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?