I've been playing tennis for a couple of decades and in the adult world, we generally refer our skills level using NTRP rating. 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, etc. However, since my son started playing competitively, I found out that the UTR score is a much more accurate representation of one's capability. Say, a UTR 7.2 has a very high chance of beating a UTR 5.5. And men's D1 college recruits are at least UTR 10. However, the NTRP rating isn't so clear cut. Why don't adults use UTR more?
Why adults don't use UTR much?
- Thread starter htabbas
- Start date
socallefty
G.O.A.T.
Kids play UTR tournaments and get UTR ratings. Most rec adults rarely play tournaments and the only officially sanctioned matches they play are USTA league matches typically. So, it is more common to use their computer ratings from USTA leagues.
Self-ratings are a joke anyway and are typically wildly inaccurate whether a player tries to guess their UTR or NTRP rating.
Moveforwardalways
Hall of Fame
7.2 beating a 5.5 reliably? That is pretty easy to predict. That’s saying a NTRP 4.5 will reliably beat a 3.5.
NTRP is not as bad as many think. UTR is also not as great as some think, and it suffers from the same ratings issues any any other system.
Moveforwardalways
Hall of Fame
This is definitely true. Can’t tell you how often I hear guys who do not play league say “I’m about a 4.0-4.5”. Lol, that almost always means 3.5 or even 3.0.
Moveforwardalways
Hall of Fame
Almost never happens though. UTR overrates kids like crazy. I have seen UTR 6 adults absolutely destroy kids in the 8 range.
UTR markets to kids, so it needs to make them feel good. USTA 4.5 league is where juniors who think they are good get an education in tennis.
stapletonj
Hall of Fame
Because adults have seen it all before. WE learned one way, and every freaking year, they want to change it, and when investigated, the change isn't a change at all, just a relabelling of the same old same old.
Or a material cheapening of a product while labelling it as improved. "Now lighter!" 99% of the time means more and flimsier plastic and less durable.
AS the Bible says" There is nothing new under the sun"
New Coke, indeed.
Nothing can be repaired. At best, swap out assemblies.
Or a material cheapening of a product while labelling it as improved. "Now lighter!" 99% of the time means more and flimsier plastic and less durable.
AS the Bible says" There is nothing new under the sun"
New Coke, indeed.
Nothing can be repaired. At best, swap out assemblies.
stapletonj
Hall of Fame
NOW GET OFF MY LAWN !!!!!!!
Lord Of The Strings
Rookie
Because UTR and NTRP serve different purposes.
The purpose of UTR is to try and say that Player A is objectively better than Player B even if the two players will never ever meet, which is the easiest way for colleges to recruit players. Obviously it won't be completely accurate for a million different reasons.
The purpose of NTRP is to group players of similar skill sets into broader categories to form competitive leagues. Yeah, there will be self-rates who don't belong in there, and people will tank to keep themselves in a lower category than their skill level might dictate.
Still, the fundamental purpose of the two services are different, but people love to get caught up on their self-worth being tied to a number.
The purpose of UTR is to try and say that Player A is objectively better than Player B even if the two players will never ever meet, which is the easiest way for colleges to recruit players. Obviously it won't be completely accurate for a million different reasons.
The purpose of NTRP is to group players of similar skill sets into broader categories to form competitive leagues. Yeah, there will be self-rates who don't belong in there, and people will tank to keep themselves in a lower category than their skill level might dictate.
Still, the fundamental purpose of the two services are different, but people love to get caught up on their self-worth being tied to a number.
Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
We use UTR all the time to scout other teams in post season play.
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
That can happen in a bubble, as in there are UTR bubbles for kids in some places where they can get up to UTR 8 just playing high school and the local talent. But, the cities with tennis academies whose kids travel during the summer to larger tournaments have hard earned 8s and would have an easy time with UTR 6s and even some UTR 8s adults. The adults will get the UTR from playing other adults, if they mix with a strong UTR all ages tournament field the difference can be in the favor of the kids. Just an example, these UTR 8 kids will have a nutritionist, a fitness coach, a mental coach, and a tennis coach watching their matches. To conceptualize they are losing to UTR 9s to get down to UTR 8 while the regional non academy kids can get up to UTR 8 winning high school matches against UTR 7s. etc. etc.
GrassCourtFan
Legend
Adults often prefer playing leagues, and USTA runs popular leagues so everyone cares about USTA NTRP. UTR, on the other hand, is how you prove yourself to college recruiters, so kids play UTR tournaments.
The details of the rating system are less important than the organization for leagues/tournaments.
The details of the rating system are less important than the organization for leagues/tournaments.
MarinaHighTennis
Hall of Fame
I don't think a 7.2 UTR is gonna beat a 5.5 haha. A 5.5 is a former D1 tennis player. A 7.2 falls within the 4.5 range imo and I agree
I agree. Know most 4.5s to beat 3 star recruits pretty convincingly. Even saw some 4 stars struggle playing 4.5s (in doubles) but at that ranking I'm surprised bc thats a big jump from 3 stars in level
time_fly
Hall of Fame
Part of the problem is the old skills-based descriptions of the NTRP levels. On that chart if you can consistently get slow rally balls somewhere into the court on both wings you are at least a 3.5.
Moveforwardalways
Hall of Fame
Ummm… a 7.2 UTR will obviously beat a 5.5 UTR
MarinaHighTennis
Hall of Fame
oh i thought you mean ntrp 5.5
jdawgg
Semi-Pro
Weird. This has not been my experience at all as someone who has played tons of USTA 4.5 & 5.0 and played local kids rated 8-9 in UTR. The juniors are usually stronger than the adults. They hit much bigger and are much faster.
jm1980
Talk Tennis Guru
Of course, 5.5 NTRP players have UTRs over 10
FuzzyYellowBalls
Legend
Yeah, there's pockets of UTR 8s , I wrote about it above, if the juniors in an area aren't academy kids and don't travel to multy region tourneys in the summer, you can get pockets of UTR 8s 7s kids who aren't nearly as good as other area youths who are getting beat down by solid UTR 9s etc. . It's the same with NTRP despite nationals....(runs and hides from the haters). 12 year old UTR 8s trying to get into Bolleteri or stay in an academy are different than the local high school champ who also has a UTR 8, but isn't mixing it up with that kind of kid.
RyanRF
Professional
Because USTA has well established leagues using NTRP.
UTR leagues are not offered in many regions and/or have unusual formats.
It's probably a generational thing. Years from now when today's UTR juniors want to play rec ball after HS/college, they will be more likely to do UTR than USTA.
UTR leagues are not offered in many regions and/or have unusual formats.
It's probably a generational thing. Years from now when today's UTR juniors want to play rec ball after HS/college, they will be more likely to do UTR than USTA.
Moveforwardalways
Hall of Fame
UTR does not offer any significant leagues, and probably never will. USTA NTRP rating is the benchmark rating for league play in the US. UTR is purely a mechanism for juniors to measure their progress over time and apply for college scholarships.
You cannot build a durable league infrastructure with a system that changes your rating everyday with every match.
You cannot build a durable league infrastructure with a system that changes your rating everyday with every match.
bluetrain4
G.O.A.T.
You answered your own question. Because they didn't grow up with it and are used to a different rating system, so they use that.
This will annoy most of these people.
Because if you play UTR you are forced to play against people that play the modern game. The USTA has a lot of overrated people. They are one dimensional and lack skills in areas. They have one serve, if that, you will see dink serves at the 4.0 men’s and 4.5 womens, the second serve of a lower 4.5 male is crushable if they are over 35 in a lot of cases. They usually lack topspin or heavy topspin, they can dink and dunk, and talk a racquet game. Yes there are some legit 4.5 and 4.0s but for the most part…..nope and the legit ones also have a UTR.
UTR quickly exposes this. You also don’t get to pick and choose your opponents like in the local USTA teams. Where you play the same people and can work your lineup to the one dimensional strengths. Can a USTA beat a higher junior UTR, sure. Usually because of a complete lack of a consistent ball that isn’t intended. That will not sustain though.
Yeah I had a usta male beat a decent utr JR.. he showed with a 115 frame and hit slices and dinked the whole game. He actually complained of shoulder pain and started drop feeding as a serve…….My junior refused to pound him and tried to hit lower and lower slices frustrating themselves in the process. The USTA player could barely move at the end but won.
Moveforwardalways
Hall of Fame
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
UTR doesn’t work well in many areas because they only count matches in the past 12 months and they completely split singles and doubles. So the ratings bounce around. I had a 6+ doubles rating at one point and a 2.4 singles rating in utr.
LOBALOT
Legend
I don't know where this is but that is cray talk. A 4.5 NTRP cannot touch a 3* recruit. I doubt the typical 3* would give up a game against a 4.5.
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LOBALOT
Legend
I don't find UTR that helpful in evaluating adults for the very reason that adults get banded into a range of UTR because they play Adult USTA at a given NTRP level. Adults also don't move around much geographically compared to advanced junior players so they tend to play the same group of players in the same band of skill in the same locality.
What would be great is if more adults play UTR tournaments but you don't see much of it. Typically because adults don't want to get destroyed by kids 1/2 (or 1/3 or 1/4) their age.
What would be great is if more adults play UTR tournaments but you don't see much of it. Typically because adults don't want to get destroyed by kids 1/2 (or 1/3 or 1/4) their age.
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For what it's worth, in the competition I'm posting on another thread, UTR is currently doing the best of any publicly available system (vs. Tennisrecord, TLS, and WTN) at predicting the outcome of 4.0 men's adult league matches. I used all UTR-rated players for the competition regardless of the confidence.
So maybe adults should be choosing to use UTR if they want the best available measure of their skill vs. other adults. Either that or pay @schmke for his rating of you (he is doing just as well as UTR if not better).
So maybe adults should be choosing to use UTR if they want the best available measure of their skill vs. other adults. Either that or pay @schmke for his rating of you (he is doing just as well as UTR if not better).
travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
Another issue that I was just reminded of that messes up doubles ratings for adult UTR:
UTR sets an arbitrary cutoff where they don’t count the match if the partners are more than 4 UTR points apart.
Since most adult players play a lot of mixed doubles, and roughly half of all usta mixed doubles matches in 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 involve a team that 4.0m/3.0f, 4.5M/3.5f, or 5.0m/4.0f because those are the combos that are most competitively advantageous, it means that half of the mixed matches don’t count.
But worse, those combos are about 4 UTR units apart in level on average, sometimes more, so the arbitrary cutoff causes everyone’s doubles ratings to jump around when the matches switch in and out of meeting the cutoff.
Since UTR’s whole purpose was to have a rating system that can rate men and women together, it boggles my mind why they would build in an exclusion for half the mixed matches. Mixed matches are usually the only times that men and women are on the court at the same time.
USTA officials were so appalled by your 8.0 mixed threads that they have now instituted a rule for next year where no more 1.0 level differences are allowed (i.e. two 4.0s in 8.0, not a 3.5/4.5). I do not know if it's for the whole country or just Southern, but I would expect that the same rules would have to be followed for everyone if there's National competition.
Do you have data showing that HALF of mixed matches are not being counted on UTR? That seems way high. I just browsed through dozens of 8.0 mixed matches involving at least one 4.5M player, and could only find a couple that were excluded.
GrassCourtFan
Legend
Schemke's ratings are a really good implementation of USTA NTRP (he used them to predict bumpups and so on). It's just that USTA doesn't publish the raw ratings, just the overall ratings band. So NTRP seems fine.
Yeah NTRP may be fine under the surface, although schmke disagrees with their bump results at least on occasion. But the OP's point was that UTR is much more informative to adults about their ability than is their 0.5 NTRP band, which I think is true.
Every adult I play with is a UTR Power User.
Point of trivia. I know two 2* kids that played team tennis their senior year at 4.5. One was bumped on a 3rd strike, the other end of year. Regardless of their 2* rating, both were good players. Their only singles losses, one when they played each other, the other loss one played a good teaching pro and lost in a MTB.
travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
The thing about high school players is that they can easily improve by 0.5 ntrp points in one year.
ichaseballs
Hall of Fame
from a business standpoint kids are likely to have more free time and play competitive matches.
also they are just future adults so locking in the potential future business.
also they are just future adults so locking in the potential future business.
ichaseballs
Hall of Fame
would be funny/fun? if USTA had a 39 & Under league
They do have 18-39 leagues in some places. The one in our area has been pretty much a bust though.
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
I didn’t know they did that when the partners had a difference. But if one team is much better then their opponent it won’t count unless the lower rated team actually wins the match. That way a higher rated team won’t lose rating points from a 6-1 6-1 match. Is that a new rule?
travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
Problem with including outlier upsets but excluding all the blowouts and close matches between wide level gap opponents is this is it creates a bias. They really need a Nate Silver type on staff.
Moon Shooter
Hall of Fame
In mismatches the winning team will often let up a bit. It is not always sandbagging - really kind of the opposite. Not taking adult rec tennis too seriously. Of course in some cases it is sandbagging.
Cashman
Hall of Fame
I dunno, for adults UTR seems to bounce around an awful lot
I don't explicitly play UTR events (I just play a bunch of random club matches/tournaments/competitions here and there, some of which get entered into the system) and my UTR is all over the shop and has about 10-20% reliability... opponents seem mostly the same
maybe as a group adult rec players don't put enough UTR matches under their belt for the rating to work
travlerajm
Talk Tennis Guru
This is more the fault of UTR not being a very robust algorithm than it is the fault of adults not playing enough matches. UTR claims on their website that 5 matches is enough to produce a reliable rating, but clearly that is not the case. I should not be a UTR 9 yesterday, a UTR 7 today, and a UTR 9 again tomorrow. This bouncing around erodes confidence in the rating.
But it was very nice of the kid to give the match away by refusing to hit good shots; I’m sure that’s what happened and very sporting of him.
