What has the 40 & over division done to scheduled and matches per team? Interesting Tennis League Stats

Through 2012, USTA League had an 18 & over division and then a "Senior" division that was for those 50 & over.  In 2013, this changed to add a 40 & over division and change the existing Senior division to 55 & over.

I occasionally hear discussion about participation in the 40 & over league, if it is really needed/different from the 18 & over, and if it was just a way for the USTA to charge members to play in another league and make more money.  So looking at some stats is in order.

I've written about league participation before, but the quick summary is that in 2016 there were about 200K participants in 18 & over and 125K in 40 & over.  That likely means a lot of 40+ folks play in 18+, but 18+ is certainly still serving a large group of folks.

18 & over participation:

40 & over participation:

One can't dispute the claim that the USTA is making more money by giving those over 40 two divisions to play in.  But those players do get to play more right?

Some believe or have observed that when the split happened, the seasons for the leagues became a bit shorter, necessary in order to fit two separate seasons into the calendar.  So, I went about looking at the number of team matches played in 2012 and then successive years after the split.

In the chart above, we see that teams on average played just over 9 regular season matches per season, and since then both the 18+ and 40+ leagues have dropped to just under 9 for the 18+ and closer to 8 for 40+.

Based on this, the data does support the observation that on average, teams do have a few fewer matches.  For 18+, about one of every three teams played one match less than before the split, and 40+ has just played fewer from the start.

So it is correct that adding the 40+ league has not doubled the playing opportunity for those over 40, but it is pretty close as the matches per team has dropped only slightly.

What NTRP rating combinations works best in 55 & over Adult? More Interesting Tennis League Stats

In USTA League play, the 55 & over division typically uses combined ratings rather than straight NTRP levels.  For example, in 18+ and 40+, you have 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, etc. flights where the players must be at level or can be one level lower and play up.  But in most sections, the 55 & over division are combination leagues, e.g. 7.0, 8.0, 9.0 where the ratings of the players on court cannot exceed the level for the league.  This can work because the 55 & over division is only doubles and there is no singles.

A question then is, is it better two players at the same level or a higher and lower level player making a doubles team?  I've done this sort of analysis for Mixed doubles play in the past (it is also combination of levels) and it showed that the unbalanced pairs typically win more when playing balanced pairs.  While there are more permutations with Mixed, the unbalanced pairs when the male is higher rated do tend to win more often, 57-61% of the time.

I went ahead and did the same analysis for 55+ looking at results over the past three years.  Here is what it shows by level.

First the men:

• 7.0M - 4.0/3.0 pairs beat the 3.5/3.5 pairs 58% of the time.
• 8.0M - 4.5/3.5 pairs beat 4.0/4.0 pairs 56% of the time.
• 9.0M - 5.0/4.0 pairs beat the 4.5/4.5 pairs 60% of the time.

And the women:

• 7.0W - 4.0/3.0 pairs beat the 3.5/3.5 pairs 55% of the time.
• 8.0W - 4.5/3.5 pairs beat 4.0/4.0 pairs 55% of the time.
• 9.0W - 5.0/4.0 pairs beat the 4.5/4.5 pairs 69% of the time.

So the trend observed in Mixed seems to hold in 55+ too, both men and women.

Now, this obviously depends on how strong the players are for their level.  It is possible that the 3.0's that play 7.0 (and the 3.5s that play 8.0 and 4.0s that play 9.0) are strong for their level and they are playing the full range of ratings for players on the balanced teams, so that could be at least a partial explanation.

Another explanation may be that the unbalanced pairs have the strongest player on the court, and if they can assert themselves, that advantage is the reason the unbalanced pairs win more often.

What do you think?

2013 - 2015 USTA League participation by year, division/league, and gender, USTA League players are aging - Interesting tennis league stats

I took a look at how participation in USTA League has changed the past three years, specifically looking at the number of unique players playing in all of the advancing 18 & over, 40 & over, 55 & over, and 65 & over divisions/leagues.  The natural next step was to look at the numbers for each division, so here goes.

First, here is the 18 & over division.

The trend here is similar to the overall trend, the drop here being just over 3% since 2013.

Here is the 40 & over division.

Interestingly, while the totals for this division are lower than the 18 & over as you might expect, the unique players in this league has grown each year!  Participation is up nearly 7% since 2013.

An explanation for this might be that as some of the 38 and 39 year olds have turned 40, they've elected to only play 40 & over and there have not been enough new under 40 year-olds joining to fill the void.  And those that turn 55 seem to continue to play 40 & over.  Also, the 40 & over division was new for 2013 so perhaps it took some a year or two to get on board with it.

Let us see if the trend continues in 55 & over.

Sure enough, the trend continues.  This group is up over 4% since 2013.  As the 53 and 54 year olds have turned 55, they keep playing at a higher rate than they get too old or injured and stop it would appear.

Given all this, it would be interesting to see what the average age of these players is.  Alas, I don't have that data, but I would hypothesize that the average age is increasing which would indicate that existing players keep playing as long as they can, but the new younger players are not joining and playing USTA League enough to replace the older players that do end up not playing at some point.

What do you think?

2013 - 2015 USTA League participation by year and gender - Interesting tennis league stats

I see comments periodically saying that participation in USTA League has been declining the past few years.  Naturally, that gave me reason to take a look.

Using the data I have from calculating Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports, I took a look at how many players have played in the 18 & over, 40 & over, 55 & over, and 65 & over Adult divisions regular season.  These number do not include players that only played Mixed, or only played in Tri-Level, Combo, Singles, or other non-advancing leagues/divisions.

First, kudos to the USTA for organizing leagues that get nearly 300K players participating.  I'm sure this is a small fraction of all the tennis players playing in the United States, but is still a good sized number.

But to answer the question about participation, there does appear to be a small but consistent decline the past few years.  It may be hard to see in the chart, but total participation was down about 4,000 from 2013 to 2014, and was down another 2,000 this year.  So just over 2% from 2013 to 2015.

And the decline is pretty consistent across genders, although men's participation almost stayed flat from 2014 to 2015.

With all data and analysis, we need to understand what we are looking at and this is looking just at participation in the advancing leagues as noted above.  It could very well be that while these have declined, the other non-advancing leagues haven't and could even have grown.

As to why there might be a decline, I can only speculate.  There could just be fewer people playing tennis, or perhaps league fees have gone up and driven a few away, or some have decided they don't want/need to play in the advancing leagues and taken their play to other leagues/divisions.

What do you think?

2013 USTA League Nationals results for reference

I was asked about trends at USTA League Nationals and if certain sections always do well, so I've started documenting past years Nationals in addition to this years.  So check out the 2013 Nationals Results to see how your section fared and periodically check out the 2014 Nationals Results to compare to this year as the next two weeks finish up.

How rarely does the double bump occur? More interesting USTA League tennis stats

No, this isn't a blog post about a new Bryan brothers chest bump.

It is that time of year when USTA League players start wondering if they will be bumped up or not. Okay okay, quite a few have been wondering since much earlier in the year if the number of Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports I did starting in January is any indication.

I wrote yesterday about some general statistics on the percentage of bumps up/down by level and today did a report for a player that is on the verge of a double bump and it got me thinking. Double bumps do occur, I've seen a few in the past, but how rare are they? I did some analysis and here is what I found.

I looked at players that held a C/B rating at the end of 2012 and 2013 and then how many of them were bumped up or down and how far.

As I wrote yesterday, 87.7% of players stayed at the same level. Right around 4.1% were bumped down and 8.2% were bumped up. Those quick with math will see that totals 100% so were there any double bumps?

Yes, the above numbers are rounded, and indeed there were some double bump ups, but so few, 25, that it is kind of in the noise given how many players played USTA League in 2013. So yes it does happen but happened to just 0.01% of players last year.

What about the double bump down? I did not see any of those.

Do you know someone that was double bumped?  If so, it looks like you are one of the few.

Will my USTA League NTRP rating be bumped up or down this year? How many are bumped up or down each year?

It is late September and with that most if not all sections have held their playoffs and determined who will be going to USTA League Nationals in October and November. Some sections have Fall leagues that count towards NTRP ratings calculations, but for most players, all of their league play is complete and the matches that will affect their rating have been played.

That means that we can start taking a look at how many players are likely to be bumped up or down. But first, lets look at some statistics on bumps from last year.

This chart shows the percentage of players bumped up, staying at level, and bumped down by level.

Not surprisingly we see the most bump ups occurred from 2.5 and the most bump downs from 5.5. But in the 3.5 thru 4.5 levels where the bulk of league tennis is played, there were remarkably few bumps last year with just 7.6%, 4.9%, and 3.6% being bumped up and 3.7%, 5.0%, and 6.9% being bumped down. That means right around 89-90% stayed at their level for 3.5s thru 4.5s.  Overall, about 87% of C/B rated players stayed the same at year-end.

So, what about this year? Year-end ratings obviously aren't out yet, they won't be until December 1st in all likelihood, but I can use the ratings I calculate for Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports to make a pretty good guess as to what the bump percentages will look like.

The predicted 2014 chart doesn't look radically different from the 2013 chart. What stands out the most is probably the increase across the board of bump downs but the bump ups have increased too.

In the 3.5 thru 4.5 levels the bump ups are 10.4%, 6.7%, and 5.2% while the bump downs are 7.5%, 9.0%, and 11.4%. This means just 82-84% are staying at level.

Are my estimates perfect? No, but they were about 95% accurate at year-end last year so it will be interesting to see how closely what I've calculated above matches what actually happens at year-end.

And of course, if you don't want to wait for December 1st to find out if you will be bumped up, my reports will give you a very good idea of where you will end up, so contact me if you'd like to get a report and find out.

Note that I'm using dynamic ratings for the 2014 analysis above, and year-end ratings will incorporate benchmark calculations as a result of Nationals and tournament results in sections that include them. Plus the USTA could elect to do manual overrides or mass bumps up/down as they did a few years ago. But I do comment in reports I do on how the year-end calculations may affect a player's rating.

What do you think, will 2014 be a bit more volatile than 2013 was?

USTA League Nationals are over!!! ... for 2013

Here we are, just four months into 2014, and Nationals are complete!

Ok, it is 2013 Nationals that just completed with the 55 & over division finishing up this weekend.  For whatever reason, the USTA had this 2013 division finishing up in the 2014 calendar year.

While everyone wants to win Nationals, just getting there is a great accomplishment for all the teams so congratulations to all of those that made it and participated.

It looks like the 2014 Nationals schedule makes a little more sense with all of the Adult division's currently scheduled to be held somewhere between early October and early November and Mixed later in November.  With Adult finishing up November 7-9, I'm guessing the 2014 league year will end then making it a couple weeks longer than last year.

Where can you play the most USTA League tennis and how many matches did you play last year?

Many players that play USTA League live in a city where there is one USTA district or area and thus one set of leagues.  This usually provides ample opportunity to play, oftentimes year-round with the introduction of the 40 & over leagues last year.  In my area, many players will play 18 & over Mixed and Adult, 40 & over Mixed and Adult, and a Summer doubles league we have.

If that isn't enough for you, there are some areas of the country where you can play more.  A lot more in fact.  As you might expect, this is in the more populated areas of the country, namely the East Coast.  In some areas of New Jersey or Connecticut for example, you can play not only in multiple areas but multiple sections with the Middle States, Eastern, and New England sections all very close together.  Similarly, I've seen players that live in the Carolinas playing in both North and South Carolina as a way to get into more leagues and matches.

But the topper from what I've seen is in the Mid-Atlantic section, and specifically the Washington D.C. area.  Between Washington D.C. itself and the surrounding areas in Maryland and Virginia, there is a plethora of playing opportunities.  Throw in that some of these areas have not only the standard leagues but also Tri-Level, Combo, and Singles leagues and someone that wanted could probably find a way to play 4-5 times a week if not more.

So, what are some of the extreme cases I've seen?  While most of us play in just one area, there is a player in the Mid-Atlantic section that played in eight last year.  Prince Georges County, Anne Arundel County, Frederick County, Howard County, Montgomery County, Forty West, Northern Virginia, and Washington D.C.  And with just a bit of driving, this player could likely get to Baltimore County and Loudoun County, if not a few more.  And before you say this is one strange outlier, there are a bunch of players that played in six and seven areas as well.

This leads to situations where players may be on over 20 teams in a given year and play over 50 matches during the year.  In fact, there is a player from Leesburg, VA that was on 25 teams in 2013 and played over 100 matches during the year.

How many league matches did you play last year?

More interesting USTA League stats - Comparing the 40 & over and 18 & over divisions

In 2013, the USTA introduced new age divisions in the Adult leagues, a new 40 & over league to go along with the existing 18 & over league, and the prior 50 & over league became a 55 & over league.  In effect, the 18 & over league was split into two leagues, one that was the same as before and another only for those 40 or over.

I don't know the exact driver for it but it was probably some combination of an an interest by middle aged USTA members for more league play (and the corresponding opportunity to make more money through league fees) and a response to complaints from older "under 50s" about having to play the young guns in league play, or perhaps even young players complaining about having to play the old guys.  Regardless, depending on your section and district and how it was implemented, there have been those that love the new division and those that aren't so enamored with it.

A recent thread on Talk Tennis started in support of the 40 & over division elicited some good discussion about the merits of it and also if it was resulting in a 40 & over 4.5 no longer being the same as an 18 & over 4.5.  Some say that an 18 & over player will generally be more athletic and have more stamina and will have an advantage over the same rated 40 & over player.  Others say that the algorithm looks at scores and if the 40 & over players are indeed losing, their ratings will go down accordingly.

I fall in the latter camp, that a 4.5 is a 4.5 regardless of age, and if the older 4.5 can't hack it, they will ultimately get bumped down to 4.0.  Note that this hypothesis requires that there be some cross-play between the 40 & over crowd and the younger players for these adjustments to be made, but there are a large number of the older players that continue to play in the 18 & over league so I believe this is the case.

Now, if I'm right, what about the perception that the over 40 players don't do well when they face the younger players in the 18 & over division?

My first response is that this perception may not be accurate and may be skewed by a handful of results that people focus on from playoffs at the local, district, and national level where some young player crushes and older player 1 & 1 and thus not representative of comparing the play of different ages.  It is probably more an indication of the under self-rating and sandbagging that is more likely to take place in the 18 & over division and an indication that the young player should be rated higher.

But another important point is that when you compare two players that are at the same level, they could be at opposite ends of the half-point range and thus if the younger player is say a 4.45 and the older player is a 4.05, the result is expected to be a fairly easy win by the younger player, but both players can be correctly rated as 4.5s.  In fact, given age does catch up with all of us, it is probably reasonable to hypothesize that the distribution of actual ratings for 4.5 rated players is a bit lower for the over 40 players than for the under 40 players.

To test this hypothesis, I took a look at the data I have to estimate Dynamic NTRP ratings to see if any trends stuck out.

First, I took a look at the average dynamic rating I calculated for all players that ended the 2013 year rated a 4.5 and found it to be 4.23.  This makes sense, you'd expect the average to be somewhere around the middle of the range, and the fact that it is a little lower than the exact mid-point just means the distribution of ratings is a little biased towards the lower half, also something you'd expect at a fairly high level like 4.5.

Next, I changed the players I looked at to only those that played in the 40 & over division.  The average dropped to 4.21.  Two hundredths isn't a huge difference, but it is significant enough that I think it supports the hypothesis.  Note also that the 4.23 above includes these 40 & overs, so if they were to be taken out, the average for the under 40s would be a bit higher and gap would be more than two hundredths.

So I would contend that a 40 & over 4.5 is not any less a 4.5 than a 22 year old 4.5, but they very well may have a slightly lower actual rating and that is the reason for the perception that the old guys of the same NTRP level can't keep up with the young guys.  It is just the nature of a rating system where a given level has a range of 0.5 rating points that this will happen, particularly at a higher NTRP level.

Thoughts?

Some interesting USTA League NTRP stats from the USTA

In a February newsletter, the USTA had an article on the NTRP system and included a number of statistics.  Given my interest in these stats and my past blogs about them, I found some of them interesting.

Over 240,000 players were issued ratings, nearly 84% stayed at the same level. Of the 16% that moved, 10% went up, 6% went down.

Self-rated players had 60% stay at their self-rate level, 18% went up, 22% went down.

The self-rated stat is interesting with more being bumped down than up. 18% going up is still a large number mind you so there is certainly still a lot of self-raters that under-rate or improve as they play and get bumped up.

And the overall stat is interesting with nearly twice as many players being bumped up than bumped down.  I'd like to see this stat from past years to see if this is a consistent trend or not.

USTA League NTRP Benchmark calculations and why playoff results carry more weight

2013 USTA League year-end NTRP ratings came out nearly 2 months ago now and 2014 leagues have started in many areas, but I'm still getting questions about 2013 year-end ratings and specifically how playoff results get counted.  So here is a quick summary.

Dynamic NTRP ratings are calculated throughout the year as each match is played.  At year-end though, the final dynamic rating doesn't necessarily become the year-end rating, rather some additional calculations are done.  For one, in sections where tournaments are included in year-end ratings, they get included, but for purposes of this post, there are additional calculations done with playoff results, specifically what are called benchmark calculations.

To understand why there are benchmark calculations, it is important to remember the purpose of the NTRP system.  The main purpose is to rate players at appropriate levels to promote competitive play.  In leagues that advance to Sectionals and Nationals, players from different areas that likely have no history of playing each other come together to play which can make ensuring competitive play occurs difficult.  How can we expect that a 4.0 from Miami is of generally the same playing ability as a 4.0 from Seattle?  The answer is benchmark calculations.

The USTA does not publish details on how benchmark calculations are specifically done, but what follows is a high level understanding I've been able to glean from various sources.

When Nationals are complete, the results for each player that played there are given extra weight to calculate their ratings.  This is done to try to get the ratings of the Nationals players from each section to be accurate relative to each other.  Then using the ratings of the Nationals players, this is done at the section level to have how weak or strong the section's representative was at Nationals filter back in to the section.  This then gets repeated at the early stages of players, e.g. Districts, Regional, and Local, to continue to have the ratings be adjusted so that a 4.0 (and every other NTRP level) in New York City is relatively the same as in Iowa.

Make sense?  As you can imagine, doing all these calculations are not trivial, which is why it is roughly a month between when Nationals finish and the year-end ratings are published.

Hopefully this helps answer the question.  Leave a comment if you have more.

Early Super Bowl XLVIII Preview

With the Conference Championships complete, the ratings don't change much, Seattle and Denver stay #1 and #2 and we get the rare 1 vs 2 match-up in the Super Bowl.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Seattle	90.457	15-3	82.008	+0, +0.141
2	Denver	88.902	15-3	79.926	+0, +0.324
3	San Francisco	88.351	14-5	82.745	+0, -0.125
4	New Orleans	86.479	12-6	82.573	+0, -0.011
5	Arizona	86.037	10-6	82.574	+0, +0.005
6	Carolina	85.681	12-5	81.869	+0, -0.021
7	New England	85.392	13-5	80.480	+0, -0.292
8	Kansas City	83.772	11-6	79.982	+0, +0.049
9	San Diego	83.637	10-8	81.316	+1, +0.061
10	Cincinnati	83.603	11-6	79.077	-1, -0.012
11	Indianapolis	83.208	12-6	81.501	+0, +0.011
12	St Louis	81.833	7-9	82.989	+0, +0.004
13	Philadelphia	81.751	10-7	79.839	+0, +0.032
14	Dallas	80.238	8-8	80.065	+0, +0.031
15	Pittsburgh	79.951	8-8	78.681	+0, -0.017
16	Tennessee	79.772	7-9	81.183	+0, +0.022
17	Miami	79.492	8-8	80.740	+0, -0.040
18	NY Giants	78.715	7-9	80.745	+1, +0.034
19	Baltimore	78.687	8-8	79.374	-1, -0.017
20	Detroit	78.558	7-9	78.851	+0, +0.006
21	Chicago	78.314	8-8	79.145	+0, +0.008
22	Green Bay	78.164	8-8-1	79.400	+0, +0.002
23	Tampa Bay	78.045	4-12	82.920	+0, -0.025
24	Atlanta	77.783	4-12	82.472	+0, -0.024
25	Buffalo	77.625	6-10	80.418	+0, -0.031
26	NY Jets	77.341	8-8	80.254	+0, -0.031
27	Minnesota	76.565	5-10-1	79.853	+0, +0.008
28	Oakland	74.993	4-12	81.041	+0, +0.046
29	Washington	74.447	3-13	80.653	+1, +0.031
30	Houston	74.431	2-14	82.275	-1, +0.014
31	Jacksonville	74.189	4-12	81.530	+0, +0.015
32	Cleveland	74.049	4-12	79.618	+0, -0.011

Who is the pick in the Super Bowl? Based on the ratings alone, Seattle would be a 1.5 point pick. But stay tuned for a more in depth preview later.

2014 AFC and NFC Championship Game Previews

I haven't been posting my NFL ratings and thought regularly this year, but it is Conference Championship time so I thought it was time to do so.

First, here are my computer's ratings through the Divisional Round of the playoffs.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Seattle	90.316	14-3	81.824	+0, +0.185
2	Denver	88.578	14-3	79.766	+0, -0.015
3	San Francisco	88.476	14-4	82.133	+0, +0.837
4	New Orleans	86.490	12-6	82.589	+0, -0.140
5	Arizona	86.032	10-6	82.570	+1, +0.013
6	Carolina	85.702	12-5	81.903	-1, -0.784
7	New England	85.684	13-4	79.808	+0, +0.872
8	Kansas City	83.723	11-6	79.922	+1, -0.120
9	Cincinnati	83.615	11-6	79.096	+2, +0.022
10	San Diego	83.576	10-8	81.244	+0, -0.069
11	Indianapolis	83.197	12-6	81.484	-3, -0.781
12	St Louis	81.829	7-9	82.985	+0, +0.010
13	Philadelphia	81.719	10-7	79.800	+0, -0.011
14	Dallas	80.207	8-8	80.022	+0, -0.006
15	Pittsburgh	79.968	8-8	78.705	+0, +0.082
16	Tennessee	79.750	7-9	81.150	+0, -0.058
17	Miami	79.532	8-8	80.788	+0, +0.033
18	Baltimore	78.704	8-8	79.381	+1, +0.101
19	NY Giants	78.681	7-9	80.694	-1, -0.021
20	Detroit	78.552	7-9	78.845	+0, +0.028
21	Chicago	78.306	8-8	79.139	+0, +0.020
22	Green Bay	78.162	8-8-1	79.409	+0, +0.084
23	Tampa Bay	78.070	4-12	82.948	+0, -0.000
24	Atlanta	77.807	4-12	82.500	+0, +0.005
25	Buffalo	77.656	6-10	80.468	+0, +0.045
26	NY Jets	77.372	8-8	80.303	+0, +0.045
27	Minnesota	76.557	5-10-1	79.839	+0, -0.009
28	Oakland	74.947	4-12	80.979	+0, -0.043
29	Houston	74.417	2-14	82.257	+0, -0.023
30	Washington	74.416	3-13	80.619	+0, +0.033
31	Jacksonville	74.174	4-12	81.495	+0, -0.058
32	Cleveland	74.060	4-12	79.643	+0, +0.051

We can see the 4 teams in the championship games are ranked 1 thru 3 and 7.  So not a lot of surprises here.  We can also see that the home teams are rated higher, so in theory when you add in home field advantage they should be favored as they are.

But let's take a deeper look!

Here is Seattle's performance chart.



We can see they had their worst game of the year against Arizona, but recovered pretty well with good results against St. Louis and New Orleans.  We can also see that while they do well at home, they have some very good results on the road too so they aren't just a home team.  Even if we ignore their loss to Arizona, their last three games are right around 94, but with it their last four are 89.5.




San Francisco we can see has been on a slow but pretty steady improvement since mid-year.  Their last four, three on the road, average 90.6, but take their three best of their last four and they are 92.4.

So you can make the argument that the 49ers are playing at the same level Seattle is, but given the game is in Seattle, you have to give the advantage to Seattle.  But San Francisco just proved they can throw up a great result, 99.1, on the road last week so if they can do that again, they have a shot.




Denver took a small drop late in the year, and the San Diego loss was their worst result of the year, but they avenged that loss last week.  Their last three average is 89.9 and with the San Diego loss it is 85.8.




New England improved slightly late in the year with 3 good results.  Their average from those three is a very good 93.6 but throw in the loss and they are at 89.6.

So based on their late season results, New England would seem to be the stronger team, but the game is in Denver so there is some advantage to that.  By the numbers, this game should be closer and has the better chance of the upset.

What do you think?

More Interesting USTA League Stats - Matches played in 2013

As we begin the 2014 USTA League year, it can be interesting to look back at 2013.  I've written a bunch of posts on other stats, so this is another in that sequence.

In total, I show 637,310 individual matches/courts played in the 18 & over and 40 & over leagues.  This was the first year of the introduction of the 40 & over league and it was very popular with 192,014 individual matches played.

Where were the most matches played?  Digging in to the 18 & over counts, the Southern section leads the way with over 128K individual matches played.  Texas and the Midwest follow both over 50K and then both NorCal and Inter-Mountain are over 30K.

The least?  Hawaii tallied just over 1,200 and the Caribbean just over 3,500.

Are there USTA League teams with an entire roster of self-rated players? More Interesting USTA League Stats

The short answer to the question in the title is yes, and many of you may have seen one before in your flight or area.  But how common is it?

With the data I have from creating Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports, I went about trying to find out and here is what I discovered.

For the 2013 season in the 18 & over and 40 & over leagues, I found 163 teams that were comprised of entirely self-rated players.  The next obvious question is, what levels are these teams at?  As you might expect, most are at the levels where new players typically join the USTA, those being 2.5 and 3.0.  However, I did find both a 3.5 team and 4.0 team that were entirely self-rated.

I then relaxed the criteria a bit and looked for teams that had just one or two players that weren't self-rated.  This count was 209 and here there was also just one 3.5 team but two 4.0 teams.

Are there other USTA League stats you are interested in?  Leave a comment!

A Christmas gift to Northwest Washington - Full year-end Estimated Dynamic NTRP ratings list

I have just updated the Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating list for Northwest Washington in the Pacific Northwest section of the USTA here.

As always, if you want more detail on how your rating was arrived at, an Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Report is the best way.  Contact me for more details.

The perfect stocking stuffer - Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports are on sale

It is four days before Christmas and if you are still looking for a stocking stuffer for the tennis nut in your family or group of friends, I have a great one for you.

Tennis players that play in USTA leagues tend to obsess about their NTRP rating.  Year-end ratings came out earlier this month and many are wondering why they were/weren't bumped up/down.  A great way to find out is to get an Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating report.  A report will show each match they played in a relevant USTA league, how it was individually rated, and how it affected their dynamic rating.  It will also show what their estimated year-end rating was and offer an explanation for why it ended up where it did.  See another example in this earlier blog post.

Thru Christmas, I'm offering 25% off all reports.  Contact me for more information or to order a report.

USTA League Points Per Position Survey - Probably not as good an idea as it appears on the surface

The USTA sent out a survey last week asking for people's thoughts on a "Points Per Position" scoring proposal for USTA League team matches.

The short summary on the proposal is that rather than each court counting equally and there being a winning team based on who won the most courts in a match, the lower numbered courts will have more points allocated to them and team standings would be based on total points accumulated rather than team wins/losses.  The idea is that by doing this, teams will be encouraged to play their best players on the courts that are worth more points resulting in more consistently competitive matches.

Apparently, the USTA has received complaints from players about uncompetitive matches and/or "stacking".  What happens with stacking is that a team tries to steal a team win by playing weaker players on court 1 in order to try to assure that they get wins on courts 2 and 3.  In a normal 5 court match, by throwing courts 1 and winning courts 2 and 3, the team can get a 3-2 team win.

This is great unless you are the good player on the team playing things straight up.  You may be a strong 4.0 and have to face a so-so 3.5 playing up on court 1.  This isn't a competitive match and not a lot of fun for either player.  It can also wreak havoc with ratings as having players that are rated far apart play each other is hard to properly rate.

The issue originates in the misconception that there is meaning to the court number, e.g. court 1 is supposed to have the best player(s) and higher numbered courts are supposed to have the weaker players.  The USTA actually states that court numbers don't carry that meaning, they could just as easily be name red, white, and blue.  If there is no meaning to the court number, players shouldn't expect to play court 1 and get a tough opponent.  You might or might not.

But let's humor the USTA and consider what happens with a Points Per Position scoring system.

Given that some courts will be worth more, this results in two things.

First, there is even more pressure on captains to get the ringers and stud players that they can play on court 1 and be reasonably assured of a win.  There are already complaints about teams that recruit players to self-rate too low or manipulate ratings to get bumped down so they can be a ringer, and the pressure to do so would be even greater with this scoring system.

Second, the higher numbered courts will be worth less, effectively telling the weaker players on the team that they are less important.  One can do the math and see how a team might just have studs that always win courts 1 and could accumulate enough points that it doesn't matter if they ever win courts 2 or 3.  This effectively means teams don't need depth.

And if the original issue was uncompetitive matches, the problem may still not be solved.  Consider a team that has several exceptional players for their level.  Their opposition will probably know this and if they have several very good players that are still going to be underdogs, the prudent move may still be to play these players on the higher numbered courts rather than wasting your best players in losses on court 1.

If this is the case, we just changed the system to one that rewards top-heavy rosters and sandbagging and didn't in fact help reduce the stacking that was the original complaint.

So while I understand what they are trying to do, I don't think this is the right approach.

There are other approaches that might be better solutions.

First, while the USTA says the court number doesn't matter, it actually does a bit.  If there are defaults, they start at the highest numbered court, so there is some meaning to the courts today and you wouldn't want to put your best doubles team on court 3 only to have the other team default that court and your best players don't get to play.

An extension of this that gives a little more meaning to the courts would be to have a rule that players playing up are not allowed to play on a lowered number court than players at level.  This would avoid the scenario where a team throws a court by playing their player playing up on court 1 and avoid the biggest case of uncompetitive matches.

Another that the USTA will never do is to publish actual dynamic ratings and requiring that a team have their highest rated players on the lower numbered courts.  Or if they don't want to publish the ratings, have an app that lets you put in your line-up and it tells you which court the players must be on to have the right ordering.

Now, both of these would essentially ensure that the stronger team/line-up usually wins.  We'd be taking away the ability of a captain to manage their team into the best position to get the 3-2 win.  If the USTA wants to take the drama out of some of the matches and reduce the upsets, either of these could work.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Interesting USTA League Stats - What levels do players self-rate at and is there deliberate underrating?

When new players register to join a USTA League team, they are required to self-rate.  There are a set of guidelines to be used to have a player rate themselves at the right level so that they are hopefully playing competitive matches when they begin play.

With the data I have from generating Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports, I thought it would be interesting to look at what levels players self-rate at.  Here is what I found for 2013 self-rates.

This probably isn't a big surprise, with the most common levels being 3.0 and 3.5.  Players that self-rate are usually new or newer to the game, but many of these having some athletic background, and so you'd expect the lower to middle levels to be the most common.

It is interesting that even though the lowest level league is typically 2.5 and the guidelines above only going down to 2.5, there are a few players that self-rate at 2.0.

Next, I thought it would be interesting to look at some different areas to see if the self-rate profile was similar or different.

First, California.

The profile is very similar with a little more bias towards 3.5 than 2.5 and 3.0.

Next, Florida.

Again, a similar looking profile.

Let's go to a state that might be more unique by being an island with perhaps a different cross-section of players, Hawaii.

The profile remains very similar.

Last, let's take a look at Puerto Rico.

Here we see a different profile, and not just subtly different either.  The most common level is 2.5, a full two levels "left" of the rest.

It would be interesting to understand the reason for this.  It is certainly possible that in Puerto Rico, players' first exposure to tennis is often through USTA League and so you get more that are truly beginners and this chart simply is evidence of that.  However, there are some that believe that there is systemic and deliberate underrating that takes place in order to create teams likely to do well at Nationals.  There are disqualification provisions in place to try to prevent this and I've written about these before, but they aren't perfect.

This chart certainly isn't proof that deliberate sandbagging is taking place in Puerto Rico, but it certainly supports that hypothesis.