With a limited number of matches played, and no Nationals, a natural question was what would the USTA do with year-end ratings for 2020? I wrote my thoughts on the subject awhile ago, but today the USTA sent an e-mail out to members with their decision and plan for year-end ratings.
From the e-mail:
"While the NTRP system remains sound, given all of the impacts COVID-19 has had on play, the USTA has made the difficult decision not to run or publish year-end NTRP ratings for 2020."
So there you have it. There will be no year-end ratings for 2020. Players will not be bumped up or down from their 2019 level.
I was hoping this wouldn't be the result, I think there are issues with this that will cause problems in 2021 and could have been addressed as I noted earlier, but they took the easy course of action to just not publish ratings.
The USTA did publish an FAQ, a few key notes from there:
- Players will use their most current valid NTRP level for 2021. If their most current level has now expired, they will be required to self-rate again.
- Self-rated players will remain self-rated, or have to self-rate again if their S rating is over 2 years old.
- DQ's from 2020 will still apply, these players do not revert to their pre-DQ rating.
- Appealed 2019 year-end ratings remain as they were appealed.
- Matches played in 2020 will count towards the 2021 year-end ratings.
A few specific issues I see with this decision are:
- Players on their way down that should have been bumped down based on their results won't be and perhaps will choose not to play in 2021 because they can't compete at their carry over level.
- Players on their way up that should have been bumped up based on their results won't be and will get to prey on opponents at the lower level.
- Self-rated players will remain self-rated which is both unfulfilling for them, but given that a large percent of self-rates have their rating change after their first year means this large percentage will now be at the wrong level for 2021.
- Players with an expiring rating will now have that rating expire and become self-rated.
The net result is there will perhaps be more self-rated players than normal, and a larger number of players playing out of level one way or the other. I think this could have been mitigated by at least calculating year-end ratings for self-rates, but could also have calculated year-end ratings for those players that got enough matches in and/or played enough prior to the suspension of play.
We will see how 2021 goes. What do you think of the decision?
Update: I did an analysis on the effects and pros/cons of the decision here.
I don't like it. I think there was enough matches for them to update ratings. That would not have been perfect but seems better than allowing people to clearly play in the wrong level for another year.
ReplyDeletePersonally, was hoping to get bumped up this year. I thought I was going to get bumped up last year and it didn't happen but was sure this was the year! Oh well, looks like another year at my current rating.
I agree with you. Not doing ratings is IMHO a cop-out on their part :(
DeleteKevin, calling it a "cop-out" is spot on. This is USTA taking the easy path and punishing all league players as a result. I'm writing a letter to circulate around the tennis-playing communities in Texas to challenge the USTA to do better. Would you all be interested in joining?
ReplyDelete