This is the last weekend for matches to count for 2016

A common question I get this time of year is to ask when the cut-off for matches to count for year-end ratings is.  Well, the clock is ticking down, as this weekend is it!

I mention this in questions 4 and 5 on my FAQ, but here is how it works.

The USTA year typically ends when the Adult Nationals are completed.  This is normally the last weekend of October or the first weekend of November.  They use the last weekend of Nationals as the year-end calculations and benchmarking, and any adjustments they elect to make are based off the results at Nationals.

Now, the actually year-end ratings are typically released the week after Thanksgiving, I would expect November 28th or 29th this year.  Why the gap between the cut-off date and the release?  The USTA does need to perform their year-end calculations and I'm sure there is review done and consideration of doing any regional or national adjustments to ratings, and this takes a little time.

What the USTA does to make things a little interesting, is to associate the year-end ratings with a date of 12/31/2016, i.e. if you look up someone's rating on TennisLink and it is a year-end rating, it always has a 12/31 date.  That makes sense in that the rating is for the end of the 2016 year, but the rating comes out a month or so before that and is for matches played through a month earlier than that!  And matches played in November and December of this year will count towards the 2017 year-end rating.

Note that I don't think the Mixed exclusive ratings follow quite the same schedule.  They are typically released at the same time, the week after Thanksgiving, but their cut-off date is likely the end of Mixed Nationals which would be November 13th.  This only makes sense since you'd want Nationals results to be included!

So if you have a match this weekend or are playing at Nationals, make the most of it!  And of course, if you don't want to wait for the USTA to release ratings, I can do a report for you giving you an accurate estimate of where your year-end rating will end up.  Contact me if interested.