Self-Rating Rules

[Moon Shooter]

I’m a 3.0 m and just beat a 4.0 f about 1.5 months ago. The levels have some overlap in skill level. TennisOTM and schmke may think the men’s and women’s levels are the same but I think anyone who actually plays in coed groups knows that is wrong. If the rating system “should not” do that then the rating system is doing something it should not do.

 

[mpnv1990]

I’m a 3.0 m and just beat a 4.0 f about 1.5 months ago. The levels have some overlap in skill level. TennisOTM and schmke may think the men’s and women’s levels are the same but I think anyone who actually plays in coed groups knows that is wrong. If the rating system “should not” do that then the rating system is doing something it should not do.

I go by UTR when gauging the strength of my opponent, especially singles.

If my opponent and I are relatively close, I expect to play a long and competitive match.

I beat someone 6-2, 6-1 on Friday. The guy had the same UTR as me, but that result is the exception and not the norm.

 

[Moon Shooter]

I go by UTR when gauging the strength of my opponent, especially singles.

If my opponent and I are relatively close, I expect to play a long and competitive match.

I beat someone 6-2, 6-1 on Friday. The guy had the same UTR as me, but that result is the exception and not the norm.

UTR is much better in many ways then USTA which simply divides all men from UTR 1-7 into 3 leagues 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0. It would be better if the 3.0 ended about 3.00 UTR but it stretches up to UTR 5.00 and then 3.5 is a morass going from UTR 3.00-5.50.

I won a higher percentage of games at 3.5 level then I did at the 3.0 level the last two years. (somewhere around 45% versus 44%) The levels overlap quite a bit.

I think most of the lower skilled men try playing in 3.0 leagues and get killed or realize they would do poorly and don't play. But still you get a few guys at those lower levels playing and they really don't belong on an upper 3.5 court at all.

The women's division divides UTR 1-5 into 4 groups 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0.

 

[travlerajm]

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

How do you know she didn’t “let him win” to boost his ego?

 

[ChaelAZ]

These are the kinda threads that make me think back to that one poster always relating everything to supposed rampant sandbagging. I think it was Starzel or something like that.

 

[mpnv1990]

How do you know she didn’t “let him win” to boost his ego?

I watched the match with my own two eyes.

I didn’t know she was a 4.0 until I looked her up.

 

[travlerajm]

I watched the match with my own two eyes.

I didn’t know she was a 4.0 until I looked her up.

Probably a 9.0 mixed doubles specialist.

 

[J_R_B]

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.

Yeah, because men progress out of the range faster. There are 4x as many women as men in that UTR range and 4x as many levels for women as there are for men. That math makes perfect sense to me. If you're a UTR 1 man in a 3.0 league, yes, you get crushed your first year, but if you like tennis and keep taking lessons, in two years, you're UTR 3.5 and competitive in 3.0. If you're a UTR 1 woman, it might take 5 years or more to get when the men get in 2 with the same training, so the levels are tighter so you're not stuck where you can't compete.

You're long winded, overly repetitive arguments remain by far the dumbest on this whole board. Men aren't quitting, they're progressing.

 

[TennisOTM]

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?

The "wideness" of the levels is entirely defined by the expected scores when opponents play each other. When a 2.95 man faces a 2.55 man, USTA applies an expected match score result in its algorithm, let's say the 2.95 man is expected to win 12-2 in games. When a 2.95 woman faces a 2.55 woman, the same 12-2 score expectation would apply. Therefore, by definition, the wideness of 3.0 men's and 3.0 women's categories are the same.

That does not mean that a 2.95 man is the same skill level as a 2.95 woman. For some reason, there is a substantial shift from one to the other, which seems to be roughly 0.5. I.e., if an established male player started playing in women's leagues, he would jump up to the next level. If the 0.5-shift is accurate, then a high-end 3.0 man would become a high-end 3.5 in women's leagues, so it makes sense that he could be competitive against some (lower-end) 4.0 women, as some have observed.

 

[mpnv1990]

The "wideness" of the levels is entirely defined by the expected scores when opponents play each other. When a 2.95 man faces a 2.55 man, USTA applies an expected match score result in its algorithm, let's say the 2.95 man is expected to win 12-2 in games. When a 2.95 woman faces a 2.55 woman, the same 12-2 score expectation would apply. Therefore, by definition, the wideness of 3.0 men's and 3.0 women's categories are the same.

That does not mean that a 2.95 man is the same skill level as a 2.95 woman. For some reason, there is a substantial shift from one to the other, which seems to be roughly 0.5. I.e., if an established male player started playing in women's leagues, he would jump up to the next level. If the 0.5-shift is accurate, then a high-end 3.0 man would become a high-end 3.5 in women's leagues, so it makes sense that he could be competitive against some (lower-end) 4.0 women, as some have observed.

I don’t know why the USTA hasn’t fixed that. 3.5 should mean 3.5 and so on!

 

[schmke]

I don’t know why the USTA hasn’t fixed that. 3.5 should mean 3.5 and so on!

Because men and women generally don't play each other apart from Mixed in USTA play, so there is no way for the algorithm to rationalize having men and women of the same NTRP level/rating be the same skill.

 

[mpnv1990]

Because men and women generally don't play each other apart from Mixed in USTA play, so there is no way for the algorithm to rationalize having men and women of the same NTRP level/rating be the same skill.

Huh?

 

[TennisOTM]

Because men and women generally don't play each other apart from Mixed in USTA play, so there is no way for the algorithm to rationalize having men and women of the same NTRP level/rating be the same skill.

Huh?

I think he means that there would be no way to check that the men's levels and the women's levels are consistent without having rated matches where they play against each other (M vs. F in singles, M/M vs. F/F in doubles, etc.)

Though if they wanted, USTA could apply a uniform shift to one group and it would be a lot closer to equal. For example, if they shifted women down by 0.5 then current 2.5 leagues would be 2.0, 3.0 would become 2.5, etc. across the board. I think most agree that would be a closer alignment compared to the current levels, though it wouldn't be perfect.

 

[J_R_B]

I don’t know why the USTA hasn’t fixed that. 3.5 should mean 3.5 and so on!

The levels are (relatively) normalized to percentages so that men's and women's 4.5 are the 90th percentile of the men's and women's USTA players (within each gender, not across genders), 4.0 are the 70th percentile, 3.5 the 40th percentile, etc. (I don't know what the actual percentiles are, just that they should be comparable within each gender). This makes it easier to form mixed doubles leagues with a combined rating. If you normalized ratings across gender instead of within gender so that a 4.5 man and a 4.5 woman are the same ability level, then 9.0 mixed would cease to exist because 4.5 level women would be like D1 level players, and there wouldn't be enough to have a mixed doubles league. Similarly, half of the women in USTA leagues would be 2.5 or 3.0 (on a men's scale), so 6.0 mixed would have a 5:1 ratio of women for the teams. It just makes more sense to keep the ratings gender specific for what they are used for.

 

[TennisOTM]

The levels are (relatively) normalized to percentages so that men's and women's 4.5 are the 90th percentile of the men's and women's USTA players (within each gender, not across genders), 4.0 are the 70th percentile, 3.5 the 40th percentile, etc. (I don't know what the actual percentiles are, just that they should be comparable within each gender). This makes it easier to form mixed doubles leagues with a combined rating. If you normalized ratings across gender instead of within gender so that a 4.5 man and a 4.5 woman are the same ability level, then 9.0 mixed would cease to exist because 4.5 level women would be like D1 level players, and there wouldn't be enough to have a mixed doubles league. Similarly, half of the women in USTA leagues would be 2.5 or 3.0 (on a men's scale), so 6.0 mixed would have a 5:1 ratio of women for the teams. It just makes more sense to keep the ratings gender specific for what they are used for.

9.0 mixed leagues might have decreased participation but would not cease to exist, because currently there are 10.0 leagues existing. It would just shift participation downward, and the current X.5 mixed leagues (which are quite popular in areas that have them) would be the new X.0 leagues, shifted down. So I don't think it would affect mixed league participation, it would just move things around, probably for the better I think.

 

[Moon Shooter]

The "wideness" of the levels is entirely defined by the expected scores when opponents play each other. When a 2.95 man faces a 2.55 man, USTA applies an expected match score result in its algorithm, let's say the 2.95 man is expected to win 12-2 in games. When a 2.95 woman faces a 2.55 woman, the same 12-2 score expectation would apply. Therefore, by definition, the wideness of 3.0 men's and 3.0 women's categories are the same.

You are assuming the "expectation" is the same as reality. But the UTR data shows that is not the case. Why are the men's categories at 3.0 and 3.5 wider? I am not exactly sure but there are at least a couple of plausible explanations:
1) Men have few USTA rated matches so given less data the accuracy of the rating system suffers. This means that the women's ratings can hone in more then the men. UTR includes mixed and other matches in the ratings so the rating should be more accurate. and/or
2) Men sandbag more and that throws the system

That does not mean that a 2.95 man is the same skill level as a 2.95 woman. For some reason, there is a substantial shift from one to the other, which seems to be roughly 0.5. I.e., if an established male player started playing in women's leagues, he would jump up to the next level. If the 0.5-shift is accurate, then a high-end 3.0 man would become a high-end 3.5 in women's leagues, so it makes sense that he could be competitive against some (lower-end) 4.0 women, as some have observed.

Ok so the 1.0-2.5 categories are either:
1) wider for men or
2) the men who play as well as the women at 2.0/2.5 level simply do not play USTA tennis

Do you agree? If there is about a .5 shift and they are both starting at 1.0 then 1 or 2 above must be happening right?

 

[Moon Shooter]

The levels are (relatively) normalized to percentages so that men's and women's 4.5 are the 90th percentile of the men's and women's USTA players (within each gender, not across genders), 4.0 are the 70th percentile, 3.5 the 40th percentile, etc. (I don't know what the actual percentiles are, just that they should be comparable within each gender). This makes it easier to form mixed doubles leagues with a combined rating. If you normalized ratings across gender instead of within gender so that a 4.5 man and a 4.5 woman are the same ability level, then 9.0 mixed would cease to exist because 4.5 level women would be like D1 level players, and there wouldn't be enough to have a mixed doubles league. Similarly, half of the women in USTA leagues would be 2.5 or 3.0 (on a men's scale), so 6.0 mixed would have a 5:1 ratio of women for the teams. It just makes more sense to keep the ratings gender specific for what they are used for.

You are setting the women at the men's ratings which would be a bad idea for many reasons. If they wanted to do this they should set the men at the women's levels and simply add some levels at the upper end. So the men would be bumped up etc.

Now some of the top men might not be able to play mixed doubles because there are too few women even close to their skill level in the area. But that makes sense doesn't it? Why should a female who is the equivalent of a male 2.5 be playing with a guy who is 4.0 pushing 4.5? I mean the current mixed doubles teams are basically the easiest teams to put together logistically (you basically almost doubled the number of players you can pick and you can use a variety of levels of players) yet mixed is not so popular. Why? In my experience it is because the women are often not even close to the men's skill levels and 80% of the matches the entire strategy is hit every ball you reasonably can at the female player. You end up with the guy trying to be a ball hog and the female player trying not to interfere. Its not great.

The teams that run a higher level male with a lower rated female are stronger until you get to 9.0 where the teams with 5.0 women and 4.0 men do just as well as 5.0 men and 4.0 women.

What NTRP rating combinations works best in 18 & over Mixed? More Interesting Tennis League Stats

It is time for 18 & over Mixed teams to form in my area for the 2016 season. This is an early start league for us so we use our early sta...

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I think that happens because at early levels the men's levels are wider so you get more skill per point by investing those points on the men's side. This changes with 5.0 women. 5.0 women's leagues are not that common and so many 5.0 women have no way to get bumped to 5.5 or higher. So they could be a 5.5 or higher but the current system has difficulty in trying to measure that. UTR does not even have enough 5.5 women to give a distribution.




Should they set the NTRP men's levels to the females levels? At least not right away. I agree with not rocking the boat. I think they should start running truly coed events under WTN and sort out whatever is causing that rating system to perform so poorly. They could then just use WTN for mixed doubles events.

 

[Moon Shooter]

Yeah, because men progress out of the range faster. There are 4x as many women as men in that UTR range and 4x as many levels for women as there are for men. That math makes perfect sense to me.

The ratings are not supposed to work that way. Fewer people should not mean fewer levels. If you just randomly took 1000 men from USTA they would not all become 3.5 players just because there are less of them. Likewise there should not be several more levels for women in the given skill range just because there are more of them in that skill range.

If you're a UTR 1 man in a 3.0 league, yes, you get crushed your first year, but if you like tennis and keep taking lessons, in two years, you're UTR 3.5 and competitive in 3.0. If you're a UTR 1 woman, it might take 5 years or more to get when the men get in 2 with the same training, so the levels are tighter so you're not stuck where you can't compete.

Many of the men in USTA are older and many of the guys I play with are over 50. Some are starting to decline not progress.

You're long winded, overly repetitive arguments remain by far the dumbest on this whole board. Men aren't quitting, they're progressing.

No many of the guys over 50 who have some time to play in leagues are not progressing. And really why do you take this so personally that you keep throwing insults at me just because I disagree with you on some of these points? (that is a rhetorical question - no one cares - it is just something to think about.)

 

[J_R_B]

And really why do you take this so personally that you keep throwing insults at me just because I disagree with you on some of these points? (that is a rhetorical question - no one cares - it is just something to think about.)

It's not "just because I disagree with you on some points", it's because you are long-winded, overly repetitive, and your arguments are universally really uninformed and just plain dumb, so you take up a lot of space on this board in a really annoying way (that nobody else does). That's a lot different than just disagreeing with your points.

 

[Moon Shooter]

It's not "just because I disagree with you on some points", it's because you are long-winded, overly repetitive, and your arguments are universally really uninformed and just plain dumb, so you take up a lot of space on this board in a really annoying way (that nobody else does). That's a lot different than just disagreeing with your points.

Your just angry because you don’t know what you are talking about, and I do.

 

[drivophd]

Your just angry because you don’t know what you are talking about, and I do.

You’re*

 

[TennisOTM]

Ok so the 1.0-2.5 categories are either:
1) wider for men or
2) the men who play as well as the women at 2.0/2.5 level simply do not play USTA tennis

I believe #2 is true. If USTA went gender neutral and used the current women's ratings for everyone (in other words, the men just shifted into the current women's leagues), the 2.5 leagues (and anything lower, if they exist) would be pretty much entirely women.

 

[Moon Shooter]

I believe #2 is true. If USTA went gender neutral and used the current women's ratings for everyone (in other words, the men just shifted into the current women's leagues), the 2.5 leagues (and anything lower, if they exist) would be pretty much entirely women.

I don't. But that may be because I learned tennis as an older person and see how many men play in lower level clinics/drills. Right now any male player who plays below the current upper NTRP 3.0 male level (which is about UTR 3.75-4.50) feels like they are playing worse then the worst. Getting demoted to (2.5) a league that doesn't even exist is discouraging. There are a ton of men that play below UTR 3.75 levels and actually that is fine tennis. Many would likely enjoy playing team tennis. I know *many* more men below the UTR 3.75 level then men that play at USTA 4.0 level. It is not even close.

 

[J_R_B]

Your just angry because you don’t know what you are talking about, and I do.

LMAO. You're the most ridiculously absurd poster on this forum and you have no clue what you're talking about yet you rattle on repeating the same nonsensical BS long rambling diatribes across multiple threads as if the 100th time someone reads it, they're more likely to be convinced than scratch their own eyes out.