Overthinking the ITA Adoption of the WTN

On January 5 the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) issued a press release announcing the adoption of the ITF World Tennis Number (WTN) as the exclusive official rating for college tennis. That story was the lead capsule in the January 9th edition of this site’s “Tennis News” weekly post. Behind the scenes, things were moving pretty fast at the ITA. Five days after the initial announcement, the organization announced a “Coaches Webinar” to discuss the integration of the WTN within the ITA. That webinar was conducted on January 17.

For quick organizational context, the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) is the governing body of college tennis in the United States. It oversees men’s and women’s varsity tennis for NCAA Divisions I, II, and III. The ITA also has purview over NAIA and Junior/Community College tennis competition. The organization has several mission objectives toward positive contributions to the tennis ecosystem. The ITA primarily exists to “foster and encourage the playing of intercollegiate tennis in accordance with the highest tradition of sportsmanship and consistent with the general objectives of higher education.”

A video of the ITA coaches webinar is posted to YouTube. However, searching for it directly on that site will not return it because it is “unlisted.” My assumption is that the ITA didn’t want to clog up their channel with a long video targeted at a very narrow coaching demographic. In any case, someone connected to the coaching community sent me the link shortly after the webinar was posted.

One of the stated purposes of the ITA webinar was to teach the collegiate coaching community how the WTN is calculated. Two leaders from the WTN project at the ITF spoke to that objective. The meeting also covered how the WTN is integrated into the ITA Tournament Desk software and player profiles. Additional content was added to address Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that had apparently already surfaced from some ITA coaches following the initial announcement.

Despite the fact that I am not in the collegiate tennis ecosystem, there is a significant overlap between my personal interests and the information presented during the webinar. Additionally, the recreational-competitive adult tennis players that this site is loosely targeted toward are starting to have a vague sense that WTN is a thing. I am starting to field questions about what WTN will ultimately mean for our part of the tennis landscape.

I have only written about the WTN on three previous occasions. Prior to launch, I harbored a degree of skepticism over the forthcoming rating system. At the time of the announcement, the USTA tennis delivery system was mired in a platform launch that remains a candidate case study for things that can go disastrously wrong with these types of projects. Quite frankly, I questioned the wisdom of the USTA’s participation in a new ambitious IT project at the time.

Despite those reservations, as I reviewed my three previous posts on WTN, I found that the emergent tone was cautiously optimistic. Anytime there is a change there is bound to be some trepidation. That is particularly true with a large organization where large-scale change can be a challenge.

The initial ITA announcement of the adoption of the WTN didn’t mention a forthcoming webinar. The fact that one was quickly added a short time later, suggests that the college coaching community might have also expressed some reservations or at least had a lot of questions.

In fact, Dave Mullins, the ITA COO who hosted the webinar seemed to address this head-on during the opening moments of the webinar. “Change can be difficult,” he said. The webinar content quickly pivoted to highlight the many anticipated positive impacts of using WTN for the ITA.

Despite the fact that the live stream lasted barely more than an hour, a lot of new information (at least to me) about how the system works was revealed. Some of these things could influence the adult recreational-competitive ecosystem if not actually portend how the WTN may one day be integrated within USTA tournament and league play.

At this time, I am not sure exactly how many posts will be spawned from that particular webinar, but probably a few. WTN will have a profound impact on the future of the tennis competitive ecosystem at all levels. That means that now is the right time to engage in a little more overthinking on the possible impacts that WTN will ultimately have on our sport.