The Rules of Tennis (Sort of…)
In certain pockets of the tennis ecosystem, there is a general awareness that a new “World Tennis Number” system is coming soon. The same people that whisper that bit of tennis insider information inevitably follow it up with breathless exhortations that it’s going to be amazing. No one can ever claim that tennis organizational insiders have a lack of enthusiasm for vague forthcoming changes that will revolutionize the administrative side of the sport. By the same token, no one can claim that there is any semblance of a track record of success in such initiatives. In any case, the World Tennis Number is apparently coming soon.
The World Tennis Number is a product of the ITF. According to the official website, it is a global rating for all tennis players, regardless of age, gender or ability. The World Tennis Number is adjusted real time based on recent match performance. Armed with the World Tennis Number a player should be able to track their tennis skill level and find opponents who are evenly matched for competitive play.
The World Tennis Number is not to be confused with the Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) which is already in use and familiar to both tennis players and professional tennis fans. In fact if you visit the Universal Tennis site, you will see that the benefits of the UTR are pretty much exactly the same as those claimed by the World Tennis Number marketing site published under the ITF banner.
It is a fair question to wonder why the ITF (and the USTA) are pushing so hard for a new ratings system instead of just adopting UTR. I have no inside knowledge in that regard. However, I am speculating that it essentially comes down to politics and control. For whatever reason, neither organization is open to partnering with Universal Tennis.
When UTR was first unveiled, the established tennis organizations scoffed at the notion. The organization (now known as Universal Tennis) that developed the UTR system was regarded as hopelessly naive and lacking the understanding of large organizational tennis required to make it work. The idea that a single ratings system that operated without regard to gender or age was disparaged. Essentially UTR was dismissed as a crazy concept that would never work.
Now that UTR has traction and UTR tournament play is starting to seriously cut into events sanctioned by the national associations affiliated with the ITF, the wisdom of a universal rating system is becoming more accepted. Imitation is flattery. Imitation is not to be confused with innovation.
Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), has already officially announced adoption of the ITF World Tennis Number “for players of all standards – making Britain one of the first countries in the world to introduce the brand new, inclusive, innovative (sic) and modern rating system.” The development of the system appears to be UK centric based on related claims that “world-leading expertise of Imperial College London and ITF Data Scientists” contributed to the development of the algorithms.
The USTA also has plans to deploy the World Tennis Number. According to the USTA website, the initial deployment will be a pilot as a tool for select ranked USTA Junior Tournaments and for player groupings in the USTA Junior Circuit events on a national level. Sections will also have the opportunity to use it at their discretion for Section events. While that usage is decidedly junior focused, a USTA representative that attended a meeting with representatives from the National Women’s Tennis Organization (NWTO) and National Senior Men’s Tennis Association (NSMTA) during Intersectionals in 2021, repeatedly mentioned the future emergence of the World Tennis Number.
The USTA has also clearly indicated that the ITF World Tennis Number will NOT replace NTRP ratings or USTA ranking. USTA rankings will continue to be based on player wins and performance in sanctioned USTA tournaments. It is a safe assumption that USTA League play will continue to be NTRP based.
Not every national tennis association is on board with the World Tennis Number. Most notably, Tennis Australia has announced that they are adopting UTR as the ratings system that will form the basis of competitive play down under. Tennis Australia elected to go with UTR following a comprehensive Competitive Play Review that showed that there was “ranking and rating clutter with the purpose and audience of each not well defined.”
In electing to go with UTR, Tennis Australia has broken ranks with the ITF, LTA, and USTA. Also in doing so the deployment of Tennis Australia national play under the UTR system is already deployed using a well established product. “Here and now” is a few notches better than than “coming soon.”
One opportunity that is genuinely lost with the development of the World Tennis Number is branding the new system as the “World Tennis Factor” which would be abbreviated as WTF. Throughout this post I have consistently spelled out “World Tennis Number.” Coincidently, that also seems to be the standard notation used by the other organizations that promote it. “WTN” is not a thing. On the other hand, WTF is a well-understood concept that seems to be apropos. WTF, WTF, WTF.
You might be wondering why I am writing about the World Tennis Number on a day usually reserved for discussion of the rules. It is directly related to next Wednesday’s planned topic that will cover the final rule updates from the 2022 USTA League Regulations. Unless the USTA releases the 2022 Friend at Court in the interim, we’re going to examine the relationship between USTA Leagues and the NTRP system.
- World Tennis Number Official Webpage, last viewed January 1, 2022.
- Universal Tennis Player Webpage, last viewed January 1, 2022.
- Exclusive – New ITF World Tennis Number set to revolutionise the game around the globe, Tennis365.com, October 14, 2021.
- LTA introduces new rating system with tennis players in Britain among first in the world to get an ITF World Tennis Number, LTA Press Release, October 27, 2021.
- The ITF World Tennis Number, USTA Program Resource Page, last viewed January 2, 2022.
- New-Look Competitive Play Calendar Launches 2022 Summer with Universal Tennis, Tennis Australia Press Release, December 1, 2021.
- What’s Your UTR Rating?, Tennis Australia Press Release, December 1, 2021.
Update…
Tennis Australia is an ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) partner. A complete list of partners can be found at https://worldtennisnumber.com/eng/our-partners
Intercollegiate Tennis Association Adopts ITF World Tennis Number as Exclusive Official Rating for College Tennis > https://www.wearecollegetennis.com/2023/01/05/wtn-named-official-rating-of-college-tennis
I understand the UTR organisation charges $12 each month ($120 a year) to provide access to a player’s historical data.
The world tennis number is also an ineffective measure of play.
If as a junior you are a star and rack up tons of wins, then your WTN will be low.
If you then develop your game, it is mighty difficult to get entries into bigger tournaments, where with practice you will get better and have more wins.
The system doesn’t reflect current ability and is not accurate in my view.
I am playing WTN players of 24.0 (Juniors) who are really good (and losing) and beating 15.0’s and 16.0’s WTN numbers.
System is pants and won’t help develop juniors at all…….
Not accurate. If a junior beats several low level players in east tournaments he will have a high WtN.
If he enters hard tournaments he will have a low WtN.
Utr much more accurate.
Hey Jow, The same logic you apply to WTN applies to UTR your conclusions that UTR is more accurate based on the scenarios you describe don’t make sense based on my experience as the start-up CEO of UTR.
I’d recommend you review the following article: “The Science Behind ITF World Tennis Number” at https://worldtennisnumber.com/eng/news/the-science-behind-itf-world-tennis-number
Simply put, UTR is an incredibly broken system if you really think about it. As the father of a top 12U junior player in the U.S. I see how much it’s broken on a regular basis, effecting how kids play and development. Here’s why: the basic rule of tennis is a win a match, and you do this by winning sets. It doesn’t matter by how many games, you just have to win — however ugly. Just like soccer, you don’t get more points by kicking the ball harder into the goal, it only counts as one goal. So, with UTR, there is a game within a game. Not only do you have to win, you have to try to win by as much as you can – so that your UTR goes up or doesn’t go down. All of the kids know what their opponents UTR’s are, so if they ONLY beat a player 1 and 1, when they were supposed to blow them out, they are upset when they should be happen, because their UTR may go down. It also effects risk-taking and their overall development as a player. If they know that they’re supposed to win 0 and 0 or 2 and 2, they try for that level of win and are afraid to take risks because of making mistakes and messing-up their UTR. They end-up playing soft, which is terrible developmentally over time. That said, ITF WTN’s algorithm is based on set wins, which is aligned with the game of tennis, so it only cares about set wins to evaluate performance. Sure, it doesn’t track at the game level to determine if you’re gradually getting better (each day UTR ticks-up and down), but that is also what is broken about it. Like the obsession that kids have with social media, they watch every little like – which supercharges and gamifys the obsession. I could go on, but we no longer look at UTR because is pre-disposes players to outcomes – before they even play a match. WTN will be similar, but at least players don’t have to play the game within the game to try to build their UTR. This is likely why USTA doesn’t wish to partner with them – it’s not good for kids and doesn’t align to the goal of the game of tennis.
What you say about UTR aligns with my understanding on how that algorithm works. For what it’s worth, the USTA’s own NTRP system also heavily weights the games that are won, so I do not believe there is a philosophical rejection of that idea from the organization at large. I am curious about the source of your idea that WTN discounts games and only considers sets. I have not come across that in my own exploration of the topic. I would expect that an exclusive focus on sets wouldn’t produce data with enough fidelity to make the calculations in a meaningful way.
Thanks for the follow-up. Here is a link and it specifically mentions that it’s at the set level. They go back 4 years to get enough data. I’ve built calculators in Excel to convert WTN to UTR and back to compare the two. For my daughter, it’s identical. For others, it’s pretty far off, but I wouldn’t go and say that it’s wrong. The truth is, UTR rewards you for even getting a couple of games off of a higher rated player – even though that player probably didn’t even bother playing hard. Again, at the game level, it’s a broken system. Has to be at the set level to align with the goal of the game of tennis.
https://www.worldtennisnumber.com/eng/faq
WTN is nothing bur garbage copy of UTR, not innovation. Keith, You shouldn’t be worried about your UTR if you are so confident about winning. 4 years of data is usess for Juniors as kids go rapidly and can change significantly at performance in just 1 year and UTR is acurate by considering only one year. USTA has made this point and money race by focusing on winning. In the long run, none of these top players are going to make it unless we focus on the game.