Being someone very interested in ratings, I've followed the World Tennis Number (WTN) as an interested party, including doing some early analysis on how it mapped to NTRP. You can see all my posts on WTN here.
The ratings themselves have gone through a few "adjustments", most recently just over a year ago, but a notice was sent out of another impending adjustment a few days ago, and it appears with today's update, it has gone into effect.
Both the USTA and LTA sent e-mails with a heads up about the change, from the LTA's e-mail, the goal was to:
- Improve accuracy by adjusting where some players start on the scale
- Make every match count whilst recognizing the difference in ability between you and your opponent
- Faster movement of a player's WTN to reflect their level
The USTA's e-mail said more. On where players start:
Based on the data, it’s become increasingly apparent that some players are being initialized too high. We want junior players to experience appropriate improvements to their rating as their game improves. This change will ensure players see this reflected in their rating as their level improves.
Regarding faster movement:
Player ratings will transition to their ‘true’ skill level faster from the initial rating given to them. This will mean that when a player is given an initial rating that is too low or too high, they will update to a more accurate rating much faster from their first few matches.
And about matches counting:
Every match counts towards a player's rating but it’s important that the rating change reflects the difference in ability. Players will experience smaller changes to their WTN in matches when losing to a superior player. However, players will still see a sharp increase to their rating should they beat a player with a substantially better rating.
The USTA does have a document highlighting the changes with an FAQ as well.
This all seems good, but we'll see how it plays out.
On a personal level, the adjustment a year ago saw my rating get worse, going from around 21 one all the way up to 29 (remember, the scale is from 40 to 1, 40 being the lowest/worst rating). That was a pretty major shift, seemingly because the USTA felt as a group, adult league players were rated way too high.
This time around the shift went back the other way, but was far smaller, I went from a 27 to 25.
Is this better? I'm not sure, it is difficult to do a thorough analysis on WTN as the data isn't readily available. My rating getting better feels nice, but it is just a number, and one league players as a whole don't really seem to follow closely.
What do you think? Do you care about your WTN? Do you check it each Wednesday when the new ratings are published?
I personally don’t feel that this change is actually making things better and more accurate. There are multiple players that I practice with that aren’t super good but they have a wtn like a good player. Me personally I haven’t played tons of tournaments by I know for sure my wtn should be higher. The reason I’m bringing this up because with the adjustment it moved mine from a 26 to a 30 when it should be better but kids that should have been worse they only got moved from a 26 to a 28 so now I’m gonna have to be working extra hard to get it back higher than them. I know it could just be off of the algorithm saying that I shouldn’t be as high but me personally knowig my skill level I can still say this isn’t accurate. I’m not going to get ahead of myself because maybe when I play matches with the update it will quickly fix itself.
ReplyDeleteThis last adjustment is obscene. My son went from a 27 to a 29. What are they doing to these kids? They work hard, they travel to play. They lose and they win and they learn. Then you course correct by starting them all over again? When it affects seedings and even access to some tournaments? When it affects their court placement and clinic placement at some tennis development clubs? There has to be a better way to adjust if they thought the data was off. You introduce this new number and you kill their UTRs and now you kill their WTNs? Maybe they could have built into the solution a slower rise within the algorithm instead of a completely new number. Who wants to be part of something so changeable that it negatively alters the outcomes of the average developing player or the ones who can’t travel as often? This sport is expensive. How do they expect to retain players when things are done so unfairly?
ReplyDeleteDid other players in your son's cohort not get adjusted similarly so it was a net no change?
DeleteFor me that is what happened. I am a junior and went from a 26 to a 30 and almost everyone else that was at a 26 went to a 28 or maybe a 29.
Delete