With no USTA League 2020 year-end ratings, can you still appeal? Will you appeal? Let me know!

2020 has been a strange year in many ways, and USTA League tennis has not been immune from its share of strangeness.  Leagues suspended, Nationals canceled, and no 2020 year-end ratings are a few of the highlights, or should I say lowlights.

On that last point, we would normally have had year-end ratings published in the last few days and I'd be writing several blog articles a day with observations and analysis (like this or this), and players would be reacting to who was/wasn't bumped up or down, and scrambling to figure out the rosters for upcoming league play.

Some players unhappy with their year-end rating would also be appealing their rating as we speak.  These are players who were bumped up or down and didn't think should have been, or weren't and thought they should have been.

There are standard rules for auto-appeals and players can click a button on TennisLink and get that decision immediately, but does that still apply now?

As I understand it, the button still works, but the short answer is no you won't have an appeal granted if it wasn't when your rating was published, ... well ..., for the most part.

When you click the appeal button, it is appealing your most recent year-end rating to the hundredth, and with no new year-end ratings being published, that is unchanged so the response to appealing should be the same no matter how many times or when you click the button.  Except ...

My experience is that the USTA periodically changes the appeal rules or thresholds, and when they do that, the new rules go into TennisLink and are used when the appeal button is pressed, even if the rating being appealed was already denied under the old rules.

For example, there is a 2021 regulation change for players 70+ that says an appeal down will be automatically granted, subject to standard DQ rules for appealed players.  I've been told of a player who had appealed when 2019 ratings came out and was denied, but is 70+ and appealed again in the past week or so and had it granted, so this appears to be a case of new appeal rules being applied resulting in a granted appeal where it wasn't granted in the past.

Now, it is possible the USTA modified appeal rules/thresholds that are not public and published in the regulations, so if you want to appeal your rating and were denied in the past, now is probably the time to try again as it might work, but there is no guarantee, and if it doesn't work I doubt the answer will change until 2021 ratings are published (fingers crossed!) a year from now.

If you do click the appeal button, leave a comment or send me an e-mail with the result, particularly if it is granted.  Gathering this data helps me figure out what appeal rules are being applied.

So, what if your auto-appeal doesn't work?  Are you out of options?

For (perhaps) this year only, the answer is no, there is another option.  The USTA's COVID-19 FAQ has a Q/A regarding players who feel they are no longer playing at their published rating and a new option for a manual appeal.  Give what I wrote about it a few weeks ago a read for all the details.

So does this new manual appeal work?  I've heard of a few handful of players that have tried, and so far, all but one have been turned back by the section level appeal, and just one has been forwarded to National for review.  So it appears the criteria to be considered are pretty stringent, and in all likelihood very few players meet it and would have their appeal granted.

But again, if you contact your section to request this manual appeal, please let me know and the result either way.