Should there be separate NTRP ratings for singles and doubles? Updated Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports: Separate stats and match ratings for singles and doubles

In USTA League play, some players play doubles exclusively.  This is because in the standard adult leagues, 75% (for a 2 singles 3 doubles format) or 80% (for a 1 singles 2 doubles format) of the players in a team match play doubles, and in the senior leagues and several other additional leagues, only doubles is played.  And even in the standard leagues, the players that play singles are oftentimes singles specialists and there isn't much of an opportunity for the "doubles guys/gals" to get on a singles court.

Some teams do change things up and some players get a mix of singles and doubles during a league year.  When this happens and you get a "doubles gal/guy" on a singles court or vice-versa, you may see some strange results when compared with the expected result based on the dynamic ratings and a common question is if there should be separate ratings for singles and doubles.

There is some merit to the idea as in today's game, singles and doubles are quite a bit different.  While there are certain exceptions to these generalizations, singles is dominated by baseline play while doubles is dominated by or at least requires adept net play.

So when someone does play both singles and doubles, it would be interesting to know if they rate higher at singles or at doubles.  With my updated as of today Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports, now you can know.

I've modified the report format to include some singles and doubles specific summary stats, and then display the singles vs doubles match ratings in the chart using different colors.  The result is, you can see pretty clearly if a player that plays both rates higher at one or the other.

Here is an example for a player in the Northern section that played 16 singles matches and 11 doubles matches.

Current NTRP: 4.5C
Estimated DNTRP: 4.29
Match Record: 19-8
Singles Record: 13-3
Doubles Record: 6-5
Sets Won-Lost: 43-20
Games Won-Lost: 281-191
Best Match Result: 4.82 on 3/18/13
Worst Match Result: 4.01 on 7/17/13
Highest Estimated DNTRP: 4.49 on 3/18/13
Lowest Estimated DNTRP: 4.26 on 7/17/13
Singles Average Match Rating: 4.4
Doubles Average Match Rating: 4.25

I've highlighted in bold the new information in the summary, the records for both singles and doubles and then the average match rating for both singles and doubles.

As you might expect for someone that plays more singles than doubles, this player both had a better record at singles and his average match ratings were a full 0.15 higher in singles than doubles.  Also, his best match result and results are all in singles while his worst is in doubles, although his second worst result was in singles.

All new reports from this point forward will be in the new format, so contact me if you would like to get one, or if you've gotten a 2014 report already, you know you can get updates to your report for a discount and this new report format is an added reason to get an update today.

And as a reminder, I can generate reports for any USTA League player in any section and can still do reports for last year (2013) as well as reports for matches played so far in the 2014 season.

Let me know what you think of the new report format!