Similarly, players who aren't bumped up may feel their game has declined, or the situation in their area has had a reduction of players at their level, and they would like to appeal down to a lower level.
The "solution" the USTA has for these players is the option to appeal their rating. And there are two ways to appeal, the auto-appeal or a manual/medical appeal. And if you self-rate, as a new player or due to an expired rating, you can appeal as well.
For auto-appeals, after year-end ratings are published, there is a link on TennisLink to appeal your rating, and if your year-end rating meets various criteria, your request may be granted automatically right then and there. The criteria can vary a bit year to year as the USTA can and does change it periodically, but it is basically that you didn't go to Nationals the prior year and your rating is close enough to the threshold.
If your auto-appeal does not work, you can file a manual appeal and it will be reviewed by an area/district/section committee tasked with reviewing appeals. These are generally limited to medical appeals where a medical condition is permanent and affects some aspects of a player's game. From what I've been told, you are not likely to get a medical appeal granted for a temporary medical condition that you are expected to recover from.
Now, before you go click the appeal button or file a manual appeal, beware that if your appeal is granted, you do become subject to strikes and 3-strike disqualification/promotion similar to that for self-rated players.
A natural question then is how often to players that appeal down get a 3-strike DQ?
Looking at data I have since 2014, it does not appear to be very often at all. I only see 141 players that had an 'A' rating that subsequently were disqualified. My data may not be complete or perfect, but I doubt there are many more than that and even considering we had a pandemic 2020, that is only about 25 per year. Given there are around 5K-7K appeals each year, this is not a very high rate.
Why might this be?
I believe the reason is that players that appeal have an established rating that is lower than the appeal threshold, just over the threshold for their appealed to level, and the strike threshold is higher than that. So if a player simply goes back to playing at their prior ability, they will generally remain below the strike threshold.
For example, while the USTA doesn't publish what all these thresholds are, lets assume a 3.5 is bumped up to 4.0 (their year-end rating is 3.51 or higher) but is just a few hundredths over (say 3.55) and this is within the appeal threshold and they can appeal down to 3.5. Let's also assume the strike threshold is 3.7. If this player simply goes back to playing at their 3.55 ability and their rating stays around that point, they will remain short of the strike threshold.
So, we can surmise that the majority of legitimate appeals probably don't result in a DQ. A player simply plays similar to the prior year and they won't get strikes. It is those that perhaps aren't justified that end up getting strikes and getting DQ'd.
One can probably debate whether giving players the option of appealing is really necessary. While it can be used for the category of players I described above that are arguably legit, it can also be used by players that can compete at the higher level and are simply looking for an unfair advantage of being at the lower level. Worse, players might have lost intentionally to manage their rating down to be able to appeal. It is likely these that are DQ'd as going back to their real ability is higher than the strike threshold.
What do you think?
Are appeal players wildly out of level in your area? Or are they basically the same as the strongest players at a given level?
Should the auto-appeal option remain? Or is it ripe for abuse and all appeals should be reviewed or at least the criteria beefed up to weed out the non-legit uses?
Leave a comment and let me know.
The problem of not having higher class leagues/teams is worsened by allowing appeals.
ReplyDeleteIt is unclear what legitimate purpose appeals are even supposed to serve. They distort the entire system just so lines can be drawn at differing levels that no one understands entirely and clouds the credibility of the entire system.
Why is it "legitimate" that a 3.55 (or 3.69) player is playing in a class that is supposed to be 3.50 and below?
I would be interested in what the dynamic rating of these appeal players tends to be for the year they appeal. If the vast majority end up with a dynamic rating well within the lower level then ok maybe it is improving the accuracy of the system. If however, a substantial percentage end their appeal year with a dynamic rating above the threshold for their level then appeals are simply distorting the system.
Appeals, as I understand it are for those players that feel they can't compete at the next level and are barely over the threshold or would be stranded without a team at a higher level, and are allowed in a sense because the USTA understands the algorithm isn't perfect, especially if someone has played just a few matches, and so they essentially figure their margin of error is the appeal threshold and allow someone to appeal down.
DeleteI agree with you most appeals are unnecessary and the auto-appeal is just silly. And if you are going to allow them, not allowing an appeal two years in a row certainly seems appropriate.
I feel like u should only be able to appeal once a year.
DeleteEffectively, you can only appeal once. You can hit the appeal button as often as you like, but you'll get the same result. You are not appealing based on your current dynamic rating but whatever your year-end rating to the hundredth was.
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