USTA 2010 Ratings Bump - Playing Up a Level = More likely to be bumped

[wrxinsc]

JavierLW,

I liked your post. I don't have a Ph.D in math, but I do have a friend who does.

My question was to wrxinsc. He made the comments that he thought my statement "IMO your valid suggestions/concerns fall into the politics side of things... "

I haven't used Tencap's system, as I haven't played anyone else who uses it. I'm trying to get my friends to join, then enter their scores against people they play. The more players who use it, the more accurate the system will be. If you consistently play the same small group of players, the data will be compromised. One of the best features of TenCap IMO is the ability for someone like me who travels for a living to find player's of similiar skill level in places like San Diego, Fort Lauderdale, Austin, and other cities where I travel.

sorry, i did not mean to imply that you were being political as an individual. Just that your list of concerns and suggestions were of the political sort. In the larger meaning of that word. Very good discussion though, I learn alot about tennis players - in a good way - reading through these sorts of things.

Just think if amateur soccer players, softball players, basketball players and the like had such a system to complain about...I am sure NTRP will continue to get better, my own opinions aside.

JavierLW's commentary about the deep repetitive interaction of the data is new to me and an interesting point. I'll check into that.

 

[baseliner68]

trying to find the logic.....

I have to catch up on all the posts but just some things I've noticed and agree with are that first, the USTA needs to take singles and doubles into account. I've always been the singles player on every team I've played on. I enjoy singles so that's fine. I also like that I'm at least somewhat in control of what happens a bit more. I know of many players who play all their matches with the same partner and will win but the computer doesn't know which of the two players is better and in each case one of the players was far better and carried their partner. When ratings came out the computer slipped up and the weaker player got bumped.
As far as mixed, I know one girl who played D1 college and her husband only started playing after they got married. She began as a self-rated 4.5 and he put himself as a 3.5 however that was definitely pushing it for him. They wanted to play together however. The first two years of play they both only played mixed as that was all they had time for. Within that two year time period she went from a 4.5 to a 3.5 and he went from a 3.5 to a 4.5. You can imagine the mess this caused for other teams when they both started playing during the main season.
Another extreme situation was when a friend of mine just got bumped to 4.0 one year then the next year when ratings came out she was a 4.5. She had lost most all of her matches she'd played at 4.5 ...if not all of them. She was simply playing 4.5 to play with her friends at that level but learned her lesson. She played a former top national college player who had somehow slipped in as a 4.5 during her 20s. My friend played her in singles and somehow got 2 games total. Her husband is a local pro and well respected across the nation even as a tennis player. He went straight to the local office and asked them how his wife had been bumped to a 4.5. They told him because of that one match. Long story short she is now a 4.0 after year of having to play at 4.5.
That makes me wonder.......last year there were many players bumped to 4.5 who didn't and don't belong there. Most didn't win a match and were lucky to get any games even. How did they not get back down to a 4.0 level?

I know this has been hashed out every which way and we all have our stories but I have to add one last story that's the most shocking. If ANYONE can tell me how this happened I would love to know!
A girl played D1 tennis and had a decent record. She was also the top state and sectional junior player and had a high national junior ranking. After a year at the D1 school she was homesick and came back to play for a local D3 college.
Upon graduation she self rated as a 3.0 for a tournament which she and her then boyfriend-now husband of course won. A couple years later she got bumped to a 3.5. She was 25y/o at the time. A team filed a grievance and she did get moved to 4.0 but she is actually a high 4.5/low 5.0. They said they couldn't move her higher than a 4.0 because she claimed she had to have a C-section when she had her child. (now how many women have those each year???) It took her finally getting DQd. Her captain at the time thought she was protected but due to her having gotten bumped from 3.5 to 4.0 she no longer was.
The whole kicker of it all was that her D3 coach is on the state's grievance committee and everyone found out later he was protecting her. He has done this same thing for 3 other players I know of. How do they get by with things like this??
Why do they have the chart even where it states that if a player either played or committed to playing D1 tennis and are under 30y/o they are an automatic 5.0? They make the rules to look legit but then just do what they want.
Well, there's my 2 cents and then some. It's a mess for sure. I guess I may play another season of league but am so grateful for age group tournaments. Much more enjoyable. For whatever reason the state I live in doesn't take tournaments or national rankings into account when it comes to ratings either. Go figure that one out....
Thanks also for the post about the TenCap......I'm going to go look into just what all that's about right now.

 

[dafox]

Below is a summary of the NorCal USTA bump ups by level:

Level # Up Down No change
2.5 886 669 217 0
3 3288 1214 2062 12
3.5 8107 1361 6688 58
4 7201 570 6477 154
4.5 2051 110 1833 108
5 309 11 271 27
5.5 57 2 31 24
6 1 0 0 1

http://www.norcal.usta.com/Leagues-Pages/Ratings-Pages/Ratings-General/

 

[Jim A]

I was trying to stay out of it all and emulate Brett Favre

A big part of this that people are overlooking when it comes to your DNTRP/etc is what happens when you have a result the system doesn't expect.

If you are getting closer to the range where you would be bumped and suffer a loss that is unexpected or out of range it would drive the rating down more than originally predicted.

I think this is actually why Ian2 wasn't bumped, there was a league + tournament loss that dropped his DNTRP to a level where by the end of the season still left him a touch short from the magic line. In our District they don't add in tournament ratings until the end of the season