The tennis courts at the Wichita Falls Country Club were hopping during the pre-dawn hours last week. When the daily temperatures soar well past triple digits, a lot of players turn into early risers. The convergence of early morning tennis activity gave me a chance to eyeball the player that sparked my series of posts from last weekend. For anyone who missed it, I outlined a theory that the NTRP system is tilted against people from underserved tennis communities.
Rafael Perez (Rafa) was not previously unfamiliar to me. I have been on the court with him for a drill on at least one occasion and on adjacent courts several other times. He is an athletic guy who caught the tennis bug as an adult and has been working very hard on his game. You’d think that he is exactly the kind of player that the USTA wants to attract and retain in the tennis ecosystem, but apparently not.
Wichita Falls no longer has sanctioned local USTA league play. There are simply not enough players to field even two teams. The remnant playing community has to work very hard to engage with the USTA ecosystem. It is a hardscrabble existence of scraping enough players together for qualification tournaments or arranged competition between another CTA in the same boat. It is the kind of play that generates disqualification strikes from those high variance matches I wrote about last weekend.
Rafa self-rated at NTRP 3.5 back in 2021 and registered (but did not play) on a Wichita Falls Tri-Level team that year. In 2022, using that original self rating, he competed on a 40+ 4.0 team and played 3 matches at a qualification event against Laredo.
Rafa’s team captain was informed that he had been “promoted” to 4.0 following those qualification matches. That means that every single match he played at that event was a disqualification strike. Examining those results he certainly had a strong performance. Consequently, the change in NTRP rating doesn’t appear to be unreasonable. Since he was already competing on a team at his new NTRP level, those strikes did not constitute a disqualification… yet.
Turning back the clock a little bit, Rafa’s 2021 self-rating was certainly not egregious at the time. In fact, he could have reasonably self-rated at 3.0 based on the USTA self-rating guidelines. Paradoxically, there is nothing that would have prompted him to reconsider self-rating at a higher level when he joined the 4.0 team in 2022.
In retrospect, it might have been a good idea. A full year and a half had lapsed since that original self-rating and Rafa worked very hard in the interim. He is now a much improved player since that time. The NTRP uses those self ratings to initialize its expectations for player performance. That would certainly had changed his match performance ratings and muted the variance that generated the strikes.
Rafa’s performance at 40+ 4.0 Sectionals certainly makes him look like an NTRP 4.0 player. He lost two singles matches and barely won a doubles match in a 3rd set breaker. Paradoxically, Rafa and his captain were informed after that event that he had been “promoted” again, this time to 4.5. As evidenced by the scarlet “DQ” beside his name at every match he played at Sectionals, he was actually disqualified.
The captain reached out for explanation from the USTA Texas Section office and received a response that is simultaneously befuddling and illuminating. One interesting revelation is that two of Rafa’s strikes from the qualification event had “carried over” and counted against his 4.0 rating. I was surprised to learn that it was even possible. I had always assumed that when the player’s NTRP level changed that the strikes reset. That is not the case.
This means that a strike can be simultaneously levied against two levels. What is less clear is whether the dual strike is assigned due to the level of variance or if the strike is recalculated by initializing the player at the new NTRP level. I am willing to wager that it is the former. The latter would probably mute the variance potentially eliminating the strike.
It was also revealed in the response from USTA Texas that his third strike occurred during one of the singles matches that Rafa lost. The captain was told that the two opponents were playing at the dynamic 4.5 level, so the computer decided on the basis of a competitive score that Rafa was at well. Neither of those players are subject to disqualification since they both have computer ratings.
There are a lot of alternative ways that these events could have transpired. For example, if Rafa had played three matches at Tri-Level or any other league in 2021, he would have earned computer rating at 3.5 or (possibly) 4.0. In essence, he was punished because the tennis ecosystem did not provide the matches he needed to earn a computer rating. That would have insulated him from the 2022 dynamic disqualification.
For all intents and purposes, Rafa is now rated at NTRP 4.5 and when the 2023 computer ratings are released he will certainly be at that level. As a 4.5 in Wichita Falls, his opportunity to play sanctioned matches is virtually nonexistent.
Essentially the only way for Rafa to compete in matches that might impact his future NTRP rating calculation is to hit the tournament trail. With two young school age kids and associated family obligations, Rafa will not be traveling to many tournaments. He is stuck at 4.5.
In other words, basically the USTA just kicked him out of their competitive system. As evidenced by the fact that he was haunting the tennis courts in the pre-dawn hours this week, Rafa has a fairly positive attitude and still loves tennis. However, he is extremely frustrated over what can only be described as a ratings nightmare.
As a person relatively new to the USTA organized ecosystem, he is dismayed at a ratings system that has managed to slap him around across the course of very few matches. This is the opposite of what positive player experience should look like.
It quite simply makes no sense to Rafa. It doesn’t make much sense to me either.
These are the three posts from last weekend that were sparked from my conversations and reflections on Rafa’s situation.
- Disqualification, Promotion, and Variance, Friday July 15, 2022.
- NTRP Ratings Management, Saturday July 16, 2022.
- Shill Teams, Sunday July 17, 2022.
I like your point that he wasn’t asked to re-evaluate. Such a bummer!
I grew up in Wichita Falls. I didn’t realize they no longer offer sanctioned leagues. I guess that is why I see a handful of players from there on metroplex rosters.
Sadly this sounds like a typical USTA ratings experience unless you know how and are willing to game the system. As I’m sure many folks have experienced, in the past I’ve played in 4.0 sectional tournaments against former Division I tennis players who compete with medical exemptions. I’m guessing the medical condition these players were afflicted by was chronically sore feet from stomping on players like me over and over.
I was bumped to 4.5 at the start of the year and see players I never beat at 4.0 still playing at that level becaus a) they like to be on winning teams who always go to sectionals and b) they are willing to tank sets to keep themselves at their current level.
As I struggle to find USTA teams to play on and get wins at 4.5, I have to wonder who’s the bigger fool, me for not tanking or the sandbaggers who do.