoffs, and most sports now have 40-50% of teams make the playoffs, so that is saying something.

 

[Kochua]

In a similar vein - I’ve played three different USTA seasons. All were on teams with something like half of the players playing up a level, and one was a planned B team. I’ve never started a season with any belief my team would make playoffs (and lo and behold, my teams have won maybe five team matches across the three seasons), but that didn’t stop me from competing hard and enjoying the experience.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Teams/captains may somehow think they can compete, but in my area at most levels we'll have 2-4 flights at every level with 8-10 teams in each flight, and I can tell you at the start of the season the 2-4 teams that have an actual chance at finishing in the top-2 and advancing to local playoffs. Whether the other 4-6 teams think it or know it or not, they don't have a chance. That is simply the nature of level based play with the ranges we have for levels.

But before you say the range for the levels is what is wrong, consider that in every pro sport you pretty much know at the start of the season that several teams are very unlikely to make it to the playoffs, and most sports now have 40-50% of teams make the playoffs, so that is saying something.

Pros get paid to play. So of course they will play even if they don't think they will make playoffs or get beat badly.

I think the men know they will get beat or at least figure it out. That is why they stop playing. They get tired of losing. That is my point. 3/4s of the men at the levels with the most players know they have very little chance of winning. With women and their tighter ranges that is not that case. And that is why we see women participate much more then men.

Look at the courts public or club. Are there more men or women playing tennis? I see more men playing but lets say its even 50/50.

Now lets look at a skill range that will cover well over half of adult amateur tennis players UTR 1-4.00. Yes a much larger percentage of women as a whole are in this group then men. But still overall more then half the men I see playing are in this group maybe 70% - just by eyeballing it. Maybe 90% of women are in the 1-4 utr.

Now lets look at league play numbers:

Analyzing 2023 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - Distribution of players across levels by gender

2023 year-end ratings were published a few days ago and I've started doing my stats with bump rates by section and gender , bump rates by ...

computerratings.blogspot.com

UTR 1-4.00 playing strength covers Womens 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and about a half of the 4.0 players.

Men have UTR 4.00 players in the 3.0 level. So while there are also UTR sub 4.00 men at 3.5 USTA level in this range that is going to be cold comfort for the UTR 1-3.5 level players who are just going to get their buts kicked by utr 4.0 players at the 3.0. Going up to 3.5 won't help them. But ok lets say about half of 3.5 men are in that range.

Women's leagues have tighter ranges for this large skill group of players, UTR 1-4. And what we see is there are about 17,500 2.5 women playing USTA. 46,000 3.0 women 46,000 3.5 women and 26,000 4.0 women so divide that by 2 and you get 13,000.

So in the 1-4 UTR group you have about 122,000 women participating in competitive league tennis.

If we take that same range of men utr 1-4.00 you have 16,000 3.0 and 28,000 3.5 (divide by half you get 14,000). For this same skill group the utr 1-4 you have 30,0000.

Now I think this huge spread between levels for men is the reason there are over 4xs as many women who play USTA in this range. I also think the smaller spreads in levels is why so many women play USTA tennis overall.

What do you think explains this huge disparate? Do you think women are just naturally more competitive then men, so they will join these competitive leagues more often. Do women join more competitive leagues relative to their numbers is in other sports like basketball golf or chess or anything else?

You guys say well men don't mind losing so these large spreads don't change anything. Kochua posts how he doesn't mind losing and I believe him. I don't mind either. But you know we do see more men sandbagging then women right? Why? - to win. And we see much lower participation numbers in men's leagues where the spread is so large that over 3/4s of the players in that level have slim chances of winning against the best of that level. (Not so with the women's much more narrow levels.) Now you can say all you want that winning doesn't matter for men and that therefore these large ranges don't explain the huge lack of interest in USTA competition for Men tennis players - compared to women. But then what explains the extremely low turn out for men as opposed to women in this sport? Is there something about tennis in particular that makes men less competitive then women?

Lot's of men do care about winning and losing in league matches and the huge ranges make it so about 3/4s of the men in the range have very little chance of beating the best in that level. That the men participate dramatically less then women in competitive USTA tennis should not be a mystery.

 

[schmke]

Pros get paid to play. So of course they will play even if they don't think they will make playoffs or get beat badly.

My point was not that pros will play regardless due to being paid, but instead that in the pros 40-50% of teams make the playoffs while in most USTA league flights, one, maybe two make it, on the order of 10-20%. And players still play in the face of that uphill battle to make the playoffs.

I think the men know they will get beat or at least figure it out. That is why they stop playing. They get tired of losing. That is my point. 3/4s of the men at the levels with the most players know they have very little chance of winning. With women and their tighter ranges that is not that case. And that is why we see women participate much more then men.

But men don't stop playing. There are many many men that play year after year on teams that have little chance to advance to playoffs. You seem to be implying that men that play are doing so for one of only two reasons: 1) they are on a team vying to make playoffs, or 2) they are trying to tank their way down a level so they can be on a team vying to make playoffs. If they can't be successful at one of those, they quit.

Women play more than men in part because in many areas there are more leagues for women, specifically daytime leagues for those that prefer to play during the day during the week instead of evenings or weekends.

But some women, certainly not all, are more concerned with what their rating is and getting bumped up than they are with their team winning and advancing, and this probably also promotes playing more as they play more in an effort to get the good results to get themselves bumped up.

I don't think it is really a fair analysis to look at UTR 1-4 only. If you numbers are correct, it is a 4:1 ratio of women vs men and while there are more women that play USTA league than men, it is nowhere close to that ratio. Assuming UTR is gender neutral (supposed to be but debatable based on the results) you are omitting a good number of male players so it isn't really representative. The bulk of male players are 3.5 and 4.0 and your analysis is for the most part missing them.

You talk about more men sandbagging than women and that is true, but we still talking about a small percentage of the players. I'm not saying these percentages are the reality, but if 3% of women tank and 6% of men tank, you can say "twice as many men tank as women! There is clearly a problem!". But one could also say that 94% of male USTA players go out and play for fun and/or to compete, win or lose, and be part of a team.

Yes, tanking happens, and I'd love to see steps taken to crack down on it, but extrapolating the complaints on TT as an indication it is rampant and everyone does it is simply not accurate.

 

[TennisOTM]

I don't think the higher participation numbers for women vs. men has anything to do with the competitiveness or skill range of the levels. Women's tennis is just generally very popular, all the way up to pro tennis which is just about the most popular women's sport there is. Surely that cultural popularity plays a big role driving up participation, among other factors.

It's just not true that men's 3.0 is fundamentally non-competitive with a massive skill range. There may be some individual leagues where that situation arises, but in active areas where enough matches get rated, the system works itself out to get the right level of players together. My area is pretty active and, as I said above, it is extremely rare for UTR 4+ male players to be at 3.0, at least not for long.

We have an active 3.0 men's league happening right now, and they are having good matches across the board. When the first place team defeated the last place team, the match scores were 6-4, 6-4; 6-3, 6-2; and 3-6, 6-1, 1-0. Perfectly reasonable experience for everyone. I can't image many players on the last place team being driven to quit after a season of matches like that, even if they lose most of them.

 

[Roforot]

In a similar vein - I’ve played three different USTA seasons. All were on teams with something like half of the players playing up a level, and one was a planned B team. I’ve never started a season with any belief my team would make playoffs (and lo and behold, my teams have won maybe five team matches across the three seasons), but that didn’t stop me from competing hard and enjoying the experience.

Yes, if you have legit players a half level lower as we did, it's going to be tough. That being said I still enjoy playing.
We had a great start where we won close matches w other teams who were similarly built. If the season had stopped there, we would have been the top team . But reality caught up w/ us and we're now middle of the pack. Still we gave the top team a scare nearly handing them their first loss of the season. So no one thought we were the best team but it is still a possibility we can upset or take down the best team which is in my opinion is what we want for competition.

Now if we did a Lebron thing and grouped all the best players to that team...

 

[Moon Shooter]

I don't think the higher participation numbers for women vs. men has anything to do with the competitiveness or skill range of the levels. Women's tennis is just generally very popular, all the way up to pro tennis which is just about the most popular women's sport there is. Surely that cultural popularity plays a big role driving up participation, among other factors.

It's just not true that men's 3.0 is fundamentally non-competitive with a massive skill range. There may be some individual leagues where that situation arises, but in active areas where enough matches get rated, the system works itself out to get the right level of players together. My area is pretty active and, as I said above, it is extremely rare for UTR 4+ male players to be at 3.0, at least not for long.

We have an active 3.0 men's league happening right now, and they are having good matches across the board. When the first place team defeated the last place team, the match scores were 6-4, 6-4; 6-3, 6-2; and 3-6, 6-1, 1-0. Perfectly reasonable experience for everyone. I can't image many players on the last place team being driven to quit after a season of matches like that, even if they lose most of them.

I do not see more women then men out on the courts generally playing tennis, do you? If it was the case that women's tennis is so much more popular and there 4 times as many women rec adult tennis players as men then ok I would agree with you. But there aren't I see more men every time I go to a public or club court. So why are these men not playing USTA tennis.

Sure the matches are close in 3.0 leagues but the only people playing in them are the top end players. They are as stong as mid level women 4.0 players. If the leagues included all the men who are equivalent to 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 women then you would see the variety.

It is possible that UTR is deflated for men in your area. But the overall UTR chart shows that nationally 3.0 men includes many 4.00 UTR men. I have had my own UTR rating vary from 3.80-4.75 doubles for 3 years and have always been a 3.0.

 

[Moon Shooter]

My point was not that pros will play regardless due to being paid, but instead that in the pros 40-50% of teams make the playoffs while in most USTA league flights, one, maybe two make it, on the order of 10-20%. And players still play in the face of that uphill battle to make the playoffs.

But men don't stop playing. There are many many men that play year after year on teams that have little chance to advance to playoffs. You seem to be implying that men that play are doing so for one of only two reasons: 1) they are on a team vying to make playoffs, or 2) they are trying to tank their way down a level so they can be on a team vying to make playoffs. If they can't be successful at one of those, they quit.....

Men do not play as much as women. Not even close. And no I am not saying or implying that men only play for the 2 reasons you offer. I am simply saying that when people know they are going to lose they are less likely to keep playing. tWhen 3/4s of men realize they are at the bottom of these huge ranges in levels that makes it less likely they will play. Your own comments indicate that only about 25% of teams have a realistic shot at winning. Losing is not as much fun as winning. So we should not be surprised that a way lower percentage of men play.

Why is this so hard for you to believe. The womens league has much more narrow levels and that means anyone at the level has a better chance of winning on any given day. And women have much higher participation.

What percentage of matches have men at the bottom half of the level and what percentage have men at the top? Take 3.0 leagues how many matches have doubles teams whose dynamic rating average 2.75 or less and how many matches have teams that average 2.76 or higher? How many 3.0 league singles matches have players lower then 2.75 versus over 2.75? I know in my experience I have almost never played against a 3.0 team or singles player with lower then 2.75 according to TR. It is likely at least 5 to 1 where the average or singles player is over 2.75.

 

[schmke]

Yes, more women play USTA League than men, but I'm not sure what ratio you think it is when you say it isn't even close? You'd listed a 4:1 ratio earlier, but the truth is it is only 1.5:1. More, sure, but not anywhere close to 4:1.

To your point of lower rated players within a level avoiding playing, I don't think this is true. What you are likely seeing at the 3.0 level is simply that there are fewer men that are rated in the lower part of the 3.0 range than the upper part, but this isn't because players avoid playing but instead simply that the average male player is a upper 3.5 (my 2023 year-end data shows 3.48) and so when you look at the bell curve distribution of male players, there are more 3.5s and 4.0s than 3.0s and so yes, if you look at the distribution at the tenth instead of the half point, you are also going to see the bell curve result in more high 3.0s than low 3.0s.

The average women's player is not a mid/high 3.5 but instead a lower-end 3.5 (3.13) and so this bell curve is moved to the left significantly and the number of high 3.0s vs low 3.0s is not as extreme simply because you aren't on a section of the bell curve with as steep a slope as 3.0s for the men.

Similar analysis thus shows that for 4.5 men, there are more lower-end 4.5s than upper-end 4.5s again, because we are just on the downward slope of the bell curve, so in fact all these lower-end 4.5s that have no shot of winning aren't quitting and in fact do keep playing which would seem to go against your argument.

 

[socallefty]

I think that the amount of social inter-action (beer, food) there is after matches within a team and often with opponents can have a lot to do with whether players/team that lose a lot still enjoy USTA. When there is a lot of alcohol-fueled socializing after matches, players keep signing up for teams locally even if their teams are never in contention and players lose a lot - this is true often with teams out of private clubs locally that have bars and/or allow alcohol. You often become friends not just with players on your team, but also with opponents that you see often each year.

Many public tennis centers in the part of California where I live don’t allow alcohol and here it seems like there is much less camaraderie or socializing within home teams and also with opponents after matches. Here players seem to get frustrated if they and their teams lose a lot as there is not much else they are getting from being part of a team of strangers at these public centers. I’m talking about public facilities including high school courts where there is no membership and teams are formed from players who don’t see each much otherwise outside of the USTA match. It is actually a chore even to play away matches at these places as all you get out of the experience is the actual match with zero socializing - when I captained a team at my club, I started finding pubs to hang out at near the away match public facility after matches and it seemed to entice more of my players to make themselves available to play.

Also even things like how far you have to drive for away matches makes a difference with how much players who lose a lot want to sign up for away matches. We used to have a lot of teams in our county a decade ago and at that time, the leagues at each level were split up as South County and North County leagues with much less driving (<30 mins) needed for away matches and the format was a home and away match against each team. Once there were less teams, they just had one County league with one match against each opponent and a lot more driving for away matches - sometimes >60-75 mins. Once a team is not in contention to win the league, it is a lot harder to find available players for away matches where they had to drive 75 mins than for matches where the driving was 15-20 mins.

I don’t think it is as simple as saying that narrow levels will increase participation of male players as there are many social/logistical reasons that also determine participation. The men are mostly playing only weekend USTA leagues while women here have mostly weekday teams and some weekend leagues. The weekday women are mostly not having jobs outside of the home and they socialize a lot for hours after weekday matches with food/drink - often doing team drills with coaches on non-match days is also common with socializing afterwards.

 

[TennisOTM]

Sure the matches are close in 3.0 leagues but the only people playing in them are the top end players.

Not true.

I count 136 men who have played in 3.0 league in my area so far this year. Of those, 20 (15%) of them are actually rated 2.5 and playing up (there are no 2.5 men's leagues available).

On Tennisrecord: of the 136 men, 54 (40%) are currently rated below 2.75, and 36 (26%) are below 2.60. There are plenty of lower-end 3.0 or even 2.5 guys playing in these leagues, and they're having good matches.

 

[cks]

when I captained a team at my club, I started finding pubs to hang out at near the away match public facility after matches and it seemed to entice more of my players to make themselves available to play.

I need to try this. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Not true.

I count 136 men who have played in 3.0 league in my area so far this year. Of those, 20 (15%) of them are actually rated 2.5 and playing up (there are no 2.5 men's leagues available).

On Tennisrecord: of the 136 men, 54 (40%) are currently rated below 2.75, and 36 (26%) are below 2.60. There are plenty of lower-end 3.0 or even 2.5 guys playing in these leagues, and they're having good matches.

I’m not sure why you claim what I said is not true.

And to be clear I asked average rating of matches. Yes teams have a few guys at lower rating so they don’t have to default a court etc. but they don’t get played as often as the better players.

is it more fun to be on a team where

1)you rarely get played and when you do you have very little chance of winning
Or
2) when your captain always wants to play you and when you do you have a decent chance of winning
?

If you think 2 sounds more fun then that’s really all we need to say about it. The larger ranges means more people will be in category 1 instead of category 2.

Edit plus you are only including leagues where you need a bunch of players. If you are at the top of your level you will be asked to play in tri level and mixed etc. the bottom guys are not on as many teams. What is the average court rating for tri level play? In your area?

 

[Moon Shooter]

As far as tennis being popular for women versus men compared to what?

Volleyball and softball are very lopsided for women growing up. Men often don’t even have teams. But at the adult rec level suddenly men are playing in these competitive leagues. I don’t know of any high school with girlse tennis that doesn’t also have men’s. Also just look at the courts. There are more mature adult men playing than women playing tennis. Just not competitive usta leagues. Again men seem more inclined to play competitive leagues in everything - except tennis. Why not consider maybe the women’s leagues are structured better?

 

[schmke]

I’m not sure why you claim what I said is not true.

And to be clear I asked average rating of matches. Yes teams have a few guys at lower rating so they don’t have to default a court etc. but they don’t get played as often as the better players.

is it more fun to be on a team where

1)you rarely get played and when you do you have very little chance of winning
Or
2) when your captain always wants to play you and when you do you have a decent chance of winning
?

If you think 2 sounds more fun then that’s really all we need to say about it. The larger ranges means more people will be in category 1 instead of category 2.

Edit plus you are only including leagues where you need a bunch of players. If you are at the top of your level you will be asked to play in tri level and mixed etc. the bottom guys are not on as many teams. What is the average court rating for tri level play? In your area?

I still believe you are making much ado about nothing, and/or player/captain behavior in your area is radically different than in mine.

Tell me if this analysis would satisfy your curiosity.

For a given gender/level, we can look at the average rating of all player's, e.g. for a 3.5 flight the average may be 3.25.

Then we can look at the played average, effectively a weighted average of the ratings of those who played. If the higher rated players play the majority of the matches, the played average will be higher. And you seem to be making the case the played average will be a lot higher.

If you hypothesis is correct, that lower rated players rarely get played, how much higher would you think the played average would be? 0.05 (e.g. 3.30)? 0.10 (3.35)? A full 0.15 (3.40)?

Another way of looking at it would be if a 3.5 team had 8 players rated 3.40 and 8 players rated 3.10, their average rating is 3.25. But if the 8 high rated players played all the matches, the played average would be 3.40, or 0.15 higher.

But I don't think you are suggesting the higher rated players play all the matches, just the vast majority, so if the higher rated players filled 80% of the line-ups, the played average would be 3.34 or 0.09 higher. Is that what you would expect to see?

I'm not suggesting there will be no difference, the played average would likely be a few hundredths higher as yes, the higher rated players would end up playing a few more matches than lower rated on average, perhaps 60% bias to the higher rated which would be 3.28 or just 0.03 higher than the average player.

Let us all know what your hypothesis is to put an actual number behind it and perhaps I'll do some analysis and see what it really is.

 

[schmke]

I was going to wait for @Moon Shooter to put forth what he thinks the analysis would show before replying, but I did some analysis and it seems clear enough the hypothesis is wrong that I'll just post it in advance of him replying.

In my area, our 40+ Adult league just finished the regular season, so now is a good time to take a look at the average player by level and the played average as well.

As I noted in my earlier post, we can look at the average rating for all players rostered, and then look at the played average and see how they are different. So here we go, the first number is the average rating for the flight, the second is the played average.

2.5W - 2.29 vs 2.29
3.0W - 2.72 vs 2.73
3.5W - 3.17 vs 3.19
4.0W - 3.61 vs 3.64
4.5W - 4.04 vs 4.07

2.5M - 2.37 vs 2.37
3.0M - 2.80 vs 2.81
3.5M - 3.24 vs 3.26
4.0M - 3.67 vs 3.69
4.5M - 4.11 vs 4.13

A few interesting observations.

First, the average ratings by flight are not that high, only the 2.5W and 3.0M are above the mid-point of the level. This would seem to contradict your hypothesis that only high rated players play league and the lower rated players for a level give up and don't play. It would seem that the actual case is that more lower rated players play than higher rated players for a level, although this is almost certainly influenced by players playing up.

Second, the played averages are not really very high at all, the largest gap is 0.03 for the 4.0W and 4.5W. The largest gap for the men is 0.02 for the 3.5M, 4.0M, and 4.5M. This would seem to indicate that there is a very very small bias to the higher rated players getting in the line-up more often than lower rated players. Certainly the lower rated players are not "rarely" played.

If one wants to posit that including players playing up skews things, I did the same analysis with only at level players included:

2.5W - 2.29 vs 2.29
3.0W - 2.77 vs 2.74
3.5W - 3.25 vs 3.20
4.0W - 3.69 vs 3.66
4.5W - 4.13 vs 4.08

2.5M - 2.37 vs 2.37
3.0M - 2.84 vs 2.82
3.5M - 3.30 vs 3.27
4.0M - 3.75 vs 3.71
4.5M - 4.21 vs 4.16

Here we see that both numbers go up in every non-2.5 case as you would expect, however, the average rating across the rosters goes up more than the played average! And now the played average is lower than the rostered player averages!

The conclusion you can make from this is that it is not the higher rated players that play more, but instead the lower rated players that do, completely at odds with the hypothesis that lower rated players are rarely in the line-up.

Now, it may be that the top teams in a flight do play their top players more, so I took a look at only those teams advancing to local playoffs. For these it was:

2.5W - 2.31 vs 2.31
3.0W - 2.81 vs 2.81
3.5W - 3.31 vs 3.32
4.0W - 3.73 vs 3.71

3.0M - 2.89 vs 2.90
3.5M - 3.33 vs 3.34
4.0M - 3.81 vs 3.84
4.5M - 4.24 vs 4.24

A few things to note here.

First, the ratings go up for the teams that are advancing to playoffs as you'd expect, roughly 0.04 to 0.06 higher, which goes to the point I made earlier that some teams are simply stronger at the start of the year and more likely to advance, and we see that they do, yet this doesn't prevent the other teams from participating and playing.

Second, even for these contending teams, there isn't much of a gap between the played average and the average player on these teams. Just the 4.0M are 0.03 higher for their played average and the others are the same or within 0.01, and the 4.0W even have a lower played average.

This is in one area, and thus the results may not reflect what happens in other areas, but it is interesting that even my thinking a 60/40 split was what we might see wasn't accurate. Perhaps player behavior in other areas is significantly different, but this analysis clearly shows there is no flight away from league play for players lower rated for their level and no bias in not playing them once on a team.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Schmke
I don't see why you are disagreeing with me when your data shows what I am talking about *even when you only include play that requires the largest number of players on a team at exactly the same level.* That is you only include adult rated teams where you need teams of 8-9 players out on courts every match and sometimes you may want to swap people out for double headers. You do not include other teams like tri level. What are the averages for tri level in your area? After all if you are going to pay the $44.00 wouldn't you want to play in a few leagues?

Your data shows that even when you have to have several people of that level the average rating is basically a 2.83. What chance does a 2.55 have of winning that match? And the average court of a team going post season is basically 2.90. You suggest that maybe these guys don't know they have a chance. I why do you think that? They seem very well aware of it that is why only 1/4 of the men play as compared to women. Sure the teams have guys sitting on the bench who are lower rated. But who wants to pay $44 and then a league fee to sit the bench?

And I also wonder about some of those ratings - at least in my area not necessarily yours. You have done some reports for me so you know why the ratings are somewhat questionable in my area.

We see lots of guys posting here about how they will basically no longer be able to compete at USTA due to a bump. Not so much the women. I can tell you I have gone to regionals where people are accusing others of sandbagging because they think even the 3.0 men are playing so well. And yes the guys who claim this do not have a shot against those 3.0 men. *There is no league for them to be competitive.*

Yes as the ratings get above 3.5 you are dealing with less then a majority of rec players. So the average rating should be lower. There just won't be enough players to fill the team.

I posted numbers that show that there are likely about 1/4 the number of men playing USTA tennis from complete beginner to UTR 4.00. Do you think that is doing well? Why are men suddenly not interested in competition relative to women in only tennis unlike every other sport or activity known to humanity?

I think given the huge number of recreational tennis players USTA is doing abysmal for both men and women. But I do see more men on the courts then women. You say well women play during the day or something. Perhaps that is a matter of geography. Yes a few more women don't have jobs then men where I live but not nearly enough to explain 4xs as many playing league tennis.

 

[schmke]

@Moon Shooter, where are you getting 4x as many women play as men? The data clearly shows it is more like 1.5x as many women play as men. I posted that earlier and you are just ignoring it or refuse to believe it.

And you keep saying lower rated players in their level are sitting on the bench. I just shared a bunch of stats that clearly show that isn't the case, so again, you are just ignoring it or refuse to believe it.

 

[Connor35]

There are many many men that play year after year on teams that have little chance to advance to playoffs.

Can confirm.

In fact I'm playing in a league for the first time, and we were fighting for 3rd place. I asked a teammate, the team has been together for quite a while, "How many teams make the playoffs?"

He said, "I have no idea how playoffs work, we've never made them before."

He said this happily and matter of factly. So there are definitely players and teams that go into seasons without expecting to make the playoffs.

 

[silentkman]

Schmke
I don't see why you are disagreeing with me when your data shows what I am talking about *even when you only include play that requires the largest number of players on a team at exactly the same level.* That is you only include adult rated teams where you need teams of 8-9 players out on courts every match and sometimes you may want to swap people out for double headers. You do not include other teams like tri level. What are the averages for tri level in your area? After all if you are going to pay the $44.00 wouldn't you want to play in a few leagues?

Your data shows that even when you have to have several people of that level the average rating is basically a 2.83. What chance does a 2.55 have of winning that match? And the average court of a team going post season is basically 2.90. You suggest that maybe these guys don't know they have a chance. I why do you think that? They seem very well aware of it that is why only 1/4 of the men play as compared to women. Sure the teams have guys sitting on the bench who are lower rated. But who wants to pay $44 and then a league fee to sit the bench?

And I also wonder about some of those ratings - at least in my area not necessarily yours. You have done some reports for me so you know why the ratings are somewhat questionable in my area.

We see lots of guys posting here about how they will basically no longer be able to compete at USTA due to a bump. Not so much the women. I can tell you I have gone to regionals where people are accusing others of sandbagging because they think even the 3.0 men are playing so well. And yes the guys who claim this do not have a shot against those 3.0 men. *There is no league for them to be competitive.*

Yes as the ratings get above 3.5 you are dealing with less then a majority of rec players. So the average rating should be lower. There just won't be enough players to fill the team.

I posted numbers that show that there are likely about 1/4 the number of men playing USTA tennis from complete beginner to UTR 4.00. Do you think that is doing well? Why are men suddenly not interested in competition relative to women in only tennis unlike every other sport or activity known to humanity?

I think given the huge number of recreational tennis players USTA is doing abysmal for both men and women. But I do see more men on the courts then women. You say well women play during the day or something. Perhaps that is a matter of geography. Yes a few more women don't have jobs then men where I live but not nearly enough to explain 4xs as many playing league tennis.

You guys spend all your free time omplaining about USTA, sandbagging etc. it's the same thing year after year. You guys would make Complaining Nationals. Stunning

 

[nyta2]

...is it more fun to be on a team where

1)you rarely get played and when you do you have very little chance of winning
Or
2) when your captain always wants to play you and when you do you have a decent chance of winning

3) play on the weakest team in a division to maximize playing time (first to get on the team (ie. if i'm a low-Xntrp), but eventually to ideally play 1s or 1d)

that was what i did for decades... never cared about going to playoffs or nationals (always thought it was a waste of money anyway when i have plenty of folks locally to kick my butt).
so why play, if i don't care about getting to playoffs/nationals? because i wanted to play "on the record" (ie. use usta to track my ntrp/utr progress)... tournaments are a hassle logistically... so i found leagues to be a decent compromise.

having recently been bumped, i'm again on the weakest team in my area, hoping to play 3d when the better folks aren't avail

 

[Moon Shooter]

@Moon Shooter, where are you getting 4x as many women play as men? The data clearly shows it is more like 1.5x as many women play as men. I posted that earlier and you are just ignoring it or refuse to believe it.

And you keep saying lower rated players in their level are sitting on the bench. I just shared a bunch of stats that clearly show that isn't the case, so again, you are just ignoring it or refuse to believe it.

The main loss is for males rated UTR 1-4. There are about 4xs as many women this level then men. (122k women compared to 30k men) Even though there are about the same number of men at this level as women playing recreationally.

Self-Rating Rules

You're just ******** to hear yourself ***** (yet again). Every league I've ever played in (or even seen) has teams that know they won't make the postseason before the season even starts. Not a single one thinks they're "not getting their full money's worth". You have a special penchant for...

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

You took issue with me using that suggesting UTR is not truly gender neutral. Ok but it is much better then NTRP - which is obviously off. Because if someone should be a minimum level to compete (I think UTR says if a person is good enough so they don't lose service games entirely by double faults or something like that) that bare minimum should be the same whether it is a 79 year old man who has some experience or a 25 year old woman who is just learning. *Whatever* that base level is and then you go up to utr 4.00 or NTRP 3.01 the spreads should be the same. Yet an NTRP 3.01 male is much better then an NTRP 3.01 Female. Is a UTR 4.00 male clearly better then a UTR 4.00 female? I think they are likely better in my area but I am not so sure overall - overall UTR is just a *much* better measure of skill when you are comparing men and women.

So what does this mean? It means for men to get to NTRP 3.01 they have to improve their tennis game to about a UTR 4.00. Women who improve from the baseline minimum to UTR 4.00 will be about NTRP 3.70. Look at the charts where UTR looked up the UTR ratings of NTRP players to see where they fell:
https://www.kimgranttennis.com/uploads/3/1/3/5/31353957/utr-player-range-page-001_1.jpg

Now if you agree with me that an NTRP 3.01 Male is going to be stronger then a NTRP 3.01 female then we know either UTR or NTRP must have something wrong with them at the lower levels. UTR is claiming one thing for the number of standard deviations between beginner and UTR 4.00 and NTRP is claiming something dramatically different.

What explains this? 1) More women in the NTRP systems at these lower levels so I think their rating system has more data and therefore is more honed in. 2) fewer men start at or close to the early levels of competition so the baseline may actually be higher for the men then women.

Now the question is why are there fewer men at the early levels? And I think there is a snowball effect. Since there are fewer men at the early levels there is not even a 2.5 level for men to play in. Secondly since men can continue to play in the lowest level 3.0 even after they have advanced quite a bit above the baseline for competition that is discouraging for lower level men driving down participation.

My point is if men had the same skill ratings as the women there would be many more men participating in league tennis. Leave womens ratings alone and just bump men up to the women's NTRP they belong at based on their skill.

You showed me estimates of ntrp dynamic ratings of of adult league tennis. As explained above there is clearly a disconnect at lower levels for men as compared to women. And even your data showed that the actual players tended to be higher level then the overall team. So the lower level players were not played as much. And the winning teams weren't playing the lower level players much at all. (what the advancing 3.0 men's team had an average court of 2.90?) So again why are there 1/4 the number of 1-4.00 utr men players as women? Maybe because losing and sitting be bench is not as fun as playing and winning.

What are the tri level 3.0 match statistics? Adult league needs the most people at each level so it will involve tapping the bench much more then other leagues. But in my area there is only one season for the adult league teams. The rest of the year involves leagues where captains don't need to use the bench nearly as much. So basically all the men that are below a NTRP 3.60 female are not going to have much use for their membership.

 

[Moon Shooter]

3) play on the weakest team in a division to maximize playing time (first to get on the team (ie. if i'm a low-Xntrp), but eventually to ideally play 1s or 1d)

that was what i did for decades... never cared about going to playoffs or nationals (always thought it was a waste of money anyway when i have plenty of folks locally to kick my butt).
so why play, if i don't care about getting to playoffs/nationals? because i wanted to play "on the record" (ie. use usta to track my ntrp/utr progress)... tournaments are a hassle logistically... so i found leagues to be a decent compromise.

having recently been bumped, i'm again on the weakest team in my area, hoping to play 3d when the better folks aren't avail

That's great if your area has multiple teams at each level.

I'm trying to do that in my area at both the 3.0 and 3.5 level. But by the time you fill up the top team getting the second team is not so easy. Not everyone wants to play for the "Washington Generals" plus their yearly USTA membership will likely be worthless for other leagues such as mixed or tri level where captains have much more flexibility and can choose only the top level players at each level for their team.

 

[schmke]

So you are saying that for UTR 1-4, there are 4x fewer men playing than women. Ok, but that isn't a terribly useful statistic as it is probably the case that there are 4x fewer men in the UTR 1-4 range than women, so, you'd expect there to be 4x fewer men playing league.

Now, you make this claim:

Even though there are about the same number of men at this level as women playing recreationally.

This is based on what? Do you have a source for this? Or is this simply anecdotal info from your observations in your area?

When you turn around and use the 4x fewer men out of the context of limiting it to UTR 1-4, is conveys a false narrative that confuses the discussion. You clearly have a point to make about players in the UTR 1-4 range, but that is a small portion of the tennis playing population and those that play USTA League.

But you claimed that players rated lower in the range give up and don't play. I gave real world stats that show that isn't the case, the average player registered at a level is around the mid-point, even a little below it for some levels. So clearly players rated lower in a range are still signing up.

Then you claimed that even if the players sign up, they never get to play and captains are biased towards playing higher rated players. I gave real world stats showing this isn't the case, and the bias that may exist is very small, and even showed how for the top teams the bias could go the other way!

I also showed how a real bias towards the stronger players would result in the played average being 0.09 to 0.15 higher than the rostered average, yet the real world data showed it was generally well under 0.05, so again, even if there is a bias, it is very small and the lower rated players are still playing a significant number of matches.

 

[Moon Shooter]

You guys spend all your free time omplaining about USTA, sandbagging etc. it's the same thing year after year. You guys would make Complaining Nationals. Stunning

I don't complain about sandbagging. Nor do I complain about topics people want to post about. I do think there are some serious flaws with the USTA rating system and I am willing to discuss that.

Can confirm.

In fact I'm playing in a league for the first time, and we were fighting for 3rd place. I asked a teammate, the team has been together for quite a while, "How many teams make the playoffs?"

He said, "I have no idea how playoffs work, we've never made them before."

He said this happily and matter of factly. So there are definitely players and teams that go into seasons without expecting to make the playoffs.

Sure there are also players that won't travel to playoffs if they happen. But generally I have found players that choose to play in competitive leagues prefer to win - or at least feel like they have a shot at winning.

 

[schmke]

That's great if your area has multiple teams at each level.

I'm trying to do that in my area at both the 3.0 and 3.5 level. But by the time you fill up the top team getting the second team is not so easy. Not everyone wants to play for the "Washington Generals" plus their yearly USTA membership will likely be worthless for other leagues such as mixed or tri level where captains have much more flexibility and can choose only the top level players at each level for their team.

If players in your area don't value playing recreational tennis in a team setting, and only care about being on the winning team, USTA League isn't for them. And if USTA League isn't someone's ball of wax, there is nothing wrong with that.

Any level based league will always have the haves and have-nots with respect to who has an advantage and is expected to win. And if stronger players gravitate to each other to get on the same team, this can exacerbate the issue. But not doing that will put the team that advance in playoffs at a disadvantage there.

And in a small area, making the ranges for a level small can never work as you have already said you have trouble fielding multiple teams and smaller ranges would make that even harder.

Does this all mean that larger areas have an inherent advantage when it comes to making a run in playoffs? Of course it does. Does that mean players can't still enjoy playing recreationally in a team setting in the regular season? Of course not.

 

[TennisOTM]

I’m not sure why you claim what I said is not true.

About 3.0 men's leagues, you had claimed "the only people playing in them are the top end players," and my data clearly refuted that for leagues in my area. I only included men who had actually played in matches (not just rostered players). Adding to that, the lower half (according to TR) of the players, which includes 2.5 guys playing up, have played nearly as many matches as the upper half.

It's true that higher-end players at a particular level end up playing in more leagues, which I believe is partly because they get recruited / convinced by captains to play in additional leagues they might not otherwise choose to join on their own initiative. But if a lower-end player is motivated to play in lots of leagues throughout the year, there is nothing stopping them, at least not in my area. The fact that every league includes many below-level players playing up is proof enough of that.

From what I've seen, the majority of team captains value availability much more than how good you are. If you are available to play in all or most matches on the schedule, and especially if you are flexible to sub in for players who bail at the last minute, your captain will love you and you'll get lots of playing time, even if you lose a lot.

 

[Moon Shooter]

So you are saying that for UTR 1-4, there are 4x fewer men playing than women. Ok, but that isn't a terribly useful statistic as it is probably the case that there are 4x fewer men in the UTR 1-4 range than women, so, you'd expect there to be 4x fewer men playing league.

Now, you make this claim:



This is based on what? Do you have a source for this? Or is this simply anecdotal info from your observations in your area?

When you turn around and use the 4x fewer men out of the context of limiting it to UTR 1-4, is conveys a false narrative that confuses the discussion. You clearly have a point to make about players in the UTR 1-4 range, but that is a small portion of the tennis playing population and those that play USTA League.

It is from observations in my area and other areas I have visited. I am a 3.0 and have a doubles UTR that ranges about 4.10. I edge out a female who is in High School and going to play in D3. I was edged out by a female who played club for Mizzou and now plays club at Baylor. So it is not elite by any means but it is rare that someone can just pick up a racquet and play that well without a few years of play under their belt. (of course that can happen though).

Women’s Tennis Recruiting Guidelines | Tennis Ratings

Learn about tennis rankings, ratings and what coaches look for in recruits with our women’s tennis recruiting guidelines

www.ncsasports.org

You think a small percentage of recreational men play at or below this level just looking around your public courts and at your club? I mean sure we are comparing men to women but lots of the men are older and not in the best shape anymore. How small is the percentage of rec men that you would put at UTR 4.00 or lower? Notice I am not asking who plays USTA. That is the point. I think USTA is capturing very few of these players. Most of the clinics I play in for 3.0 men (and 3.5 women) and below have just as many men as women.

But you claimed that players rated lower in the range give up and don't play. I gave real world stats that show that isn't the case, the average player registered at a level is around the mid-point, even a little below it for some levels. So clearly players rated lower in a range are still signing up.

Yes they exist. But is it reasonable to predict 1/4 of the men in the under UTR 4.00 level will play as compared to women in the same range? (30k compared to 122k) I see just as many men at these levels as women playing on the courts in my area. Maybe it varies, but I highly doubt it is 1/4 the number of players nationwide. The men at these lower levels just don't play competitively because USTA which dominates competitive play is a disaster for them.

Then you claimed that even if the players sign up, they never get to play and captains are biased towards playing higher rated players. I gave real world stats showing this isn't the case, and the bias that may exist is very small, and even showed how for the top teams the bias could go the other way!

You gave stats for your specific area dealing with only one type of play - the type of play that will use the full bench. Sure when you have to play the bench because you need 8 or 9 guys playing at once you will use the bench. Plus your area is large enough to have several local teams. That isn't everywhere. Plus it is based on NTRP dynamic ratings which clearly have some issues at lower levels as I discussed above.

If I gave you some stats from my area would change your mind? The 40 and over 3.0 team I was on averaged 2.85 according to TR. It was the only team we had for adult play.

The average 3.0 player for my tri level team last year had a 3.17 TR rating. And the win loss for regular season was 4-3 and we went 2-2 post season.

I also showed how a real bias towards the stronger players would result in the played average being 0.09 to 0.15 higher than the rostered average, yet the real world data showed it was generally well under 0.05, so again, even if there is a bias, it is very small and the lower rated players are still playing a significant number of matches.

Since so few players play at the ntrp 4.5 and even fewer at the 5.0 level it will make sense that teams will have more lower level 4.5 players then players pushing 5.0. But I am not sure why we should assume more women start playing tennis then men and thus start the process from beginner to whatever level. I see more men on the courts as a whole then women. I said I think about 70% of the men I see are 1-4 UTR whereas maybe 90% of the women are 1-4 UTR. Maybe I am off with that but how far off? Is it 50% of men you see playing on courts are below 4 UTR?

 

[Moon Shooter]

About 3.0 men's leagues, you had claimed "the only people playing in them are the top end players," and my data clearly refuted that for leagues in my area. I only included men who had actually played in matches (not just rostered players). Adding to that, the lower half (according to TR) of the players, which includes 2.5 guys playing up, have played nearly as many matches as the upper half.

Fair enough, my statement was an exaggeration. I am not claiming no lower rated player has ever played on a 3.0 team.

It's true that higher-end players at a particular level end up playing in more leagues, which I believe is partly because they get recruited / convinced by captains to play in additional leagues they might not otherwise choose to join on their own initiative. But if a lower-end player is motivated to play in lots of leagues throughout the year, there is nothing stopping them, at least not in my area.

Yes there is something stopping them from playing in other leagues. Namely, no captains want them so they are not being recruited. Captains typically want the top players at the given level. The Men's leagues have larger spreads in the lower levels so they have many more potential players of no interest to captains.

Adult teams need the most total players at level of the correct gender and age so they will be the teams that look to the lower rated players at each levels. 8 players at level to play 18o and the 40 and over needed 7 and now will need 9. So they need to tap the bench/lower rated players to avoid DQs. (not to mention some of those TRs are off but that is difficult to sort out).

The fact that every league includes many below-level players playing up is proof enough of that.

Not every league just the adult leagues. You don't see that so much in the other leagues like tri level. Mixed is a bit more complicated.

From what I've seen, the majority of team captains value availability much more than how good you are. If you are available to play in all or most matches on the schedule, and especially if you are flexible to sub in for players who bail at the last minute, your captain will love you and you'll get lots of playing time, even if you lose a lot.

As a captain I am fine with availability but if you are a top rated player and only want to play a couple matches that is fine with me I will take you. If you are a low rated player that will want to play a whole bunch that can be awkward. But yes no one likes a flake that says they will play and then doesn't show up or something.

 

[Moon Shooter]

If players in your area don't value playing recreational tennis in a team setting, and only care about being on the winning team, USTA League isn't for them. And if USTA League isn't someone's ball of wax, there is nothing wrong with that.

I don't think there is anything unusual about the male tennis players in my area. It is not whether they "only" care about being on the winning team. It is rather that winning is preferable. People are *more likely* to pay USTA and the league fees and work their schedule to play competitive tennis if they and their team will win. But while we are at it *some* people that play competitive USTA tennis are mainly interested in being on a winning team. And we see plenty of that here on these boards upset that they got bumped or that someone sandbagged etc etc. At least having the possibility of winning seems important. And for men at the lowest levels of potential competitive play USTA does not offer options like they do for female players at that level.

Any level based league will always have the haves and have-nots with respect to who has an advantage and is expected to win. And if stronger players gravitate to each other to get on the same team, this can exacerbate the issue. But not doing that will put the team that advance in playoffs at a disadvantage there.

Sure this is why the female leagues which divide up 1-4 UTR players into smaller groups (2.5,3.0,3.5 and 4.0) are 4xs more popular then the men's which dumps all these players in a single amorphous "3.0 league"

And in a small area, making the ranges for a level small can never work as you have already said you have trouble fielding multiple teams and smaller ranges would make that even harder.

This is a legitimate concern. But I think the women's model shows that is not the case. And the reason it works for the women is there is no level where the female players are just completely outclassed like there are for men. I know "on average" the ratings work the same for men and women. But the difference between a top end 3.5 and a bottom 3.5 male player is larger then the difference between a top end female 3.5 and a bottom 3.5. The same is true for top 3.0 men and bottom 3.0 men compared to women. These smaller steps between levels just makes league play much better all around and attracts more people to it. That is the main reason I believe the women's leagues are so much more popular then the mens. Getting bumped and denied your appeal is not as dramatic of a bump for women as it is for men. These large ranges actually promotes the bad behavior of sandbagging which also then increases the large spreads between the worst at level and the best at level.

Does this all mean that larger areas have an inherent advantage when it comes to making a run in playoffs? Of course it does. Does that mean players can't still enjoy playing recreationally in a team setting in the regular season? Of course not.

Right there is no question USTA sets up the system so the larger areas (which have more political clout) have advantages. That isn't the issue I am raising here. The issue is whether the USTA is offering much to lower skilled male adult rec players. Again I am not claiming 4.00 UTR is a super star. But when you are talking about adults recreationally playing a ortho/cardio intensive sport its also not nothing. There are lots of guys I know that have some skills but lack mobility or maybe have decent mobility but some flaws in their game etc. That would enjoy competitive league play. But USTA does not offer much.

 

[schmke]

@Moon Shooter if your hypothesis is correct, that women's tennis at lower levels is more competitive, then we'd expect to see the flight standings be a lot closer for women's flights than men's flights right? There will be few if any undefeated or one-loss teams and few if any no win or one-win teams, right?

Again, using my area for convenience as we just finished regular season for our 40+ league:

Men's 3.0 had four flights and everyone played eight matches.

• Flight A - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, two 1-7 teams on the other end, court wins 29 at the top and 4 at the bottom. Clear separation.
• Flight B - Two 6-2 teams down to one 2-6 team, court wins for the teams ranged from 25 down to 14. Seems reasonably competitive.
• Flight C - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, on the other end, an 0-8 team and 2-6 team, court wins were 27 down to 7. Some pretty clear separation here.
• Flight D - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, and 0-8 and 2-6 again, court wins 21 down to 3. Clear separation again.

One more competitive flight, the others not so much. Yet league tennis is growing in my area and the lower end teams are not quitting and going away.

Women's 3.0 had five flights, only 25% more and everyone played eight or nine matches.

• Flight A - 8-1 and 7-2 down to three 2-7 teams, 30 court wins down to 11. Semi-competitive
• Flight B - 8-1 and three 7-2 teams down to an 0-9 and two 2-7 teams, 26 court wins down to 2. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight C - Two 7-1 teams along with one 0-8 and two 2-6 teams, 22 down to 3. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight D - 8-0 and 7-1 at the top, 1-7 and two 2-6 at the bottom, court wins from 26 down to 7. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight E - 8-0 and 7-1 at the top, two 1-7 at the bottom, court wins 23 down to 9. Pretty clear separation.

The women don't look dramatically different from the men. In fact, of the nine flights, the most competitive was a men's flight!

Again, this doesn't support your hypothesis and women's tennis is somehow so much more competitive, it is about the same. Flight winning teams go undefeated or just one loss and the bottom teams have one or no wins in most cases.

And in both cases, players keep coming back, this league is not shrinking. A good 20% of the teams do poorly every year but they choose to come back and play, often with the same group of players, so they kind of know they aren't going to win yet still play. They very well may set goals to simply do better than last year as a team and playing league and accomplishing that gives them satisfaction.

 

[ChaelAZ]

Certain state teams recruiting ex college players for 3.5 and 4.0 teams....

 

[Moon Shooter]

@Moon Shooter if your hypothesis is correct, that women's tennis at lower levels is more competitive, then we'd expect to see the flight standings be a lot closer for women's flights than men's flights right? There will be few if any undefeated or one-loss teams and few if any no win or one-win teams, right?

Again, using my area for convenience as we just finished regular season for our 40+ league:

Men's 3.0 had four flights and everyone played eight matches.

• Flight A - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, two 1-7 teams on the other end, court wins 29 at the top and 4 at the bottom. Clear separation.
• Flight B - Two 6-2 teams down to one 2-6 team, court wins for the teams ranged from 25 down to 14. Seems reasonably competitive.
• Flight C - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, on the other end, an 0-8 team and 2-6 team, court wins were 27 down to 7. Some pretty clear separation here.
• Flight D - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, and 0-8 and 2-6 again, court wins 21 down to 3. Clear separation again.

One more competitive flight, the others not so much. Yet league tennis is growing in my area and the lower end teams are not quitting and going away.

Women's 3.0 had five flights, only 25% more and everyone played eight or nine matches.

• Flight A - 8-1 and 7-2 down to three 2-7 teams, 30 court wins down to 11. Semi-competitive
• Flight B - 8-1 and three 7-2 teams down to an 0-9 and two 2-7 teams, 26 court wins down to 2. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight C - Two 7-1 teams along with one 0-8 and two 2-6 teams, 22 down to 3. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight D - 8-0 and 7-1 at the top, 1-7 and two 2-6 at the bottom, court wins from 26 down to 7. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight E - 8-0 and 7-1 at the top, two 1-7 at the bottom, court wins 23 down to 9. Pretty clear separation.

The women don't look dramatically different from the men. In fact, of the nine flights, the most competitive was a men's flight!

Again, this doesn't support your hypothesis and women's tennis is somehow so much more competitive, it is about the same. Flight winning teams go undefeated or just one loss and the bottom teams have one or no wins in most cases.

And in both cases, players keep coming back, this league is not shrinking. A good 20% of the teams do poorly every year but they choose to come back and play, often with the same group of players, so they kind of know they aren't going to win yet still play. They very well may set goals to simply do better than last year as a team and playing league and accomplishing that gives them satisfaction.

I agree with the gist of what you are saying and appreciate the effort to look at the numbers. But let me just ask you some questions because I am curious how you sort it out.

I am a 3.0C male. I think I am at the upper end of the rating but I don't think there is anything drastically wrong with me staying as a 3.0 after my last season. Also it is not the case that I played really bad or had any injuries during matches which hurt my rating. The other upper 3.0 males players are right in my wheelhouse. Now I also play with a mid level 4.0 female. We play in the same singles group and two of the same seasonal doubles groups we usually play about three sets and switch partners each time. The scores of both our singles and doubles shows we are about the same level. Her UTR might be slightly higher then mine but they are close. TR has her pegged at mid 4.0. Other 4.0 women I play with and against in mixed matches and or clinics all seem to confirm she is a mid level 4.0 player. So based on all of this plus UTRs rating scale chart it seems that a top NTRP 3.0 male is about the same as a mid level female NTRP 4.0. Do you have any reason to disagree with that assessment?

Ok then you take the bare minimum to play a tennis match. I mean however you define the minimum whether it is like UTR does where you say you will not always double fault your games away or whatever it is the same level. They take that begining level of where they start rating and they go from 1-4.00 where me and other high rated NTRP 3.0 men and other mid level NTRP 4.0 females are. Ok we are the same skill level above minimum.

Now the women divide that up into 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and part of 4.0. Now yes some 3.5 f can be in that 4.00 range just like some 3.0 men can be in the 5.00 range. But those are outliers in both cases. If you are a 4.00 UTR you are likely bumped to NTRP F4.0 just like if you are 5.00 UTR you are likely in NTRP M3.5. So USTA pretty much have 3 different divisions (2.5,3.0,3.5) where women can be competitive for the same range of skill achievement. But for men there is only one level that the range of UTR 1.00-4.00 level players can possibly be competitive at. And that is 3.0.

Now you say well the women's matches are just as often blow outs as the men's even though they are subdividing the same 1-4.00 UTR group into 3-4 different levels where as the men only have one or 2 level to cover the same spread. What do you think explains that? (Now I think many of the lower rated men actually just don't play. You and others seem to want to say they do.) So then ok if they are all playing then what explains this? Shouldn't the women's matches be more competitive since they divide the 1-4.00 UTR range into 3 or 4 groups (Female 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and possibly 4.0) instead of just 1 or 2 (Male 3.0 and possibly 3.5)?

Unless you want to claim that and NTRP 3.01male is no better then an NTRP 3.01 female then it seems something isn't adding up here. Do you agree with that general outline?

 

[FuzzyYellowBalls]

So based on all of this plus UTRs rating scale chart it seems that a top NTRP 3.0 male is about the same as a mid level female NTRP 4.0. Do you have any reason to disagree with that assessment?

You probably should throw "all of this" out of the discussion, a mid level female 4.0 would be the winner a significant amount of time against a top non-sandbagging 3.0. The UTR stuff @schmke can address if he wants to, but you are kind of diving into a deep hypothetical to arrive at the premise based on your experience in your tennis circles or circle.

 

[Moon Shooter]

You probably should throw "all of this" out of the discussion, a mid level female 4.0 would be the winner a significant amount of time against a top non-sandbagging 3.0. The UTR stuff @schmke can address if he wants to, but you are kind of diving into a deep hypothetical to arrive at the premise based on your experience in your tennis circles or circle.

Schmke offered his local observations/data of his local flights. I have no reason to think they don't align nationally. I offered my observations/data of my local flights which aligns with UTR's published data.

You say a mid NTRP 4.0 female would win a "significant" amount against a "top non-sandbagging 3.0." I mean I am not against that view depending on what we mean by "significant" and "top 3.0." UTR puts a mid level NTRP 4.0 female at about a UTR 4.25. That is right between the 4th and fifth segment of the top of the male USTA 3.0 bracket. My experience is the cut off between USTA 3.0 and 3.5 men is about UTR 4.15 but ok lets say it is UTR 4.05. So will a UTR 4.25 win a "significant" amount against at UTR 4.05? Ok maybe statistically significant.

https://www.kimgranttennis.com/uploads/3/1/3/5/31353957/utr-player-range-page-001_1.jpg

But even if we say that the top NTRP male 3.00 is equivalent to the 3.69 female (as oppose dot a 3.75 female) it doesn't change much. The top 3.00 M are still going to reliably win against the top NTRP 3.50 females. A difference of .19 would mean they should win about 75% of the time.

My Wife's UTR is Plummeting!

I still do not understand how UTR still exists with an unstable rating algorithm that implodes upon inactivity. Likewise. My wife hasn't played a match for over a week and she tells me her UTR falls by a tenth of a point daily.

tt.tennis-warehouse.com

So top 3.0 USTA men are past the top women's 3.5 division whether they are in the middle of USTA 4.0 women's division or in the third doesn't really matter that much. The UTR 1-4.00 players have 3 USTA levels that they can be competitive in for women.(2.5 3.0 and 3.5) But there is only one USTA division for all the men to compete in this UTR range USTA 3.0.

If you want to say a 4.00 UTR can be competitive at male 3.5 then you should also include women's USTA 4.0 as well. The top end of men's USTA 3.5 is higher then the top end of USTA women's 4.0. So we are either looking at 3 women's divisions versus 1 men's. Or 4 women's divisions versus 2 men's.

Either way I think we can see why not many men in the 1-4.00 UTR range are playing USTA league tennis as compared to women in that same range.

 

[mpnv1990]

@Moon Shooter if your hypothesis is correct, that women's tennis at lower levels is more competitive, then we'd expect to see the flight standings be a lot closer for women's flights than men's flights right? There will be few if any undefeated or one-loss teams and few if any no win or one-win teams, right?

Again, using my area for convenience as we just finished regular season for our 40+ league:

Men's 3.0 had four flights and everyone played eight matches.

• Flight A - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, two 1-7 teams on the other end, court wins 29 at the top and 4 at the bottom. Clear separation.
• Flight B - Two 6-2 teams down to one 2-6 team, court wins for the teams ranged from 25 down to 14. Seems reasonably competitive.
• Flight C - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, on the other end, an 0-8 team and 2-6 team, court wins were 27 down to 7. Some pretty clear separation here.
• Flight D - An 8-0 team and 7-1 team, and 0-8 and 2-6 again, court wins 21 down to 3. Clear separation again.

One more competitive flight, the others not so much. Yet league tennis is growing in my area and the lower end teams are not quitting and going away.

Women's 3.0 had five flights, only 25% more and everyone played eight or nine matches.

• Flight A - 8-1 and 7-2 down to three 2-7 teams, 30 court wins down to 11. Semi-competitive
• Flight B - 8-1 and three 7-2 teams down to an 0-9 and two 2-7 teams, 26 court wins down to 2. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight C - Two 7-1 teams along with one 0-8 and two 2-6 teams, 22 down to 3. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight D - 8-0 and 7-1 at the top, 1-7 and two 2-6 at the bottom, court wins from 26 down to 7. Pretty clear separation.
• Flight E - 8-0 and 7-1 at the top, two 1-7 at the bottom, court wins 23 down to 9. Pretty clear separation.

The women don't look dramatically different from the men. In fact, of the nine flights, the most competitive was a men's flight!

Again, this doesn't support your hypothesis and women's tennis is somehow so much more competitive, it is about the same. Flight winning teams go undefeated or just one loss and the bottom teams have one or no wins in most cases.

And in both cases, players keep coming back, this league is not shrinking. A good 20% of the teams do poorly every year but they choose to come back and play, often with the same group of players, so they kind of know they aren't going to win yet still play. They very well may set goals to simply do better than last year as a team and playing league and accomplishing that gives them satisfaction.

I’m playing on a mixed 6.0 team that expects to come in last place. My sole goals are trying to help the team not come in last and win a match with a lower end 2.5 woman.

 

[onehandbh]

My friend is the grandson of a legendary, professional dart thrower. He himself also is a high level Scrabble player and, using a manual lawmower, he has been the fastest lawn mower in our neighborhood -- even faster than those that use an electric or gas-powered mower.

What NTRP should he self-rate as?

 

[Kochua]

I think there's reason to agree with Moony's central thesis (there's a big gap between UTR 1s who can barely hold a racket and UTR 4s, and right now they're all effectively lumped into men's 3.0, and that seems somehow uncompetitive), even if the argumentation that's been advanced for it goes off down some interesting paths.

You don't necessarily need to buy subjective arguments about whether men have an innate need to be competitive/winners (compared to women), or whether any particular high M3.0 could play at W4.0 level, or even whether or not M3.0 captains leave UTR 2s off their teams, call them names, and make them cry. It's just the basic math that some level needs to be the lowest level on the population bell curve that still has a minimally viable population.

Whatever the lowest level is, there will be more people towards the top of the level and relatively fewer towards the bottom, since density trails off at the extreme portions of the curve. Interestingly schmke's statistics, which conclude that only W2.5 (the bottom ~12% of the women USTA population) and M3.0 (the bottom ~20% of that population) have average ratings above the midpoint in the bracket, seem to bear this out exactly. Women can split UTR 1-4s up across a bunch of levels because they have the population density in that range. Men don't.

So yeah, let's say the bottom 5-10% of the men's USTA population is not going to do very well at men's 3.0 because they're a lot worse than people from 10-20%. What's an actual, real-world solution to this? Are men's 3.0 leagues so full up, particularly in lower population areas, that they could be successfully split?

Moony seems to instead argue that by splitting it you'd have this giant influx of new men playing, and maybe that's true...but to be very frank, I'd say for almost any athletic activity most of your worst 5-10% of participants are there because they are either total beginners (and will improve naturally), or aren't particularly serious about the endeavor (so why would they suddenly become serious about tennis with a new level?)

To put it another way - rec tennis is already highly leveled in an attempt to allow as many people to compete as possible. Can anyone else provide an example of another rec sport - or even a generally competitive activity - where a lot of effort is spent to create an environment where your worst 5-10% of participants have the chance to lift their own championship?

 

[FuzzyYellowBalls]

My friend is the grandson of a legendary, professional dart thrower. He himself also is a high level Scrabble player and, using a manual lawmower, he has been the fastest lawn mower in our neighborhood -- even faster than those that use an electric or gas-powered mower.

What NTRP should he self-rate as?

That is a clever way of what I said, throw out what you know lol.

I think there's reason to agree with Moony's central thesis (there's a big gap between UTR 1s who can barely hold a racket and UTR 4s, and right now they're all effectively lumped into men's 3.0, and that seems somehow uncompetitive), even if the argumentation that's been advanced for it goes off down some interesting paths.

At the risk of another tangent, UTR 1-4 aren't all 3.0. I am not up to speed on the splitting and rural area discussion so I'll stick to the 4.0 female thing.

@Moon Shooter The problem in my mind, and maybe I am wrong, is jumping from numbers to play, play to numbers. I have been around a few hundred 4.0 female players in recent years and although I am not that close to viewing and seeing 3.0 male players, they should be beginners or severely physically limited and/or not have a ton of match experience. The 4.0 female should have years of match experience, skills, ability to not double fault, knowledge, blah blah.

By 4.0 female should win a significant amount of times versus a top 3.0 male I mean....if I said you can have $1,000 from me, but before you get to keep it you have to correctly pick who will win between the two, you'd quickly say 4.0 female.

 

[TennisOTM]

Yes there is something stopping them from playing in other leagues. Namely, no captains want them so they are not being recruited. Captains typically want the top players at the given level. The Men's leagues have larger spreads in the lower levels so they have many more potential players of no interest to captains.

You keep asserting claims like this in the face of data that pretty clearly proves it wrong. Leagues at all levels are filled with low-level and even under-level players, and those players get lots of playing time and have largely competitive matches. If you don't believe the data on this thread prove this, what other data would convince you?

 

[Moon Shooter]

Surge in tennis participation led by growth in ethnic diversity

The United States Tennis Association today announced further demographic information detailing the continued surge in tennis participation in the U.S. The breakdown reveals a significant increase in the Hispanic/Latino, Black/African-American, and Asian/Pacific Islander populations over the last...

www.ustasocal.com

What percentage of adult rec tennis players do we think would be a reasonable goal to have playing usta league tennis? 10% 15%? Is there a percentage that is so small we might agree that there is some things should improve?

Fyb yes of course if all you knew is that the man was 3.0 and the female is 4.0 you would bet on the female. That is because male 3.0 could mean the guy plays as well as a f2.5 a f3.0 a f3.5 or a f4.0. Chances are he will not be in the top.

You keep asserting claims like this in the face of data that pretty clearly proves it wrong. Leagues at all levels are filled with low-level and even under-level players, and those players get lots of playing time and have largely competitive matches. If you don't believe the data on this thread prove this, what other data would convince you?

I have addressed the data you and Schmke need to be clear where you disagree with me for example:

1) all the lowest skilled men are playing in 3.0 and
2) 3.0 men stretches from skill levels of lowest 2.5 female all of female 3.0 and all of female 3.5 and into part of women's 4.0 and
3) if all the men in this are truly playing then there is no way all these players are competitive with each other.


So which claim do you disagree with?

If all women's tennis basically combined 2.5 3.0 and 3.5 and part of 4.0 into one large group would you claim they are all competitive with eachother? What do you think would happen? If you would agree that is not a good idea for women tennis players why do you think it is a good idea for men?

 

[socallefty]

What percentage of adult rec tennis players do we think would be a reasonable goal to have playing usta league tennis?

There are about 22 million rec players in the US and only about 250,000 play league if I remember right from numbers I’ve seen in the past. So, only about 1% of rec players play USTA leagues.

 

[onehandbh]

There are about 22 million rec players in the US and only about 250,000 play league if I remember right from numbers I’ve seen in the past. So, only about 1% of rec players play USTA leagues.

Wow. So only about 6.5% of the US population plays tennis.

Do Half The Number of Americans Play Tennis Now Than The 1970s? - World Tennis Magazine

By Randy Walker @TennisPublisher I stumbled upon two items of information regarding tennis participation in the United States that bears some thought for those in the tennis industry. For starters, I saw a press announcement from the Tennis Industry Association that states that overall tennis...

www.worldtennismagazine.com

 

[socallefty]

So only about 6.5% of the US population plays tennis.

https://media.npr.org/documents/2015/june/sportsandhealthpoll.pdf

What % of adults do you think play any sports in the US? According to this report, only 25% of adults play any kind of sport. One in four adults who play sports plays tennis which is not bad considering all the sports that are out there - however only about 10 million tennis players are considered serious who play more than 10 times a year. The number that play more than ten times a month is probably well under a million which explains the low number of those playing USTA leagues.

Pickleball, golf and tennis are reported to have 37 million, 25 million and 22 million players recently and I would venture to say that there is probably a huge overlap between these three sports. So, the total number of participants playing these individual sports might be only 50 million at best.

 

[Moon Shooter]

There are about 22 million rec players in the US and only about 250,000 play league if I remember right from numbers I’ve seen in the past. So, only about 1% of rec players play USTA leagues.

It is hard to say how many are adult rec players.

From this quote:

"Adult players aged 55+ grew by one million in 2022, a 17 percent increase, and have grown by 1.7 million since 2017, a 94 percent increase. This follows two years of significant growth in players aged 6-17, which had grown from 4.6 million in 2019 to 6.9 million in 2021 (we saw a decrease in this category in 2022)."

Surge in tennis participation led by growth in ethnic diversity

The United States Tennis Association today announced further demographic information detailing the continued surge in tennis participation in the U.S. The breakdown reveals a significant increase in the Hispanic/Latino, Black/African-American, and Asian/Pacific Islander populations over the last...

www.ustasocal.com

it would seem there is are about 6,882,352 million adult players over 55. (5,882,352 x .17 = 1 million.) Also this suggest total adult players are about about 23.6 million minus 6.9 million = about 16.7 million total adult players. I thought I read the total number of players increased again in 2023 but I am not sure of the breakdowns.

So maybe USTA is getting a bit over 1% of adult tennis players into its leagues.

So over 98% percent of adult rec tennis players have no interest in what USTA offers. If we think that is good then ok there is no need to consider any changes.

The NPR article is interesting because it shows that adults tend to think winning is important to them. Some sports like "walking" have no meaningful way to win - and it seems people indicated that. But others like running may go either way. It would be nice if we could get some of the raw data and see how tennis players viewed that. (it would also be interesting if any American adults thought it was important to win at walking).

Keep in mind the NPR numbers were from 2015. Now there are many more people playing tennis.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Women can split UTR 1-4s up across a bunch of levels because they have the population density in that range. Men don't.

It is interesting whether density should be a factor in this. I am not sure. In some sense the ratings should create new divisions based on outcomes regardless of the density. In NTRP it might be based on a prediction that you will beat someone 0.48 lower then you 6-0 6-0. (or something like that) So the number of players shouldn't matter as to the divisions formed. By definition there are only 100 top pros. But their UTR stretchs from 16.26 to 14.87.

As a practical matter yes more women play at that lower end because they have the numbers in USTA presently. But I highly suspect that is because USTA's rating system properly divides these early players better then they do the men. So the men playing at the women's 2.5 or even 3.0 level feel there is no league that they can be competitive in.

So yeah, let's say the bottom 5-10% of the men's USTA population is not going to do very well at men's 3.0 because they're a lot worse than people from 10-20%.

Why only consider the USTA population? The question is why are a so few men playing at this level. So if you only consider the men that are playing you aren't fully considering the point. For example, lets say someone says there would be more priests if they didn't have a celibacy requirement. And then the Church says well that is not true because over 70% of priests say the celibacy requirement is too onerous. You see the problem is that data is only considering the views of people who chose to live with the requirement. I am not saying that can't be considered or its not relevant but we shouldn't only look at the data of people that choose to play USTA as it is currently formulated. Would more men play if the the divisions were more narrow like they are with the women's leagues? The women have many more participants in league play why wouldn't men benifit from the same structure?

What's an actual, real-world solution to this? Are men's 3.0 leagues so full up, particularly in lower population areas, that they could be successfully split?

I think first allowing some truly coed play leagues so we get an accurate sense of where the men would be on the women's rating scale. Then simply boost the men's ratings to corresponding womens rating and only have a single rating. This would mean that the men's rating would likely have to go higher then it currently does. But the earlier men's divisions 3.0 and 3.5 would be much narrower and thus allow room for more men to be competitive.

I think they could have used WTN to try guage this first step but then USTA seemed to sabotage WTN by making some huge adjustment that completely threw it out of whack. It wasn't great to begin with anyway.

As far as your claim most people are in the middle that is not necessarily true when it comes to activities that involve learning skills. Of the people that can play chess the vast majority are below 1000 USTA. That is more extreme then tennis but I think there are similarities. And tennis will not only have many beginners but also older people that might still want to play on a team. Of the 26 million tennis players in America I would predict more then half play at a skill level under 4.00 UTR.

 

[TennisOTM]

1) all the lowest skilled men are playing in 3.0 and

In most areas this is true, simply because most areas do not run 2.5 men's leagues. However even in those areas (like mine), there are a fair number of men who get 2.5C ratings. I even saw one guy get a 2.0C rating, because he lost badly to other 2.5C men he faced in 3.0 leagues.

2) 3.0 men stretches from skill levels of lowest 2.5 female all of female 3.0 and all of female 3.5 and into part of women's 4.0 and

I disagree. 3.0 men contains the same range as any other level, men or women, because the same score-based algorithm is used by USTA across the board. The men who consitently lose badly get bumped down to 2.5, and the men who consistent win big get bumped up to 3.5. Just like any other level. Your evidence for this claim seems to be entirely based on some UTR data, but that can be explained by UTR being inconsistent across different areas of the county.

3) if all the men in this are truly playing then there is no way all these players are competitive with each other.

This is where the data prove you wrong. If your claims were true, then the NTRP men's range from 2.50 to 3.00 would encompass multiple levels of 6-0, 6-0 beatings. For example, a 2.75 would typically double-bagel a 2.50, and a 3.00 would typically double-bagel a 2.75. If that were true, don't you think @schmke would notice that in his data?

 

[Moon Shooter]

In most areas this is true, simply because most areas do not run 2.5 men's leagues. However even in those areas (like mine), there are a fair number of men who get 2.5C ratings. I even saw one guy get a 2.0C rating, because he lost badly to other 2.5C men he faced in 3.0 leagues.



I disagree. 3.0 men contains the same range as any other level, men or women, because the same score-based algorithm is used by USTA across the board. The men who consitently lose badly get bumped down to 2.5, and the men who consistent win big get bumped up to 3.5. Just like any other level. Your evidence for this claim seems to be entirely based on some UTR data, but that can be explained by UTR being inconsistent across different areas of the county.


This is where the data prove you wrong. If your claims were true, then the NTRP men's range from 2.50 to 3.00 would encompass multiple levels of 6-0, 6-0 beatings. For example, a 2.75 would typically double-bagel a 2.50, and a 3.00 would typically double-bagel a 2.75. If that were true, don't you think @schmke would notice that in his data?

Ok I’m glad I understand where you disagree with me. Am I correct in saying you do not believe the 3.0 or 3.5 men’s category is any wider as far as skill level as women’s 3.0 or women’s 3.5?

I think it is wider because I think the data published by utr pretty much matches my experience very closely. How could this happen? I’m not sure. Perhaps in part because of fewer players and fewer matches means that the borders are more fuzzy. It is unclear what happens when unrated players play other unrated players etc. But there is no question in my mind that women go from a minimum level player to 3.5 and 4.0 even though they are not as strong as the men who reach 3.5 or 4.0. Do you agree?

Do you think the 3.0 men and 3.5 men in your area are no better then the women at the same level? If the men are better wouldn’t the men’s 2.5 or 2.0 have to be wider then? It seems you are just pushing back the inevitable. Or do you really think the men’s and women’s levels match up so a 3.03 male would be as strong as a 3.03 female?

 

[mpnv1990]

I saw a 3.0 man beat a 4.0 woman in singles about a month and a half ago.