Thoughts on the Universal Tennis Rating system

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).
  1. Do you believe there is a place for UTRs with adult tennis players?
  2. Do you think adult tennis players would like to be rated on the UTR system?
  3. Are adults interested in playing level-based tournaments that include junior tennis players?
I'm sure they would appreciate any/all feedback. I'm going to alert them to this thread and invite them to participate in the discussion.

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.

 
D

Deleted member 23235

Guest
lol, I'm a big fan of UTR, for the sake of finding players with similar matched skills (these days it's tough finding similar level players who are ALSO on the same schedule as me)
Some cons I foresee:
1. lots of shattered egos when grown men get beaten by 12yr girls
2. part of adults playing with adults, is the chance of meeting (or creating social circles of) folks at the same points in their lives (eg. 4.5 guy with a wife, 2 kids, a job, a mortgage, etc... is probably not gonna have alot in common playing/meeting a 15yr old kid)
3. (mature) adults probably not interested in the antics that go on with immature juniors (line calls, unsportsmanlike attitudes, tantrums, gamesmanship, idiotic parents, etc...)
but could be handled by age graded UTR ratings (just like we have a 40yr old+ league, or age graded tournaments)

it would be similar to chess ratings or table tennis ratings... where you also have boys v girls, old v young, etc...
 

OrangePower

Legend
Isn't NTRP already supposed to be pretty much that (performance based scale), except that USTA has chosen to have separate scale for men vs women, and not include juniors?

Meaning, does that make UTR pretty much same as NTRP except that men, women and juniors are all included?

Or are there other significant differences in terms of application?

Most interestingly, is there a separate rating for singles vs dubs? Because the lack of this is I think a significant flaw in NTRP.

Anyway, to answer the question, I'm all for a combined rating scale. Expands the pool of prospective players at each level, etc.
 

penpal

Semi-Pro
It's similar in that it is performance-based, but I think the inclusion of men, women and juniors all in the same rating system is a significant difference. Especially men and women, as in the current NTRP system there is a built-in bias against women IMO.

Regarding a separate doubles rating, the UTR rep who replied to my email wrote the following: "Providing doubles ratings is high on our future development priority list. Stay tuned for future announcements."
 

penpal

Semi-Pro
Thinking about this some more today. I think there would need to be a separation of adults and juniors, or at a minimum some very specific rules regarding matchups between the two. I personally wouldn't mind playing against a young boy/girl, but I wouldn't want to be in any type of situation where we are sent by a tournament director, for example, to play at a remote court where no one else is around. This could probably be relatively easily resolved with a tournament rule that requires players under the age of 18 to only be assigned to select courts.

As for leagues, I would think they would stay the same in terms of age requirements (18+, 40+, 55+). Again, nothing against the juniors, but rescheduling matches is relatively common and I would never want to reschedule a match with junior where it was just he/she and I playing at some public court.
 

S&V-not_dead_yet

Talk Tennis Guru
lol, I'm a big fan of UTR, for the sake of finding players with similar matched skills (these days it's tough finding similar level players who are ALSO on the same schedule as me)
Some cons I foresee:
1. lots of shattered egos when grown men get beaten by 12yr girls
2. part of adults playing with adults, is the chance of meeting (or creating social circles of) folks at the same points in their lives (eg. 4.5 guy with a wife, 2 kids, a job, a mortgage, etc... is probably not gonna have alot in common playing/meeting a 15yr old kid)
3. (mature) adults probably not interested in the antics that go on with immature juniors (line calls, unsportsmanlike attitudes, tantrums, gamesmanship, idiotic parents, etc...)
but could be handled by age graded UTR ratings (just like we have a 40yr old+ league, or age graded tournaments)

it would be similar to chess ratings or table tennis ratings... where you also have boys v girls, old v young, etc...

3a. [mature] juniors probably not interested in the antics that go on with immature adults...
 
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