In my recent post “When Does a Player Turn 18 for USTA League,” I mentioned in passing that my daughter’s self-rating story would have to wait for another day. Well— today is that day.
In 2015, in March of my daughter’s senior year of high school, my 4.5 USTA League team found itself in a bind. We were facing a default unless we could field a full lineup. We solved the problem by waiting for her 18th birthday to pass that month and self-rating her at 4.5 so she could join our team and bail us out. That story was included in that previous post as an illustration of a discrepancy in the USTA League age-eligibility Regulation wording and what is allowed in the self-rating and League Registration system.
When her birthday finally arrived, we rated her at 4.5. At the time, that decision was completely justifiable. Her junior tennis résumé was unimpressive. Though she had been a member of the high school varsity team for four years, she played line #6 singles the previous fall. In the spring tournament season, she barely competed at all as her mixed doubles partner was the starting point guard on the basketball team, and they made a deep playoff run that kept him on the wrong court all spring. Additionally, my daughter never “Supered Up,” which was a relevant criterion used in USTA Texas informal guidelines at the time. On paper, she appeared to be a very average high school tennis player. We needed a warm body to fill a line, and the self-rating guidelines provided by the USTA supported a 4.5 rating at that time.
Six weeks later, the basketball season wrapped up. My daughter and her mixed partner played exactly one tournament before the District Championships, where they wound up in the back draw. Unseeded at the District Championships, they swept it. They followed that up by then going undefeated at Regionals. Suddenly, a player who hadn’t been on anyone’s radar six weeks earlier was headed to the Class 6A state tournament. That activated a new USTA self-rating criterion that didn’t apply when we self-rated her at 4.5.
At that point, my daughter had already played four USTA League matches and looked very much like a legitimate 4.5. Fortunately, her sudden high school success and improbable run to the State Championships came after our USTA team was eliminated from the local playoffs. Had we advanced to Sectionals, I am sure there would have been formal complaints or grievances.
For our part, there was no misrepresentation. In fact, we could have just as easily rated her at 4.0 according to USTA guidelines and still been within bounds, even after the State Championship run. That highlights another issue in the self-rating criteria that I plan to visit next week.
The point of this story is that self-rating isn’t just subjective. Sometimes, the player themselves can generate a dynamic change after their initial self-rating occurs. My daughter’s competitive résumé in March looked completely different by May. Yet the self-rating process is typically a one-shot deal. In my daughter’s case, we did everything right. I am convinced that we sidestepped major controversy only because our team lost.
