WTN's "High Confidence" Is Just not Accurate

I've been playing a few more rated matches recently, and since the USTA site has WTN posted for almost everyone, I'm trying to use that to gauge my progress. The only problem is... the rating is nonsense.

Now, I would understand the noisy rating were a player to have played only a few matches. Whenever it says "low confidence" or "medium confidence," and the results don't line up at all, I give them a pass. The issue, though, is that even "high confidence" seems extremely far from the player's actual level. The match results never line up.

I have many, many examples from recent matches, but I'll give the most egregious one here. My last tournament had two players:

Player 1 - WTN 18.51 (high confidence, at least 20 matches played in the last month)
Player 2 - WTN 20.9 (also high confidence, also at least 20 matches)

They played and... the 20.9 won 6-2 6-0. This should correspond, roughly, to a UTR 8.3 beating a UTR 9.3 by 6-2 6-0, which is nearly mathematically impossible if they've played enough matches to have real ratings (and no one got injured or anything).

Player 1 (18.51) is 5.0 self rated, player 2 (20.9) is 5.0 computer rated. Player 1 has crushed many, many 4.0 level players, and has played a few close matches (7-5, 6-4) against solid 4.5s - guys in the WTN 25 range. Meanwhile, the 5.0c player is having a strong season playing nothing but Men's 5.0.

It doesn't end there, though. So many of us in this recent round robin had WTNs between 27-29 and yet there were bagels, 6-1s, and 6-2s all over the place; far more than competitive sets. I'd play one guy at WTN 28 and crush him 6-1, and then another guy at WTN 28 and get crushed 6-2. Sure, I played a little better in one of those matches, but the second guy was CLEARLY a far superior player - it felt pretty similar to when I've played other WTN 25s.

I will give one caveat about the 18.51 vs the 20.9 - the 18.51 is the best version of a pusher you can have, an MEP style player. So while it's not surprising that 5.0 players with the right game can beat him 6-2 6-0, I also wouldn't be surprised if he can routinely beat 5.0 players that haven't practiced the right things. It's also not surprising that he routinely crushes 4.0s and 4.5s, but could get into a tight match against a 4.5 with the right game. It is possible that the egregious result is due to the unique matchup, rather than the rating just being bunk.

What have you guys experienced with WTN? Is it as noisy as it seems, or did I just get a few confusing results in a row, but overall it's actaully fine?
 

LOBALOT

Legend
I just think all these systems run into issues for adults who tend to play the same group of local players at a banded level.

As far as your player 1 and player 2 situation specifically if player 2 played a bunch 5.0 players in that 21 WTN range his WTN is going to tend to drift to somewhere near there. If Player 1 played a bunch 18.51 players and that group of players tended to play in a pod in their area then the system is going to tend to group player 1 toward that 18.5 as the system has no way of knowing.

Juniors tend to travel and play a broader distribution of players and with that these types of comparative rating systems work better.
 

TennisOTM

Professional
Yes WTN is quite bad. I did an analysis last year to see how well they (and other systems) could predict the winner of 4.0 men's USTA matches in my area over all of 2023.

Out of nearly 600 matches (singles and doubles combined), WTN predicted the winner correctly in only 61% of them. By comparison UTR got 73%. Even Tennisrecord and TLS (which are probably run as a hobby in someone's spare time) did better than WTN at 65 and 66%.

In the singles matches WTN did especially bad, going just 90-83 (52%). A coin flip would have a decent chance of beating that by pure luck.
 
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LOBALOT

Legend
As a captain of several teams when it comes time for the playoffs especially states, sectionals, when you are much less familiar with the pool of players I assemble some spreadsheets of opponent rosters, their records, what their opponent UTR/WTNs were, their UTR/WTN, etc. and it is marginally useful. I usually end up questioning why I put the effort into it as really those measures aren't much helpful except at the macro level (i.e. say if a player is 2 UTR better than anyone else they play).

For Advance Juniors who travel UTR is extremely helpful and I would venture most parents would take a peak at the matchup data.

They just came out with WTN when my son wrapped up juniors and went to college and at that time WTN was complete and utter garbage. In my opinion it is still not as good as UTR.
 

Chairman3

Hall of Fame
Yes WTN is quite bad. I did an analysis last year to see how well they (and other systems) could predict the winner of 4.0 men's USTA matches in my area over all of 2023.

Out of nearly 600 matches (singles and doubles combined), WTN predicted the winner correctly in only 61% of them. By comparison UTR got 73%. Even Tennisrecord and TLS (which are probably run as a hobby in someone's spare time) did better than WTN at 65 and 66%.

In the singles matches WTN did especially bad, going just 90-83 (52%). A coin flip would have a decent chance of beating that by pure luck.
Did you make any adjust for 3.5s playing 4.0 matches (becoming more common in my area, sadly) or 4.0C v. S v. A ratings?
Just curious if there was any significance.

Also I'm not totally surprised as the general range at 4.0 (especially 4.0) of actual skill has a huge variation.
Where I'm at (FL) the best 4.0s are really 4.5s and the worst are just 3.5s that played up to get bumped.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
At a local tournament, they had the #1 seed for a 3.5 singles division be a 3.0 player based on WTN... and he lost in the opening match.
To be fair, he's probably ready to a mid 3.5 player... but nowhere near the top of the draw!

Anyway, I'm told in Oct/nov they will do a big update/adjustment. I hope they don't block UTR or TR from access
 

LOBALOT

Legend
At a local tournament, they had the #1 seed for a 3.5 singles division be a 3.0 player based on WTN... and he lost in the opening match.
To be fair, he's probably ready to a mid 3.5 player... but nowhere near the top of the draw!

Anyway, I'm told in Oct/nov they will do a big update/adjustment. I hope they don't block UTR or TR from access
If USTA follows there normal trends they will block UTR as it is now competition to WTN.

They know TR is nothing more than a swag and has almost zero correlation to their NTRP.
 

TennisOTM

Professional
Did you make any adjust for 3.5s playing 4.0 matches (becoming more common in my area, sadly) or 4.0C v. S v. A ratings?
Just curious if there was any significance.
I never analyzed those details. I included any matches played in a 4.0 league or a 4.0 NTRP tournament during the year, which did include some 3.5-rated guys playing up. Those were some of the matches that should have been easy to predict the winner. The self-rated players included some who did not have any rating going into the year (no match history) and those were excluded.
Also I'm not totally surprised as the general range at 4.0 (especially 4.0) of actual skill has a huge variation.
Where I'm at (FL) the best 4.0s are really 4.5s and the worst are just 3.5s that played up to get bumped.
I actually found that the 4.0 leagues and tournaments produced pretty good matchups on the whole. Of course there were some big mismatches usually involving 3.5 and/or soon-to-be 4.5 guys, but those were pretty rare as a percentage of all the matches played. That's partly why even UTR could not do better than 73% win prediction.
 

Chairman3

Hall of Fame
I never analyzed those details. I included any matches played in a 4.0 league or a 4.0 NTRP tournament during the year, which did include some 3.5-rated guys playing up. Those were some of the matches that should have been easy to predict the winner. The self-rated players included some who did not have any rating going into the year (no match history) and those were excluded.

I actually found that the 4.0 leagues and tournaments produced pretty good matchups on the whole. Of course there were some big mismatches usually involving 3.5 and/or soon-to-be 4.5 guys, but those were pretty rare as a percentage of all the matches played. That's partly why even UTR could not do better than 73% win prediction.
I don't know how much you get into it, but did you look for anomalous results such as lower 4.0s having a "close match" with higher 4.0s? You'd expect lower 4.0s to get beat easily but there are probably quite a few low 4.0s that push high 4.0s to a third set and still lose.
To me those are sandbagging triggers when a result that shouldn't be close ends up close. And then obviously you'd narrow it down by team and look for correlation.
 

TennisOTM

Professional
I don't know how much you get into it, but did you look for anomalous results such as lower 4.0s having a "close match" with higher 4.0s? You'd expect lower 4.0s to get beat easily but there are probably quite a few low 4.0s that push high 4.0s to a third set and still lose.
To me those are sandbagging triggers when a result that shouldn't be close ends up close. And then obviously you'd narrow it down by team and look for correlation.
I did not look at match scores at all, only wins and losses. Sometimes there were upsets where a low 4.0 or even 3.5 would not only keep it close but win outright against a high 4.0. Could be suspicious but it's not great proof of anything - we all know that sometimes guys have unusually good / bad days.
 

socallefty

G.O.A.T.
we all know that sometimes guys have unusually good / bad days.
We see pros play and their head-head record, scores etc. can vary a lot against the same opponent unless there is a huge difference in rankings. This is even more true for rec players.

There are many friends that I play singles with often where the scores are all over the place from one-sided beatdowns to close matches to losses. What happened at work that day, what happened the previous night in terms of drinking/sleep etc. (if it is a weekend match) all make a huge difference to how well a rec player plays. The serve quality in particular seems to vary a lot.

So hard to look at one match between two players and automatically make an accurate conclusion on their level difference.
 

schmke

Legend
We see pros play and their head-head record, scores etc. can vary a lot against the same opponent unless there is a huge difference in rankings. This is even more true for rec players.

There are many friends that I play singles with often where the scores are all over the place from one-sided beatdowns to close matches to losses. What happened at work that day, what happened the previous night in terms of drinking/sleep etc. (if it is a weekend match) all make a huge difference to how well a rec player plays. The serve quality in particular seems to vary a lot.

So hard to look at one match between two players and automatically make an accurate conclusion on their level difference.
Recreational players have their level vary significantly from match to match. My low to high match rating by my ratings this year is nearly 0.5 and my standard deviation for my match ratings is 0.12. So about 68% of the time I cover a range of 0.24, that alone isn't insignificant and could lead to playing the same player one day and winning and losing the next day, especially if we are similarly rated and my high corresponds with his low and vice versa. But my performance will be outside that 0.24 range 32% of the time as well.

And I have teammates with slightly higher standard deviations and max ranges, as well as some that are lower.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
Just curious if any experts here know how often WTN updates? Is it monthly/weekly or after each match? I've been ignoring it but if it's going to be more prominent may need to start writing it down...
Is it fair to say that singles matches will only affect the Singles WTN and doubles matches only affect the Doubles WTN? My understanding also is that it just looks at sets won and ignores games scores.
I think to a degree it makes sense but only if you have enough data from matches. In the last tournament I've seen quite a few teams split sets 6-1 and then 1-6 and a couple even gave up a bagel but went on to win their match.

And of course, is there a relationship between WTN and being bumped up or down? Again complicated by the separate ratings for singles and doubles.

edit-- the crappy USTA site actually does state that WTN is updated weekly...
does anyone know how to use "gamezone" "A personalized tool, GameZone, helps you identify players of similar skill level."
They also state: "A wide range of player statistics help you track and improve your game."
how do I find these statistics?
 

schmke

Legend
Just curious if any experts here know how often WTN updates? Is it monthly/weekly or after each match? I've been ignoring it but if it's going to be more prominent may need to start writing it down...
Is it fair to say that singles matches will only affect the Singles WTN and doubles matches only affect the Doubles WTN? My understanding also is that it just looks at sets won and ignores games scores.
I think to a degree it makes sense but only if you have enough data from matches. In the last tournament I've seen quite a few teams split sets 6-1 and then 1-6 and a couple even gave up a bagel but went on to win their match.

And of course, is there a relationship between WTN and being bumped up or down? Again complicated by the separate ratings for singles and doubles.

edit-- the crappy USTA site actually does state that WTN is updated weekly...
does anyone know how to use "gamezone" "A personalized tool, GameZone, helps you identify players of similar skill level."
They also state: "A wide range of player statistics help you track and improve your game."
how do I find these statistics?
Updates are weekly every Wednesday morning and should include matches recorded through Sunday.

Yes, there are separate WTNs for each discipline, but gender doubles and mixed doubles both go towards the doubles WTN.

Indications, including what I've analyzed, are that it only looks at sets and not games.

There is (presently) no relationship between WTN and anything NTRP. There have been suggestions that WTN be used in the self-rate process, but beyond that there is no connection to my knowledge.

GameZone is just an indication of the range of player ratings you'd have a compatible match with, and is likely based primarily on how much you've played and the confidence in the rating.

You can see some stats on the USTA site on your profile, or head over to worldtennisnumber.com.
 

Dags

Hall of Fame
The LTA send the following email this morning.

ITF World Tennis Number changes

The ITF will be making enhancements to the ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) algorithm on Wednesday 11 September 2024 which will show on players' profiles towards the end of the day.

The ITF continually monitor the WTN algorithm and have committed to responsively and transparently adjusting it to ensure it remains accurate for all players. The changes being made are based on feedback from players, coaches and national governing bodies and aim to:

Improve accuracy by adjusting where some players start on the scale
Make every match count whilst recognising the difference in ability between you and your opponent
Faster movement of a player's WTN to reflect their level

These changes will reposition some groups of players on the current scale of 40-1. While players across the country are likely to see their number adjusted, movement relative to others in their own age group should be similar if they play regularly.
HOW DOES IT AFFECT MY WTN?

Most adult players should see relatively small changes to their numbers in either direction of the scale. Some will experience larger differences than others due to the level of opponents they have played.

Players with a verified WTN will see less change than those who don’t have a verified WTN (less frequent competitors recording fewer match results).


There's also a video relating to the update at the bottom of this page:


No real additional information, other than to imply the changes are largely aimed at juniors. That's not unexpected: the US is the only country I've come across where recreational adults care about their rating.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
Updates are weekly every Wednesday morning and should include matches recorded through Sunday.

Yes, there are separate WTNs for each discipline, but gender doubles and mixed doubles both go towards the doubles WTN.

Indications, including what I've analyzed, are that it only looks at sets and not games.

There is (presently) no relationship between WTN and anything NTRP. There have been suggestions that WTN be used in the self-rate process, but beyond that there is no connection to my knowledge.

GameZone is just an indication of the range of player ratings you'd have a compatible match with, and is likely based primarily on how much you've played and the confidence in the rating.

You can see some stats on the USTA site on your profile, or head over to worldtennisnumber.com.
Worldtennisnumber.com actually is decent info and very clear. Obviously made by someone not involved w/ the USTA website. I would hope they would add more breakdowns to the data (like isolate mixed doubles or tri-level win rates), but it's nice being able to pull win-loss records. The head to head has promise, but I think it only works for singles... It shows your range of WTN also which is nice though I'm spoiled by seeing TR's #s after every match.

edit -- actually in the results you can see your wtn # for that match!
 

schmke

Legend
The LTA send the following email this morning.

ITF World Tennis Number changes

The ITF will be making enhancements to the ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) algorithm on Wednesday 11 September 2024 which will show on players' profiles towards the end of the day.

The ITF continually monitor the WTN algorithm and have committed to responsively and transparently adjusting it to ensure it remains accurate for all players. The changes being made are based on feedback from players, coaches and national governing bodies and aim to:

Improve accuracy by adjusting where some players start on the scale
Make every match count whilst recognising the difference in ability between you and your opponent
Faster movement of a player's WTN to reflect their level

These changes will reposition some groups of players on the current scale of 40-1. While players across the country are likely to see their number adjusted, movement relative to others in their own age group should be similar if they play regularly.
HOW DOES IT AFFECT MY WTN?

Most adult players should see relatively small changes to their numbers in either direction of the scale. Some will experience larger differences than others due to the level of opponents they have played.

Players with a verified WTN will see less change than those who don’t have a verified WTN (less frequent competitors recording fewer match results).


There's also a video relating to the update at the bottom of this page:


No real additional information, other than to imply the changes are largely aimed at juniors. That's not unexpected: the US is the only country I've come across where recreational adults care about their rating.
The USTA had sent out an e-mail about the impending changes a few weeks ago as well, and they seem to have gone live this morning.

No real analysis yet other than to note my WTNd got better by about two, it had gotten worse by about nine in the adjustment a year ago.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
Looking at it, the numbers make more sense and match up with my experience of whos a better player.

Its not gender neutral. So some ladies have better wtns but wouldn’t help as much on the court as a guy w a higher wtn.

The largest variation comes from new players. One guy started league play w his first match in USTA history. He is decent player but it gave him a better wtn than more experienced players who bring more to the court. Will have to see how quickly this gets adjusted.

Too early to say how it can predict match outcomes.
 

Dags

Hall of Fame
The USTA had sent out an e-mail about the impending changes a few weeks ago as well, and they seem to have gone live this morning.

No real analysis yet other than to note my WTNd got better by about two, it had gotten worse by about nine in the adjustment a year ago.
My singles improved by 0.2, my doubles down by 0.4. In reality my game has declined significantly - my last doubles match was 2021, singles 2018, and I'm on court far less frequently since that enforced break we all took a few years ago. I wonder if it would have a major impact if I started playing league again, where my diminishing skills mean I would only be picked for a team several divisions lower.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
let's see what happens next Wed. For people who play this weekend, I'm curious how much the score is affected by a win or loss. Optimistic view is that over a month or two, it becomes more accurate representation?

edit---
One other peculariarity, while scouting upcoming opponents, I came across a married couple who have only played doubles together. Yet, the woman is rated 1 point better than him... I suppose it could be a hold-over from prior to this adjustment where women were given better ratings at equivalent NTRPs... the husband is definitely the stronger player though they have the same NTRP.
 
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Moon Shooter

Hall of Fame
Seems like WTN still seems to penalize for old age, so that if two players have comparable records, the younger player is rated better.

By records do you mean sets? I am not sure if it counts a match tiebreak the same as a set.

Edit: So for guys on my over 40 team WTN was starting them out at 3.9.9 and after this change it seems they are starting out 35.5. But a guy I just played against who is self rate 3.0 playing his first doubles match had a WTN rating of 27.2. He is marked as 30-40 years old - likely about 3-32 since he is in grad school. He did play in a singles tournament before and ended up with a 25.7 singles rating (he started that with a 27.1 rating) So it definitely seems they are starting older players who self rate at the same level with a worse WTN.
 
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Moon Shooter

Hall of Fame
This is what WTN seems to be assigning players for their very first match:

3.0 male doubles age 50+ 35.5
3.0 male singles 50+ 33.3
3.0 male doubles age 31-40 27.2 (checked with two people)
3.0 male singles age 31-40 27.1 (checked with 2 people)

3.5 male doubles age 41-50 31.8 (2024)
3.5 male singles 31-40 27.2
3.5 male singes 20-30 27.2
3.5 male doubles 20-30 27.2
3.5 male doubles 50+ 30.6 (2022)
3.5 male singles 50+ 30.9 (2024)

2.5 female 41-50 singles 36.6
2.5 female 41-50 doubles 37.7 (checked with 2 people)
2.5 female 50+ doubles 37.7

3.0 female 31-40 doubles 34.2
3.0 female 31-40 singles 32.5


So yes there is a huge bias based on age for men. It also seems odd that 50+ 3.5 guy starts 30.9 and a 41-50 male 3.5 starts 31.8. But the years they started are different. That is the only time I saw a difference which seemed to stem from the year they started.

Also it is interesting they are rating female 3.0 self rates age 31-40 stronger then 3.0 male self rates 50+.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
Thanks for getting this info from the field.
This makes my WTN singles makes sense... but overall, the #s are way too low (good). Perhaps this is something intentional?
Looking at established players, a teaching pro has a 4.5 rating w/ 23 WTN in singles. He has played to finals/semi-finals of 4.5 tournaments and gotten to the semi-finals of open tournament in singles. It would be silly to compare to a 3.5 player who could start w/ a lower WTN!
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
This is what WTN seems to be assigning players for their very first match:

3.0 male doubles age 50+ 35.5
3.0 male singles 50+ 33.3
3.0 male doubles age 31-40 27.2 (checked with two people)
3.0 male singles age 31-40 27.1 (checked with 2 people)

3.5 male doubles age 41-50 31.8 (2024)
3.5 male singles 31-40 27.2
3.5 male singes 20-30 27.2
3.5 male doubles 20-30 27.2
3.5 male doubles 50+ 30.6 (2022)
3.5 male singles 50+ 30.9 (2024)

2.5 female 41-50 singles 36.6
2.5 female 41-50 doubles 37.7 (checked with 2 people)
2.5 female 50+ doubles 37.7

3.0 female 31-40 doubles 34.2
3.0 female 31-40 singles 32.5


So yes there is a huge bias based on age for men. It also seems odd that 50+ 3.5 guy starts 30.9 and a 41-50 male 3.5 starts 31.8. But the years they started are different. That is the only time I saw a difference which seemed to stem from the year they started.

Also it is interesting they are rating female 3.0 self rates age 31-40 stronger then 3.0 male self rates 50+.
Instead of trying to adjust for age when players have comparable results but are different ages, they should simply use the results based on merit, but also apply an age-based rating decay model that follows an aging curve and that only applies if the player is inactive.

This was probably their intent, but they didn’t think it through properly.

Otherwise, the age adjustment is self-defeating of their quest for accuracy because the adjustments are not justified by the results.
 
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Moon Shooter

Hall of Fame
The whole idea of just assigning a 50+ player over 8 points higher(worse) then the same self rated 31-40 year old player is insanely stupid. The same is true of assigning them a worse rating then a 3.0 female player. It is so frustrating to see them do stuff like this and then claim “well I guess all rating systems just can’t be that accurate in tennis”. A rating system can be extremely accurate they just need to stop making these unforced errors.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
Assuming this isn’t just a mistake or unqualified person writing their code, I then believe this may be setting grounds for using wtn like ntrp or dynamic rating.

Often ill hear ppl grumble they’re playing against a young 3.5. So even in the same rating, ppl feel age is impactful. So maybe to play in the 3.0 league your wtn must fall within a certain range. 36-30? And 3.5 will be 31-25. So player w 30 could play in both but a 29 has to play in the higher league.

This would also explain why theyre giving women better ratings.

Just speculation. And again w the assumption they arent just restarted.
 

TennisBro

Hall of Fame
WTN and UTR are two ridiculously discriminative indicators of players' abilities to play tennis and so ought to be bannished; the American college tennis recruiters, who look at those UTR ratings, should stop drinking their kool-aid, get up of their arses and start using their brains more often.
 

Moon Shooter

Hall of Fame
Assuming this isn’t just a mistake or unqualified person writing their code, I then believe this may be setting grounds for using wtn like ntrp or dynamic rating.

Often ill hear ppl grumble they’re playing against a young 3.5. So even in the same rating, ppl feel age is impactful. So maybe to play in the 3.0 league your wtn must fall within a certain range. 36-30? And 3.5 will be 31-25. So player w 30 could play in both but a 29 has to play in the higher league.

I'm not aware of any mens leagues below 3.0. (there are men that get bumped down to 2.5 but there are no leagues supported by nationals) So it seems USTA is saying 3.0 leagues for men should cover 40-30. But even there they are starting the ratings of 50+ players at 35.5 and 31-40 at 27.2. So if that is the case they are clearly assuming that everyone under 40 is not actually playing at level. Or they think 3.0 men's leagues should go from something like WTN 40-26. Who knows?

This would also explain why theyre giving women better ratings.

Unless you think the average 31-40 female 3.0 self rate is better then the average 50+ 3.0 self rate I am not sure how giving them a stronger rating makes any sense.

Just speculation. And again w the assumption they arent just restarted.


Yes USTA is one of the least transparent groups I know. So we can only speculate why they are choosing to make all their rating systems so bad.
 

Roforot

Hall of Fame
I think the idea is that a 31-40 female self rate is going to improve faster than the 50+ self rate.
They could allow this to play out through results but they are giving the younger players a slight benefit to their starting WTN.

It's also possible that they have an over goal of how many people of age/gender they want in each division and are designing WTN to fulfil that role primarily.
 

netlets

Professional
As a player and teaching pro, I never liked these rating systems. It puts unnecessary pressure on juniors that play tournaments and it impedes their progress. If they are way ahead against a player that has a worse rating, they won’t try to work on new things during a match with fear of their rating going down. I am 58 now and a UTR 8 in singles and was just a 9 in dubs but a high 8 now. My WTN is 23 in singles and 28 in dubs! It makes no sense - I am a better singles player for sure but not by too much. In dubs I played two events and won them both easily with a similar level partner. Lost one match in singles in two events - he was a former tour player (5 years ago) and his WTN - wait for it…is 3! He crushed me. Why is my dubs WTN so high in dubs? Age?
 

travlerajm

Talk Tennis Guru
For the first time ever, my USTA computer rating, TR men’s rating, TR mixed rating, UTR singles rating, UTR doubles ratingg, WTN singles rating, and WTN doubles rating are all in perfect agreement!
 

Moon Shooter

Hall of Fame
As a player and teaching pro, I never liked these rating systems. It puts unnecessary pressure on juniors that play tournaments and it impedes their progress. If they are way ahead against a player that has a worse rating, they won’t try to work on new things during a match with fear of their rating going down. I am 58 now and a UTR 8 in singles and was just a 9 in dubs but a high 8 now. My WTN is 23 in singles and 28 in dubs! It makes no sense - I am a better singles player for sure but not by too much. In dubs I played two events and won them both easily with a similar level partner. Lost one match in singles in two events - he was a former tour player (5 years ago) and his WTN - wait for it…is 3! He crushed me. Why is my dubs WTN so high in dubs? Age?

I understand what your saying a bit about trying new things when you are ahead. But also junior players should learn to close out when they are ahead.

As for WTN rating being stupid, I think we see that usta is is trying to make the rating fit what they think people “should be” based on age and gender as opposed to what results they get. And then they decided for this rating system just counting sets is somehow just as good as counting games. Even though this cuts against what they found for ntrp and also against what utr found. Suddenly the math changed. It’s a miracle! All these rating systems treat their members like fools with the vague information they offer. It is often misleading. Like utr saying games after 12 month no longer count (unless your name is Jenson Brookby) and wtn suggesting the rating system does not discriminate based on age or gender.
 
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Roforot

Hall of Fame
I got a nice email saying "Congratulations your WTN improved from X to Y!" Made me feel like the USTA is giving me a gentle hug and a pat on the back.
Of course, now I wonder what the opposite email looks like for people who may have lost one or two tough matches!
 
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