Fiend at Court Unplugged
There has been a lot of discussion over the discrepancies and growing pains associated with the USTA National Tournament unified framework and rankings system that was unveiled in 2021. Per USTA Regulations, each player is responsible for regular review of their own player records. Additionally, each player is responsible for notifying the “USTA Adult Tennis Department” if there are any errors or inaccuracies in their player records.
The following excerpt from the USTA Adult and Family Tournament, Ranking & Sectioning Regulations is where the player responsibility is outlined along with the deadline of January 15.
IX.H. Responsibilities of Adult and Family Players Seeking National Ranking.
Players are responsible for regularly reviewing their player records and promptly submitting corrections to their player records to the USTA Adult Tennis Department. All corrections must be submitted no later than January 15.
USTA ADULT AND FAMILY TOURNAMENT, RANKING & SANCTIONING REGULATIONS, IX.H
Players that care about their USTA National Rankings should review their player records from 2021 for inaccuracies in the points awarded. This will impact selection to NTRP Nationals for sections (like Texas) that base selection of endorsements to that event on the USTA National Rankings List.
How to Check Your Player Record
Player Rankings can be queried from the USTA Rankings Search Page. If your name is unique within the system, the initial query will take your “Standing List Rankings” summary which should list all national rankings for the player. If the name is common with other players there is an intermediate page to select the right player returned by the initial query. (If your name is very common you will probably need your USTA number to get your records because the interface will just complain that there are too many results. Query for “John Smith” if you want to see that one in action.)
Because user-friendly interfaces are not the forte of the USTA digital infrastructure, the “Standing List Rankings” contains no hyperlinks to each individual ranking. However, you should take note of the position number and total points for the ranking that you are reviewing because you may see discrepancies on subsequent pages.
To see the results that contribute to the each ranking, there is a “Results” tab at the top of the “Standing List Rankings” page that has to be clicked to see individual records. Within the “Results” tab, the match results have to be filtered to see only those tournaments that are counted for the ranking. That will filter the list down to the top 6 point totals earned at tournaments.
The point totals should align to the points tables for the draw formats outlined in the 2021 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System document. This is important to check because there are known instances in 2021 where those points do not align to that standard. Additionally, there are instances in the rankings list where points indicated on the unfiltered player record list are not the same as the points on the filtered list. Fun times.
I would also recommend that players review their full tournament record because a points error might result in a tournament that being omitted from the “top 6” list that should be included.
It is not clear if a player is authorized to request corrections of other players that appear in front of them in the rankings list due to an error in that player’s records. With NTRP National selections in play, I would think that the USTA would have to consider 3rd party correction requests as valid. Additionally, for adult and senior divisions, selection to national and international teams are at stake. Some players compete under endorsement contracts that are contingent on national rankings. It matters in many cases.
Requests for corrections should be sent to adulttournaments@usta.com. I also highly recommend that players requesting corrections also copy their USTA Section office on the request. Once again, the deadline for submitting rankings list corrections is January 15. I am sure that requests that come in after that time will be rejected for not meeting the deadline.
Recent Rankings Related Content
There are some related posts on this site that might serve as insight into the types of errors that the USTA digital framework has been making this year.
- Texas Understood the Assignment: The Rankings Matter. Contains recent examples of rankings point errors being assigned in USTA tournaments.
- Points Illustrated: An Example of Rankings Inequities. Contains a specific example of how draw format impacted points awarded at a USTA Level 4 tournament in Texas.
- Points Per Round and Rankings. Contains information about a points error that is being made in Round Robin brackets that include defaults and walkovers.
- USTA ADULT AND FAMILY TOURNAMENT, RANKING & SANCTIONING REGULATIONS, USTA Hosted Document, Adopted May 14, 2020 and Amended December 2020.
- 2021 USTA Adult Tournaments Ranking System, USTA Web Hosted Document, viewed 12/29/2021.
