penpal
Semi-Pro
In another thread, mytennisaddict drew awareness to a new tennis rating system that is being piloted in some USTA sections - Universal Tennis.
Brief descriptions from their site:
"The Universal Tennis Rating® System provides tennis players worldwide with a common language for accurately and objectively identifying their own levels of play. ... We believe that competition is the key to tennis player development, and the Universal Tennis Rating® (UTR) System provides that critical component by facilitating “level-based” match play. ... The UTR system was devised in order to encourage and facilitate competitive matches between similarly rated players."
Their website has more information, of course, but the general idea is that everyone - men, women, boys, girls - are rated on one scale, based on performance. And therefore, any given match could see a man vs a woman, a boy vs a girl, a man vs a girl, etc, etc, etc. So long as the two players are rated similarly, the match should be competitive.
Right now, UTR is limited to juniors, but I wrote the UTR people an email asking if there are any plans to expand the rating system to include adults. They very kindly replied, and expressed an interest in expanding the system to the adult ranks. They included the following questions in their email reply (and suggested I pose the questions to adult players, and those in this community, to gauge interest).
For my part, I'm very interested - as you no doubt know if you have read my posts on the subject in other threads
. I think a "universal" rating would expand competitive opportunities and, frankly, would place women on a more even standing within the tennis community. I hadn't really thought much about juniors before, but I certainly have no issue playing a junior who is similarly rated.
But that's just one opinion. I, and I'm sure the UTR folks, would be interested to hear what others think about the UTR system - both pro and con.
Brief descriptions from their site:
"The Universal Tennis Rating® System provides tennis players worldwide with a common language for accurately and objectively identifying their own levels of play. ... We believe that competition is the key to tennis player development, and the Universal Tennis Rating® (UTR) System provides that critical component by facilitating “level-based” match play. ... The UTR system was devised in order to encourage and facilitate competitive matches between similarly rated players."
Their website has more information, of course, but the general idea is that everyone - men, women, boys, girls - are rated on one scale, based on performance. And therefore, any given match could see a man vs a woman, a boy vs a girl, a man vs a girl, etc, etc, etc. So long as the two players are rated similarly, the match should be competitive.
Right now, UTR is limited to juniors, but I wrote the UTR people an email asking if there are any plans to expand the rating system to include adults. They very kindly replied, and expressed an interest in expanding the system to the adult ranks. They included the following questions in their email reply (and suggested I pose the questions to adult players, and those in this community, to gauge interest).
- Do you believe there is a place for UTRs with adult tennis players?
- Do you think adult tennis players would like to be rated on the UTR system?
- Are adults interested in playing level-based tournaments that include junior tennis players?
For my part, I'm very interested - as you no doubt know if you have read my posts on the subject in other threads
But that's just one opinion. I, and I'm sure the UTR folks, would be interested to hear what others think about the UTR system - both pro and con.