Checking USTA League self-rated women by section - Who sandbags or overrates?

I wrote a few days ago about trends with self-rated players being bumped up or down at a national level.  That revealed some interesting observations, notably that men seem to underrate a bit at 3.0 and 3.5 levels while women tend to overrate at the same levels.

But that is Nationally.  Do the same trends hold at the section level?

You knew I couldn't leave that one alone, so we will start with the women and look at the breakdown by section.  As a reminder, these charts are showing the number of players by level that self-rated in 2015 and stayed the same at year-end as well as are bumped up and down.  On each bar the number shows the percentage for each category by level.

As a refresher to start, here is the national chart for the women:

Now, we'll just go through the sections alphabetically.

Caribbean:

A vast majority of players in the Caribbean self-rate at 2.5!  And nearly 2/3 of these players arguably underrate as they get bumped up at year-end.  Now, it is easy to improve significantly at 2.5 and it may be natural for beginners to self-rate at 2.5, but this is still a remarkable statistic.  Interestingly, it appears more women self-rate at 3.5 than 3.0, and unlike the national trend more women get bumped up than down.

This whole chart in fact looks more like the men's chart where one could conclude there is sandbagging going on.  Is there sandbagging amongst the women in the Caribbean?  Is this in part why they won 18+ 3.0 Nationals last weekend?

Eastern:

This chart looks a lot more similar to the national chart, although at 3.0 a few more self-rated women are bumped up than down, but at the 3.5 level, hardly any get bumped up.

Florida:

Florida looks even more like then national chart, a trend of a few more self-rated women being bumped down than up.

Hawaii:

Another ratings "island" so to speak like Caribbean, there is again more of a trend towards bump ups, even into the 4.0 level.  But a lot more players self-rate at 3.5.  Perhaps Hawaiian women also underrate slightly?

Intermountain:

This section also has a lot of players self-rate at 2.5, but doesn't have a huge number of them get bumped up.  And at 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0 levels, a far larger number of self-rated women get bumped down than up.  So far, this is the most extreme case of potential overrating.

Mid-Atlantic:

Mid-Atlantic has a slight bias towards underrating, particularly at 3.0, which also could have contributed to making the final at 18+ 3.0 this past weekend.

Middle States:

This section is pretty balanced, just a modest number more self-rated women being bumped down at 3.5 and a larger number at 4.0.

Midwest:

Midwest has a slightly larger number of 2.5s bumped up, and at 3.0 does have a few more bumped up, but goes back to the national trend of more bump downs at 3.5 and 4.0.

Missouri Valley:

This section is similar to Midwest with more 3.0s being bumped up, but more 3.5s and 4.0s being bumped down.

New England:

New England has a lot of women self-rate at 3.0 and they do it quite accurately it appears.  The general trend at other levels applies.  With so many players joining at 3.0, it is perhaps not a surprise they made the semis at 18+ Nationals this year.

Northern California:

In NorCal we see some underrating at 3.0 like a few other sections and a lot of 2.5s bumped up, but otherwise like the national averages.

Northern:

Northern is interesting as the vast majority of women self-rate at 3.5 unlike most others.  More of those self-rated 3.0s get bumped down that up though.

Pacific Northwest:

In the PNW, we see a few more 3.0s bumped up, but a lot more self-rated women 3.5s bumped down.  They also made the semis at 3.0 with the slight bias of more bump ups.  But PNW won the 3.5 level this year where a lot of players got bumped down last year.

Southern California:

SoCal also has more 3.5s, but not like Northern, and at 3.0 a lot of players, nearly a 1/3, get bumped up.  Perhaps more should be self-rating at 3.5!

Southern:

Southern looks pretty normal, just a few more 3.0s bumped up, but the section is so large you'd expect it to look a lot like the national averages.

Southwest:

Southwest has a lot of 2.5s bumped up and interestingly goes against the national averages at both 3.0 and 3.5 with a few more self-rated women bumped up than down.

Texas:

Texas look fairly normal and close to the national averages, just a few more bumped up at 2.5 and 3.0.

So we see a few surprises, and some of the sections that seem to underrate at 3.0 and 3.5 did do well at Nationals this year.

What do you think?

2016 USTA League Nationals continue with 40 & over 3.0 in Tucson

Last weekend found four new champs determined in the 18 & over division, and the 40 & over division gets started this coming weekend as the 3.0 level plays in Tucson.

The men has the standard 17 teams and flight 6 looks to be the toughest and flight 7 perhaps the easiest.

For the women flight 1 looks like the toughest while flight 3 appears the easiest.

Good luck teams!

Another four USTA League National Champions are crowned - 18 & over 3.0 and 3.5 levels

The second weekend of 2016 USTA League Nationals is complete and championships have been won in the 18 & over division at the 3.0 and 3.5 levels for both men and women.

The 3.0 men and women played in Surprise, AZ.

The 3.0 women found a few flights won fairly easily by Pacific Northwest (3-0, 4 courts lost) and Caribbean (3-0, 3 courts lost), but the other two were closer with New England (3-0, but each a 3-2 win) and Mid-Atlantic (6 courts lost) winning.  Using my flight preview top-8 average, these teams were all seeded #3, so some upsets took place, although Caribbean is notoriously under rated so probably wasn't really a #3 seed..

The semis saw Caribbean and Mid-Atlantic win two 3-2 matches, and Caribbean win the final 4-1 with PNW taking 3rd.

The 3.0 men had Mid-Atlantic, Southern, Texas, and Southern California all win fairly easily, two #1 seeds, and #2, and a #3 by my flight preview top-8 average.  That #3 seeded Texas team was underrated though as they shot up and were the top-seed going into the semis.

In the semis, Texas did beat Southern Cal, and Southern won as expected, setting up the final where Texas won a close won.  Southern Cal picked up 3rd.

At the 3.5 level, the women's flights were won by Pacific Northwest on a tie-breaker with Midwest (both 3-1), and Southern, New England, and NorCal fairly easily (3-0 each).  Using my flight preview top-8 average, two of these were expected (Southern and NorCal) and the others were the second seed in their flights, so pulled an upset on paper to make the semis.

The semis saw PNW and Southern win as expected, and PNW pulled the upset in the final to take the title, and NorCal getting third each match going exactly as expected.

The 3.5 men saw the flights won by Southern easily losing just 2 courts, Texas ore easily winning just 1 court, and Florida and Intermountain doing terribly losing 4 and 3 courts respectively.  Like the women, my flight preview top-8 average said two of these teams were favorites and the other two were second seeds in their in their flights.

The top-2 overall seeds found their way into the final with Texas beating Intermountain and Southern beating Florida.  In the final between two very close teams on paper, the pre-Nationals top seed Southern won with a surprising 5-0 score and Intermountain took third.

I have updated my 2016 Nationals Summary with the results above, and Southern has dominated with four titles and three other semi-final appearances.  With the 4.5 still to be played, Southern has already wrapped up the 18 & over points title.  PNW, Texas, NorCal, and Caribbean are all still vying for he #2 spot.

It was another good weekend for report customers as several won their flights and made the semi-finals.  The teams that get reports still go win it on the court, but everyone's feedback says the reports were spot on and helpful in figuring out line-ups.  Contact me if interested in a report yourself for one of the remaining Nationals.

Congratulations to all!

What does it take to win USTA League Nationals? Roster make-up of the 18+ 3.5 Men semi-finalists

I just took a look at the rosters of the 18 & over 3.0 Men semi-finalists where we saw over 50% of the rosters were self-rated, so I had to look at the 3.5 Men to see if that trend continued.

The semi-finalists here are from Intermountain, Florida, Texas, and Southern.

The Intermountain team played 12 players in their flight, 5 of them self-rated.  Of the 7 computer rated players, all were 3.5s last year, although a few were self-rated then.

Florida also played 12 in their flight, just 3 of them self-rated.  None of their 9 computer rated were higher than 3.5 last year, although several again were self-rated then.

Twelve is a popular number as Texas played that many in their flight too.  Only 2 of these were self-rated, but a full 6 of the other 10 were 4.0s last year.

Southern played just 10 players in their flight, just 3 were self-rated, but two of these appears to have had a 4.0 mixed-exclusive rating and self-rated at 4.0 then appealed down somehow to 3.5.  They had just one computer rated player that was a 4.0 last year and he appealed down from his 4.0C 2015 year-end rating.

So we see far fewer self-rates at the 3.5 level than at 3.0, but we do see, from Texas at least, what may be players managing their ratings down as half their players at Nationals were a level higher last year and somehow all got bumped down.  Having only a single case on the three other teams is certainly a big difference.

What do you think?

What does it take to win USTA League Nationals? Roster make-up of the 18+ 3.0 Men semi-finalists

There is a belief held by some that you must cheat, or at least push the envelope, to get to let alone win USTA League Nationals.  This typically involves having new players self-rate too low and having computer rated players manage their rating down to get to play a level lower.

With that in mind, I thought I'd take a look at the rosters of the semi-finalists of the 2016 18 & over 3.0 Men teams.  The teams are Southern California, Texas, Southern, and Mid-Atlantic, all sections that tend to do well at Nationals.

SoCal's roster is filled with self-rated players.  Of the 11 that played in their flight at Nationals, 8 are self-rated.  There was one other self-rate that has not played so far.  Their 3 computer rated players were all 3.0s last year, so they were not managed down from 3.5, but interestingly, each one of them played on the SoCal Nationals team last year.  What is more surprising is that this team went straight to Nationals with no local, district, or section playoffs.  SoCal apparently doesn't have many men's 3.0 teams, perhaps not many 3.0 men players, and so that is part of the reason a 3.0 team is made up of so many self-rates.

Texas has only played 9 players at Nationals, 6 of which are self-rated.  Four more that haven't played are also self-rated.  Of the 3 computer rated players, 2 were 3.5s last year.  Interestingly, one was a 4.0 at the end of 2012, dropped to 3.5 then 3.0 the next two years, went to 40+ 3.0 Nationals last year and actually appears to have had a 3.5C at 2015 year-end but it changed to a 3.0C for some reason.  The other was also a 2015 year-end 3.5C but for some reason changed to a 3.0C.  I don't know if it constitutes cheating, but something strange going on with these two players.

Southern has very few self-rates, just 1 that has played at Nationals, another that was DQ'd at Sectionals, and 2 others (2.5S though) that were not eligible.  The 8 computer rated players were all self-rates last year though.

Mid-Atlantic has played 13 players at Nationals, a full 8 of which are self-rated.  Three others are self-rated, one of which was DQ'd, that have not played.  Their computer rated players were all 2.5 or 3.0 last year, 3 of the 5 were self-rated last year.

So there are a lot of self-rates on the teams at 18+ 3.0 Men's Nationals, just over 50% of those that have played at Nationals are self-rated.  It is not surprising that you see a lot of self-rates at the 3.0 level as that is a fairly common entry point for new players, but this high a percentage does not represent the level as a whole, so it seems each of these teams have benefited from having self-rates, many of which probably did underrate as my ratings show more than half of each roster is likely to be bumped up.

Note that a lot of these self-rated players being bumped up is consistent with the general trend that men seem to under-rate at the 3.0 level as I wrote about yesterday.  But the rate at which these team's rosters will be bumped up is above the average.

Whether this is just players that self-rated correctly and have improved with all their play during the year, or whether they intentionally self-rated too low, I can't say.  This may just be the nature of 3.0 men's tennis.

There does not seem to be a big trend of players at this level managing their ratings down.  Except for the two odd cases on the Texas team, nothing stands out as 3.5 players getting bumped down.

What do you think?

Do USTA League self-rated players self-rate correctly? Do men sandbag and women over rate?

2016 USTA League Nationals are going on in full force, and unfortunately that means a few cases of questionable self-rated players comes up.  This blog post is not to identify any individuals or teams that have manipulated the rules, but instead to start analysis of self-rated players and how accurately they self-rate.

To start, I've taken a look at the self-rated players in 2015 to see how many ended up being bumped up or down.  While it is possible for a player to self-rate correctly and be bumped up or down, you'd expect the majority to end the year at the level they self-rated if they were at the right level, so for the purposes of this analysis, that is the criteria we'll use.

In each of the charts below, there is a bar whose height is the number of self-rated players by level that were bumped down, stayed the same level, or bumped up at year-end.  The annotation on each bar is the percentage of players at that level for that category.

First, here is a chart showing these stats for all self-rated players in 2015, men and women.

We see that more players self-rated at 3.5 than any other level, around 10 thousand of them, and 69% of those stayed 3.5 at year-end and 15% each were bumped up and down.  The 3.0s saw 65% of the just over 9 thousand players stay 3.0s and 21% bumped up and 14% down.  At the 2.5 level, no one was bumped down (I think think the USTA ever gives someone a 2.0 year-end rating) but a whopping 39% of 2.5s were bumped up.

Moving above 3.5, we see the trend change and a higher percentage of players rating correctly with over 70% at each of 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0, but we also see more players being bumped down rather than up.

Based on this, one could conclude that players at the lower levels have a harder time self-rating correctly, likely because players tend to naturally improve more quickly at the lower levels, than at the higher levels.  And that natural improvement can also explain the larger number of players being bumped up than down at the lower levels, but the higher levels have more bump downs is interesting.  Perhaps this is because some of the self-rate guidelines require some players to self-rate higher than their ability just because they have to check the 'played in college' box.

Now, the above chart is including both men and women.  I don't think it is safe to assume the self-rate behavior is the same for both sexes, so I took a look at them separately.  And they were more different than I expected!

Here is the chart for the women.

First, we see more women self-rate at 3.0 than any other level with nearly 6 thousand.  We also see that the number of players that stay at the same level, i.e. self-rate correctly, never gets to 70%.

On the bumps up vs down, while there are a lot of 2.5s that get bumped up, it is a lower percentage at 33% than the combined 39% above.  And this trend continues with more 3.0s being bumped down than up, 18% to 14%, and the gap becomes larger at 3.5 with 21% being bumped down and 11% up.  This gap gets even larger at 4.0.

So one could make the observation that it appears women are more likely to over rate themselves as evidenced by more being bumped down that up at every level a bump down is possible.

And then the men.

The men have a lot more that self-rate at 3.5 and there are even more 4.0s than 3.0s.  And then men have right around 75% of self-rates at the 4.0 and higher levels do so correctly.

On the bumps up/down we see a complete turnaround from the women with more players being bumped up at 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 and it only becoming equal at 4.0.  A whopping 70% of self-rated 2.5 men get bumped up and nearly a third of 3.0s do.  Even at 3.5, nearly 20% were bumped up.

This would seem to support the notion that men are more likely to rate too low and be "sandbaggers" in an effort to win and care less about having a higher rating next to their name.  This is particularly true at 2.5 and 3.0 where far fewer men self-rate correctly than the women, but even at 3.5 where a good 71% of players self-rate correctly, those that don't err on the side of rating too low.

What do you think?  Does this match your observations in your area?  Are the observations by sex fair generalizations of how men and women self-rate?

Stay tuned for more, I plan to look at this data by section to see if any tendencies stand out.

After a week off, USTA League Nationals are back this weekend

This past weekend did not have any Nationals taking place after three levels were played the prior weekend.  But in just a few days, two more levels will be played with the 3.0 and 3.5 levels being hosted by Surprise Arizona and Mobile Alabama.

I'm pleased to say that two customers of team and flight reports did make the semis in the first weekend, and another was one court away.  If any other player or captain is interested in scouting for an upcoming Nationals, contact me.