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.