Seattle area 2019 40 & Over starts this coming weekend!

Happy New Year!

My district of the Pacific Northwest section of the USTA started the 2019 season back in the Fall with some Mixed and Senior leagues played as early start leagues, but like many other sections and districts, the season really gets going this coming Friday the 4th when the 40 & Over league commences.

I am all set to do pre-season flight reports to give teams an idea of how they stack up vs the competition, but as a little preview, here is who my top-8 averages say the favorite is for each flight.

2.5 Women - TCSP-Davis
3.0 Men - CP-Bad Aces-Doyle
3.0 Women - CAC/SL-D'Terminettors-Smith
3.5 Men - STC-Overserved-Ashcraft
3.5 Women - NTC-Werk-Wolson
4.0 Men - HBSQ-Guzzling Connoisseurs-Little
4.0 Women - CP-Causin' a Racquet-Laun
4.5+ Men - STC-Freeman
4.5+ Women - STC-Suver

Now, keep in mind a few things.  First, top-8 averages don't represent who will actually play.  Second, this doesn't factor in self-rated players, nor does it factor in the risk of players being DQ'd.  But it is still fun to look at.

If you want more details on your flight and who the top teams are, let me know!

Tennis Channel to broadcast USTA League Nationals!

Ok, I may be making a bit of a leap, at least on how much may be broadcast, but a reader shared with me a news story that Tennis Channel is constructing a permanent broadcast facility at the National Campus in Orlando.

From the story though (bold/underline by me):

Tennis Channel will air matches and additional programming from USTA Pro Circuit tournaments, College MatchDays and USTA League

This doesn't say how much or what specific events, nor if it what they air will be on the main channel or TC-Plus, but USTA League is clearly listed as part of what is included.

The story also says the agreement gives Tennis Channel the rights to broadcast events held at locations other than the National Campus, and while my guess is USTA League Nationals held in Vegas or Arizona aren't on the top of that list, I think the agreement would allow them to air these.

In any case, I think this is good news as it should mean more coverage of USTA events.

Seattle area 40 & Over league schedule has been published

It is almost Christmas and as our little gift from the USTA, the schedules for our 40 & Over league starting the first weekend in January have been published.

A few stats on the league.  Last year, there were 29 sub-flights, 247 teams, and 3,502 unique players rostered.  This year, there are 30 sub-flights, 257 teams, and as of now, 3,070 unique players rostered.  That player count will certainly go up as captains finish getting players signed up and teams add a player or two as the season goes along.

So it appears the league is still growing, continuing the trend of the past few years.  Here is hoping for another competitive and fun league season!

Southern section changing rules regarding tournaments and NTRP ratings

The USTA allows sections some flexibility in determining the matches from which leagues/tournaments get included in NTRP rating calculations.  Generally, all matches from what are considered advancing leagues, i.e. those that can advance on to Nationals, are included, but a section can elect to include (or not) matches from other leagues like Tri-Level, One Doubles, Combo, or other singles/doubles leagues that may be run during the year.

Similarly, sections can elect to include tournaments in year-end calculations and some do and some don't.  See my FAQ question 40 where I describe this.

In the past, Southern has been a section that only included advancing leagues and did not include tournaments.  While I have not found an official regulation document stating this change, I have learned that some communications have gone out announcing a change for the 2019 year.  Specifically, sanctioned NTRP tournaments will be included in year-end calculations.  Along with this change, players playing in sanctioned NTRP tournaments must hold a valid and current rating, or self-rate per the guidelines.

What this means is that players that play only tournaments will now get a 'T' rating where in the past they would not get a year-end rating.  This also means that players that play USTA League as well as sanctioned NTRP tournaments will have their tournament results included in year-end calculations.

My section, Pacific Northwest, also used to not count tournaments but changed for 2018 to include them.  The primary reason for the change in PNW was due to the requirements for NTRP Nationals.

NTRP Nationals is an event that was held for the first time in 2018 for NTRP tournament players to advance to so that this group of players will have a Nationals similar to USTA League players.  Players advance by playing in tournaments within their section and qualifying based on points either directly or to play at a Sectionals event where players/pairs to advance are determined.

The NTRP Nationals event does require that a player have a calculated NTRP rating, they cannot be a self-rated player, and as such, someone that plays only tournaments in a section that doesn't include them in year-end calculations would not have a rating and not be eligible.  So my section changed the rule so these players would get a rating and be eligible, and my guess is Southern is changing their rule, at least in part, for the same reason.

In general, I think this is a good move.  I believe ratings are more accurate when more match play is included in the calculations.  And having tournament players get rated and be required to have a rating should help clean up any issues with players playing at the wrong level in tournaments which should improve the experience for all.

Of course, there are some players that will see tournaments as an opportunity to tank matches to manage their rating down so they can play USTA League at what is perhaps a lower level than they should be at.  Getting enough tournament matches in to really affect a rating may be a pricey endeavor, as tanking means losing so only getting one (or two with a losers bracket) match in per event, so I hope this discourages players from doing so.  Better, it would be great if the USTA had provisions in the year-end calculations to weed out what appear to be tanked matches so such players are not rewarded from doing so.

But what do you think?  Is including tournaments in ratings calculations the right move for Southern?  Has there been a problem with tournaments and will having players be rated improve the experience and cause more players to play tournaments?

For those that play tournaments, whether you play USTA League or not, I can include tournament matches in the reports I do.  This is a great way to see how you are doing and get feedback so you can know what is/isn't working and measure your improvement.  Contact me if interested.

The International Tennis Number - What is it and how does it compare with NTRP?

Those of us that play USTA League have our ratings life centered around NTRP, the rating system used by the USTA for level based league and tournament play.  The NTRP system works well for the most part and results in competitive matches between players of similar ability.

But there are other ratings systems out there.  One from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the International Tennis Number (ITN).  From their Web-site:

The International Tennis Number (ITN) is a tennis rating that represents a player’s general level of play and is recognised internationally

This sounds very similar to NTRP, and from what I've read and can tell, the goals are basically the same, to have a way for players of similar ability to play more tennis and grow the game.  So what is different about the ITN?

The big thing is the scale and direction.

With NTRP, player ability increases as the rating gets larger, e.g. a 3.5 is better than a 3.0, and a 4.5 better than a 4.0, and the scale more or less goes from 2.5 to 7.0 in half point increments.

The ITN on the other hand is on a 1 to 10 scale without half point designations, but in reverse order.  A beginner is a 10, and a world class player is a 1.  Moving "up" is actually moving to a smaller numbered ITN.  This gives you 10 levels which is more or less equivalent to the 10 levels the NTRP gives you from 2.5 to 7.0.  In fact, the ITF has a conversion chart that pretty much just maps the levels one to one in opposite order.

So in the end, either system should result in a rating that lets you identify and find other players of similar ability.  But how they go about calculating the rating is entirely different.

Those that regularly read my blog know that I calculate Estimated Dynamic NTRP Ratings and do reports for players wanting to know how their rating is improving or how their results affect their rating.  I've done a little bit (an understatement) of research on how the algorithm works and have written an FAQ with a lot of good information and answers, but the short form is that the algorithm looks at the current dynamic rating of all players in the match to arrive at an expected score, and then compares this with the actual score to determine how to adjust each player's rating.  Do better than expected, your rating goes up, do worse than expected, and it goes down.  It is important to note that the score does matter, not just winning or losing as game differential is considered by the algorithm.

The ITN on the other hand documents a calculation that is more focused just on wins and losses and the level of your opponent.  For example, it calls out that a win against a same level opponent yields 1 point, a win against one level higher is 2 points, and so on.  Correspondingly, losses against at level opponents are -1, against one level down -2, etc.  Wins against lower level opponents or losses against higher level opponents are not given point values.

The ITF does not host a site or calculate a ratings for players, but outlines the above approach and recommends that ratings be updated at least yearly if not more often.  The update involves taking the player's current ITN and adjusting it up or down by the average points per match, and then rounding it.

For example, if a player played only at-level players and won 75% of their matches, they would get 0.75 points per match and regardless what level they were at, would move to the next better level.  For example purposes say a player is an ITN 7, subtracting the 0.75 would be 6.25 and rounding that would be a 6 and they would move "up" a level to their new ITN of 6.  The number of matches played and frequency of updates will obviously be a factor in how much a player can or does move.

For the most part, the two different systems track each other, but because they are calculated differently there are some deviations where players may end up with an NTRP level and ITN that are not equivalent per the conversion chart.  This doesn't mean that either one is right or wrong, they just use different criteria and so end up at a different result.  NTRP focuses on scores, ITN focuses on wins.  NTRP uses the dynamic rating of players in a match, ITN just looks at the ITN level of the players.

Where is the ITN used?  It has not really been adopted in the United States to date, but perhaps that will change.  The conversion chart linked above shows that Great Britain's system is very similar on a 1 to 10 scale but with added point levels, and from what I hear ITN is used in other European countries to some degree.

The example calculation/algorithm the ITF documents is I think intentionally simple as it was written over 10 years ago and they wanted organizations and national federations to have a low technical bar to reach to implement it.  I can think of a number of ways to improve the simple calculation and have done so as a fun comparison in the past.  If there is interest, I will perhaps publish some ratings lists using ITN or include an ITN in the reports I do.

But what do you think?  Is there a place for the ITN?  Should there be an international system rather than every country/organization having their own?  And should a rating system consider scores and actual current ratings?  Or should the focus be on wins regardless of score and just look at the level of the players?

Please leave comments here or on Facebook, or e-mail me with your thoughts.

USTA Adult League Participation by Section 2013 thru 2018 - A few sections not declining, but most are

I wrote about the general Adult league participation trend last week, and noted the continued decline, but the trend is not the same across all of the sections.  It seemed that looking at the trend by section would make sense, so here goes.

The chart below is the largest I've made, but I didn't want to create 17 separate ones for each section, so you get it all in one.  The chart shows the participation in the Adult leagues from 2013 thru 2018.

One thing really stands out, and that is that Southern has far more participation than any other section, which makes sense given it cover so many more states than any other section.  But seeing in a chart really makes the point.

But Southern is also the section that is showing the greatest decline from over 81K to just over 71K in the 5 years this analysis covers.  But nearly every section has declined, a few exceptions being Southern Cal, up over a thousand over the period, Pacific Northwest up several hundred, but down a bit from 2017 to 2018.  Southwest was largely flat, and a few others had small declines, but most have dropped several hundred to thousands over the period.

What do you think?  Are you seeing participation trends like the above in your area?

What if NTRP ratings were gender neutral? A hypothetical NTRP level distribution

As part of my year-end stats series of posts, I looked at year-end distribution by level, overall and by men and women, focusing on the change from 2017 to 2018.

What I didn't show in a single chart was how the men's and women's counts compare in the same chart.  Here that is.

We can see that more women play than men, and women make up well over half the population at a level until you get to the 4.0 level, when the men get close to 50% and at 4.5 there are more men than women.  No big surprises here, the most players are at the 3.5 level by a significant margin, then 4.0, then 3.0.

A sometimes discussed topic is how men and women of the same level compare, or what a gender neutral league might look like.  Yes, there is Mixed league today, but that isn't really gender neutral as male/female pairs play each other, you never have a man playing a woman in singles or unbalanced doubles.

The USTA does not include any play between the genders for Adult/C ratings, so there is nothing in the NTRP system to tell us that a 3.5 man and 3.5 woman are or aren't the same.  But it is generally understood that a male of a level will on average be stronger than the female of the same level.

A common hypothesis is that a male player of the same level is about one level (0.5 NTRP rating) higher than the equivalent female, e.g. a 3.5 male and 4.0 female are probably of similar ability.  The reality is that that isn't true at every level, at least it isn't an exact 0.5 difference, and certainly there are exceptions, but it is a rough rule of thumb one can use, and one exact level makes my analysis below easy, so we'll go with it.

So we can imagine for a minute, what the distribution by level might be if we had gender neutral ratings by simply adding 0.5 to all the male players, e.g. shifting the blue segments of the chart above down a column.  Rather than making you do the mental exercise, here is that chart.

By moving the 3.0 men to 3.5, and 3.5 men to 4.0, etc. we see a change in the distribution.  There are now nearly as many "4.0s" as "3.5s", and nearly as many "4.5s" as "3.0s".  We also see that women would out number the men through "4.0" and only at "4.5" would there be more men than women.

If we had gender neutral ratings, then gender neutral leagues could more easily be played and it appears that the "4.0" level would be very competitive with nearly equal men and women being eligible for the level.  All the others would have a significant bias towards more women (3.5 and below) or men (4.5 and above).

I don't think any of the above is going to happen any time soon.  NTRP is not suddenly going gender neutral nor are gender neutral leagues in the offing, at least to my knowledge, so all of this is just a hypothetical what if.  But seeing the distribution above, would you be interested or willing to play in a gender neutral league?  Or do you like things the way they are now with Mixed the only league where men and women play and then only as pairs against each other?

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - bump rates by league/division played

A common question I get is whether a 55 year-old 4.0 is the same as a 25 year-old 4.0.  The short answer is yes, they are supposed to be.  But there is a lot behind that answer.

I say yes because the NTRP system is based on match results.  If a 55 year-old plays a 25 year-old, the result of that match will be factored in to each player's rating and the relative ratings between them should be accurate.  If the 25 year-old 4.0 is better than the 55 year-old 4.0 and wins easily, the 25 year-old's rating will go up, the 55 year-old's will go down.  If either goes up or down enough, they could be bumped up or down at year-end.

Correspondingly, anyone that plays either of those players will have their rating calculated appropriately.  If the 55 year-old is a "low" 4.0, then wins against that player won't rate as high as a win against the "25 year-old "high" 4.0.

Now, for this to work, there must be some amount of play between the older/younger players so the groups are "connected" so to speak.  This generally happens enough, a fair number of 55+ players do play 18 & Over, or the 55+ players will play 40 & Over and there will be 40+ players they play there that play 18 & Over.

But there still seems to be a perception amongst some that the ratings don't get it right, and some 55+ players have inflated ratings and when they play against a 25 year-old of the same level, it isn't a competitive match.

Now, there is a lot more to a match than just comparing ratings, one player may be a "high" at-level player and another "low", so a 6-2,6-2 win for the 25 year-old may be expected.  Similarly, if they play singles and the 55+ player has achieved their rating from primarily doubles but isn't as strong a singles player, that may explain it.  And playing styles and how those match up is always a factor.

Generally, you might expect players ratings to gradually drop as they age and so the older players may be in the lower part of the range for their level.  But at the same time, if they are going down and just got bumped down, they may be in the higher part of the range for their level..

All of this begs the question, what are the bump rates among players of different ages?  Unfortunately I don't have player's ages, but we can use the league/division they play in as a proxy for age.

Below are charts that show the bump up/down rates for players based on the division they played in.  Note that players aged 40+ and 55+ can play in the lower age divisions so they may be counted potentially in each division.

First, for the women.

We do see that players that play 18 & Over are bumped up a lot more, nearly 2.5 times more, than down.  The 40 & Over division is similar but closer to 2 times more.  But the 55 & Over has a significant drop and there are slightly more bump downs than up.

This is largely as you'd expect given I noted above that older players will eventually see their skills or mobility diminish, and you'd expect younger players to have a higher ceiling to improve into.  It is perhaps surprising those in 40 & Over are still bumped up over twice as much as down, but that is likely due to some players picking up the game in their 40's and having room to improve.

Next, for the men.

We see a very similar trend.  So similar I don't really have much to add.

But the above is across all levels and that is where you may see new players at any age still improving along with those on the decline.  What about if we look at the higher end of the levels, say the 4.5 level for the men?

Interestingly, we see more bumps down than up in every division, although the ratio definitely gets larger as you move up in age.  It is especially interesting and surprising for at least me, that even for those age 55+ that there are more than 2% that play in that league bumped up.  If we are to believe the ratings, more than 2% of 55+ players are still improving, and improving enough to cross the threshold to be a 5.0!

I'm certainly not going to say that older players can't improve, but improving from a 4.5 to a 5.0 is a pretty tall task and 1 in 40 4.5 rated players age 55+ doing it seems a pretty big ask.

One might ask if the USTA is inflating or keeping some older player's ratings too high?  I know I've heard from some older players that have been bumped up saying there is no way they can play against younger players at 5.0, it almost becomes a safety issue, and there are few or limited playing opportunities for a 55+ 5.0 player.  The result is they can't play much and are stranded, or have to somehow find a way to play younger players and get killed (hopefully not physically!) to get their rating adjusted and get bumped down.

I don't know that the USTA does this, but I could see some reasoning being that if you don't bump players up, or let them be bumped down, it is unfair to the lower rated at-level players to have stronger ones beating up on them, and you end up with a glut of players with too large a range at a given level.  One solution to avoid the glut at a level would be to bump more of those lower rated within players down, but since everyone has at least a bit of an ego, those bumped down might not like the idea of that or having to play at the lower level won't be fun for them and decide to quit playing USTA League.

What do you think?  Are older player's ratings inflated a bit?  Is there not enough "connectedness" between the age groups for the system to work as hoped?  Or is the USTA just keeping players rated at higher levels to avoid a glut of 55+ players at the 3.5 and 4.0 levels that don't want to be bumped down?

Update: For completeness, here is the same chart as above for the 4.5 women.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 3.0 men bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 3.0 men by section.

At approaching 60% of 3.0 men bumped up, Caribbean again leads.  This is a huge number of bump ups, I don't know I've ever seen such a high rate at the 3.0 or above level.  So we again do the chart without Caribbean.

There are some high bump rates here too, higher than the 3.0 women in fact, most sections around/over 15%.  Hawaii is approaching 30% though which is quite high, and New England, SoCal, Florida, and Texas are around/over 20% too.  There are still some bump downs, but very few.

More to come.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 3.0 women bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 3.0 women by section.

Caribbean again leads, and is well over 45% at this level, but if anywhere, the lower levels are where you'd expect high bump rates.  Regardless, we again do the chart without Caribbean.

There are a lot of higher bump up rates here.  Every section other than Middle States and Eastern are over 10%, and Northern and Southwest well over 15%.  There are still a not insignificant percentage bumped down though, most sections around 3-4%.

More to come.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 4.5 men bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 4.5 men by section.

Caribbean again leads, at just over 45% at this level which is surprising given that as the levels goes higher the trend typically switches from more bumps up to more bumps down.  So we again do the chart without Caribbean.

Here we see the largest percentage bump goes to Hawaii 4.5s being bumped down at over 13%.  They still had over 3% of their 4.5s bumped up though.  Middle States, Midwest, and New England also had a lot of bump downs, so look for them to perhaps have strong 4.0 teams next year.

The largest percentage of 4.5s bumped up goes to SoCal, and almost more up than down.  Mid-Atlantic, Missouri Valley, and NorCal were close behind.

More to come.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 4.5 women bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 4.5 women by section.

Caribbean again leads, and is back over 40% at this level which is surprising given that as the levels goes higher the trend typically switches from more bumps up to more bumps down.  So we again do the chart without Caribbean.

We see as we get to the 4.5 level, every section (not named Caribbean) had more bumps down than up.  The closest to break even was Florida and Pacific Northwest was fairly close too.  Hawaii, Southwest, and Midwest were all very lopsided towards bumps down.

It is interesting though that Midwest made the 18 & Over final and still gets this many bumps down.  PNW won 40 & over so can understand their position, but Southern did well in both events and still has nearly twice as many bumps down than up.

More to come.

USTA Adult League Participation 2013 thru 2018 - The decline in unique players continues

USTA League Nationals are done for 2018 and year-end ratings have been published, and I've been analyzing bump up/down rates in a variety of ways and that will continue, but lets take a break to do a related analysis and look at participation numbers for the past year compared to prior years.

For this analysis, I'm looking at unique players that played a match in the Adult leagues which includes 18 & Over, 40 & Over, 55 & Over and 65 & Over during each ratings year, which is roughly November thru October.

This does not include any participants in Mixed, Combo, Tri-Level or other secondary leagues.  Including those may change the trends and I'll try to look at those as well.

I've been doing this analysis for a few years and so I'm just adding 2018 to prior years so we can see the trend.  So here goes!

What we see above is that while there are still more than 250 thousand unique players in Adult leagues, the trend from 2013 continues and there is a decline overall and amongst the men and women.  Overall, participation was down 3.9%, and the women's and men's decline was each also 3.9%.  This is unfortunately the largest drop for any one year period over the past five years.

Now, while nationally there is a drop, that doesn't mean participation is declining in all areas or in all leagues.  This is looking at just the main Adult leagues and in past years, 40 & Over and 55 & Over have been growing with 18 & Over shrinking.  Here is what that now looks like adding in 2018.

First, here is participation in just 18 & Over.

This is still the largest division with over 190 thousand participants, but we see significant decline here of 4.2% overall, 4% for the women, and 4.4% for the men.

Here is 40 & Over.

This tells a different story with growth from 2013 thru 2017, but for 2018 that is gone and there was an ever so slight decline.

Here is 55 & Over.

Here we see steady growth but a flattening in 2018.  Overall, women, and men all grew, but the men were up 10 players, and the women only a few hundred.

The working hypothesis I've floated in previous years is that the USTA membership is aging and that fueled the growth in 40 & Over and 55 & Over, as more players became eligible, but those players have begun to play less 18 & Over and they are not being replaced by new under 40 players.  This seems to still be the case, and now even 40 & Over has shown a very small decline which would seem to indicate players that have played in the past are choosing not to now.

Again, as I noted above this is looking at just a slice of USTA League play.  I will look at the other leagues soon to see if there are pockets of growth there.  A notable one is the new 18-39 league as that is hopefully an area we will see growth and will pull in younger players.

Also, some areas have shown growth in recent years, while others are declining faster than the national averages above.  I'll look at that too.

What are your thoughts on the decline?  Is it real in your area?  What are ways to turn it around?

Stay tuned for more.

Note: These are statistics from the data I've gathered and may not exactly match the USTA's data or they may report numbers using different criteria than I am.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 4.0 women bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 4.0 women by section.

Caribbean again leads, but at just under 30% this is significantly lower than the other levels/genders I've posted so far.  So we again do the chart without Caribbean.

The thing that stands out here is that nearly every section had more bump downs than up, over three times more in one case in Texas.  Several others are close to even, but the predominant trend is that more 4.0s were bumped down than up.

With Texas having more than 7.5% bumped down, perhaps look for them to be strong at 3.5 Nationals next year.  Southern had nearly 7.5% bumped down too which is surprising considering they made the semis in 18 & Over and the final in 40 & Over, but it is a very large section so can certainly have different trends by state.  But Midwest also won 18 & Over and they have a pretty high bump down rate too.  Eastern did win a Nationals and has the highest bump up rate.

More to come.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 4.0 men bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 4.0 men by section.

Once again, Caribbean dominates the chart so below is the chart without them.

Now we can more clearly see the variation and that Hawaii had an abnormally large number of bump downs this year at over 9%, but still had more than 6% bumped up.  The largest percentage of bump ups was interestingly in Northern at nearly 7.5%.  Given that they didn't make the semis in either 18& Over or 40 & Over that is a surprise.

Caribbean did make the final in both events winning one so I'm sure that contributed to their high rate, but Southern and Florida were the other finalists and Florida did have a high bump up rate but Southern not as much as some others.

More to come.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 3.5 men bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 3.5 men by section.

As we've seen with all the by section statistics, Caribbean's bump rates set new standards and at nearly 40% of 3.5 men being bumped up skew the chart so much I get to do one without them to see more detail for all the other sections.

Here we see that Mid-Atlantic at nearly 12% of 3.5 men bumped up leads the way by a pretty good margin.  That isn't a huge surprise considering they won 40 & Over 3.5 Nationals, but the section winning 18 & Over, Intermountain is only mid-pack on bump ups.  This is especially surprising considering they made the final at 40 & Over too.  New England had the lowest rate at just under 6%.

The most bump downs were in Southwest at just under 6%, and SoCal had the lowest rate at well under 3%.

More to come.

Analyzing 2018 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - 3.5 women bump rates by section

Continuing with my analysis of year-end ratings and bump rates, here are the bump rates for the 3.5 women by section.

As we've seen with all the by section statistics, Caribbean's bump rates set new standards and skew the chart so much I get to do one without them to see more detail for all the other sections.

Now we see that Southwest had the highest bump rates for 3.5 women at 8.9%, and the winner of 18 & Over 3.5 Nationals, Florida is right up there.  Pacific Northwest won 40 & Over Nationals but has seven teams with higher bump up rates.  The lowest is Northern at just 5.7%.  But those ranges are not terribly out of whack and aren't that big a range.  Midwest had the highest rate of bump downs at 5.3%, and interestingly Northern has another lowest rate this the bump downs at just 3.1%.  Northern had very little movement with over 91% of players staying the same level.

More to come.