USTA introduces new player summary dashboard

The USTA sent out an e-mail earlier today to presumably all USTA members, announcing a new player summary dashboard players will see when they login to usta.com.

Specifically, when you are logged in, there is supposed to be a summary that shows your NTRP level and your WTN, both singles and doubles.  This is great, except ...

The example they included in the e-mail, at least the one I received, is a bit nonsensical.  It lists the following information on the dashboard:

• NTRP Rating: 2.5S
• Self Rated Skill Level: Advanced
• Singles WTN: 17.9
• Doubles WTN: 16.5

So we have someone that self-rated at the lowest level available but is "Advanced"?  And has WTN ratings that you might find NTRP 5.0s having?  Yes, it is just a screenshot/image in an e-mail, but you'd think the USTA could have created one that isn't a set of contradictions.

Moving on, when you login and go to the Home page, there is no sign of the player summary dashboard.  You see a huge image with the text "National Tennis Players" that takes up a good half to two-thirds of the screen depending on your resolution and how big you have your browser window, and scrolling down a half page or more still reveals nothing about the player summary dashboard.

There is a link on the right near the top of the page to navigate to "My Profile" and doing so does get to a page that has some profile information, but at least on my browser on a laptop, I don't see the player summary dashboard.  Here though i can scroll down a page and see my NTRP level and both WTN ratings, but it is laid out differently than the example in the e-mail.  So where is this new player summary dashboard?

It turns out that back on the Home page, if you scroll down a page and a half or more, you finally get to the summary like was in the e-mail.  It is a reasonably nice layout of the pertinent information all in one place so that is nice, but it would be nice if one didn't have to do so much scrolling or navigating to get to it.  UTR for example has your rating right at the very top of the page, and on the profile page even begins to show some recent matches without having to scroll.

So the summary is nice, but it would be better if it was more prominently displayed or easier to get to.

Another observation is that I have been a C rated player for years, but the summary has a spot for a self-rated skill level that I can select.  I'm not sure what the meaning of that would be, but it is there.

There is another button on the summary to "Scout" players.  It sounds like something useful, but does nothing but take you to the existing page to search for a player.  Note that this search is more useful than the one on the WTN site.

On the profile is big "World Tennis Number" text that is a link to the WTN site, but that is all it goes to, the generic site.  If you navigate to another player's profile, then there is a link to view their WTN profile and it goes directly to them, but that doesn't show up for me on my profile which is odd.

Regarding the WTN site, their search is terrible.  Trying to search for friends and teammates by name often doesn't bring them up, but brings up other players with a matching first name but a different last name than I searched for.  And when you find a player to have to ensure animations to show the WTN to see the number.  It is all very awkward and the USTA site is actually better for this for the most part.

What do you think of the new summary?  Do you even care about tracking your WTN?  Do you find either of the USTA or WTN sites useful to go scout players?

Unflighted Round Robin - SoCal is at it again in 2024

The USTA began using the unflighted round-robin format for Nationals quite a few years ago now, and a number of sections began using it for Sectionals along the way.  Unfortunately, it has been used inappropriately in some cases leading to situations where undefeated teams were left out of advancing on to the semis or finals.

It has even happened at Nationals, twice in fact, as while the use of the format there has a low chance of it happening, it is possible.

It has happened in NorCal, and I believe they have changed their format to avoid the issue.

The Southern California section has flirted with disaster in the past, more than once, as they insist on having on the order of 18 teams in a flight use the format with just three matches played, a recipe for disaster.  Well, they continue to do it in 2024.

SoCal has a varying number of teams in the one large flight and then they generally have them play three matches with the top-4 in the standings advancing on to the semis.  If there are enough teams, generally around 14 or more, it is not only impossible to have a schedule guaranteed to avoid more than four undefeated teams, but the chances of it happening are real.

Last weekend they had:

• 40 & Over 3.5 women - 18 teams, a real chance of five undefeated teams, but some upsets only had three.  Still, seven teams tied at 2-1 for the questionable tie-breakers to decide.
• 40 & Over 4.5 women - 12 teams and they did three flights which is sensible, although you then are picking one second place team to advance.

This weekend they have:

• 40 & Over 3.0 women - 14 teams, not a big chance but it could happen.
• 40 & Over 4.0 women - 18 teams again, a real chance it could happen.

I understand that to get to 18 teams, the section may have even awarded wildcards to teams that didn't win their area or flight.  If so, exacerbating the problem just to give wildcards also seems questionable.  No wildcards and 16 teams reduces the risk with unflighted round-robin, or with 16 teams you can have four flights of four.

I'm not sure why SoCal keeps doing this, it will bite them at some point.

USTA League Regulations Changes for 2025

It is only May, 2024, but the 2025 USTA League Regulations are already having to be prepared as there are 2025 leagues starting already with Georgia's early start leagues.

A 2025 regulations link has shown up on the USTA League Resources page, and here are my observations from a quick read through the document.

The document does not say "Draft" like some others in the past have at this time of year, so I assume it is official, but you never know if they'll decide to change something.

The only "Major Regulation Change" listed at the beginning of the document has to do with a section filing a grievance against a team for full team defaults, so at a high level there are no big changes coming.  This is a bit odd, I think most every year I've been reviewing this has had a handful of changes so I guess the USTA thought the regulations were in a good spot already.

The 2024 regulations allowed for Sections to run Mixed leagues as straight-level leagues (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, etc.) instead of combined levels (6.0, 7.0, 8.0, etc.) through Sectionals and there had been speculation that was a precursor to Nationals changing to straight-levels in 2025, but that does not seem to be the case.  I'm only aware of Southern choosing to implement this so far.

In fact, the only other highlighted changes in the document are related to full team defaults or matches where the majority of matches are not played.  So for all intents and purposes, 2025 has the same regulations as 2024.

At Nationals last year there was some pretty severe ratings manipulation that led to a double National champ, and there was a thought that perhaps the USTA would do something to crack down on it, but nothing in the regulations despite my offering a host of options.

Last, we had an undefeated team at Nationals not make the semis last year, and there was again speculation that might lead to some sort of change to address the scenario, but as it relates to the regulations, no change there.  That isn't to say documents about the event itself couldn't address changes to the format, but so far all FAQs I've seen don't indicate any change.

What do you think?  What regulation change were you hoping for?