He’s making a list and checking it twice… but the list was incomplete. That wouldn’t be acceptable for Santa Claus and it isn’t for the USTA either.
At midnight Eastern Time every December 1, the USTA releases NTRP ratings for the coming calendar year. During the early morning hours after that update occurs, many people and intrepid captains hammer the system with queries. In the past, that has caused server performance issues and outright crashes under the abnormal (but very predictable) spike in network traffic.
Previously, the USTA has effectively mitigated that effect by releasing a list for all players in each local area. It creates less processing load for the server to regurgitate a static text file than to perform an actual query every time.
On the eve of the release of new NTRP Ratings earlier this month, I advised people to download those lists for the ratings of the players in their local area of interest. As it turns out, the USTA did not publish comprehensive lists this year. However, it is possible to query the system to get that list from the “Advanced Search” page. Here is a screenshot of the parameters set up for Women’s 4.5 for Fort Worth, Texas.
The day after the new ratings were released, I realized that the USTA did not publish the area lists this year. Others commented on this site with the same observation. The good news is that server performance held up for individual queries, so perhaps it was a sign that the organization knew that mitigation was not needed.
However, there is a potential alternate explanation. As I started drafting instructions on how to use the Advanced Query screen to get that data, I noticed that the area query wasn’t returning valid results. For the Fort Worth example illustrated above, my name did not appear in the results even though I played several matches there in 2022. Based on the partial list that was returned, my best guess is that it contained only players whose ratings had changed. In other words, perhaps the people at the USTA did not publish those lists because they were encountering the same problem.
Earlier this week, I was pleased to notice that the USTA has fixed this particular issue in the interim. There is a legitimate need for players to have access to comprehensive lists of NTRP-rated players in their area. For example, a couple of my teams are scrambling around trying to conjure up second teams to enable USTA League Play. Having a shopping list of computer-rated players is essential as an efficient starting point.
I am not sure how the USTA was alerted to the issues with this particular query but am pleased that it was recognized and fixed so promptly. This is an enormous step forward that needs to be recognized and applauded.
However, this is also a launching point for reexamination of other issues with the way the ratings and rankings system organizes, processes, and presents data. Those posts will come in early 2023. Perhaps I will be pleasantly surprised by the additional progress that has been made.
This brings me to the two things on my Christmas wish list that I would like to receive from the USTA. First, it would make me happy if the USTA would engage an experienced database analyst to identify the underlying issues with the structure of the USTA’s competitive records. I remain convinced by the externally visible recurring issues that the root cause is how information is organized in the database. There are people who are very good at architecting those systems that can help fix it.
Second, the USTA desperately needs to start a formal acceptance testing program for consumer-facing content delivery mechanisms. Functional and regression testing in the release approval process would likely eliminate most of the more obvious errors before they are inflicted on the consumers that are trying to use these systems.
Recall that the USTA has the following strategic imperative in the organization’s current long-term strategic plan.
Build and optimize best-in-class digital infrastructure and platforms
Creating intuitive and seamless digital connectivity with the tennis community and positive online user experiences will enhance customer engagement and loyalty. We must continually improve our use of data to derive actionable insights to make informed decisions, measure effectiveness of our programs and initiatives, and evaluate longer-term impact on our mission to grow the game.
USTA “Strategic Imperative”, 2019-26 Long-Term Strategic Plan.
Repairing the underlying data architecture issues and adding a layer of quality assurance is essential for fulfilling that objective. As it turns out, all I want for Christmas from the USTA is fundamentally a gift to the organization itself.
- 2019-26 Long-Term Strategic Plan, USTA Web Page, accessible from the “About” page.
