Ever since I watched the recent Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) webinar that shared details of integration of the WTN for collegiate competition, I have been struck with the potential impacts on Adult recreational-competitive tennis in the United States. The webinar was understandably focused on transitioning some junior players to college tennis and an even smaller subset into possible professional play. However, some of the ideas shared during that discussion have direct relevance beyond that narrow scope.
“Solving the NTRP Initialization Problem for Former Juniors” is arguably my best previous exploration of that particular challenge. Former Juniors with significant competitive experience as they age into Adult tennis are confronted with a confusing combination of murky NTRP self-rating guidance, “enterprising” USTA League captains, and general hostility from the older Adult community. Unfortunately, the dominance of USTA League play means that players returning or transitioning to Adult tennis experience the sport through that potentially off-putting lens.
In that previous post, I described how various revisions of the official USTA NTRP self-rating guidance pointed to wildly different minimum values in my own self-rating as I returned to the recreational-competitive tennis ecosystem. That post also shared my first-hand observations of the different skill levels involved in playing high school tennis in Texas. There is a vast difference between playing for a school in one of the small rural “Class A” districts and playing for a team at a large school in a wealthy metropolitan area.
The USTA has made it clear that the organization does not envision supplanting the NTRP system with WTN anytime soon. (The fact that they should be considering that is a post for another day.)
Will WTN be replacing USTA rankings or NTRP? There are no plans to do this. USTA rankings will continue to guide seeding and selection for USTA junior and adult tournaments, while NTRP will remain the foundation of the USTA League program.
Excerpt from “Top 10 Things to Know”
However, the mere existence of WTN provides the USTA with the data needed to automatically assign an NTRP rating on each player’s 18th birthday. The WTN is a global rating for players of all ages and all USTA League matches are a part of the data set. That eliminates the NTRP self-rating gauntlet for Juniors aging into Adult tennis.
As an aside, the USTA should be pressing hard to get matches from high school tennis and other formal scholastic tennis competition entered into the WTN data stream.
One of the challenges associated with translating former Juniors to the Adult tennis ecosystem is the NTRP level-based play that dominates adult tennis. If the USTA assigned an initial NTRP number, then former Juniors would not have to navigate the treacherous NTRP self-ratings guidelines. However, that isn’t even the best benefit.
Adults in USTA League play are frequently downright hostile toward self-rated former Juniors. If the USTA assigned their initial NTRP level, the USTA League community could no longer harbor resentment toward individual players. That would go a long way toward transforming the culture of tennis toward more inclusion of younger highly skilled players.
That would be a huge win for the recreational-competitive Adult tennis ecosystem.
- Intercollegiate Tennis Association Adopts ITF World Tennis Number as Exclusive Official Rating for College Tennis, ITA News Release, January 5, 2023.
- ITA x ITF World Tennis Number Coach Webinar, YouTube Unlisted Video, Recorded January 17, 2023.
- Top 10 Things to Know, ITF World Tennis Number Informational Page hosted by the USTA, viewed March 16, 2023.
