Analyzing 2021 USTA NTRP year-end ratings - An initial look at some high level stats

2021 year-end ratings are out, so now we can begin looking at some stats.

First, by my calculations over 251K players received a year-end rating, which is up slightly from 2019 when 245K did.  This is probably a good thing as any growth is good, but keep in mind 2021 included two years of play (albeit pandemic affected in 2020) so we aren't exactly comparing apples to apples.

Breaking this out by gender, women with year-end ratings rose from 150K in 2019 to 153K in 2021, and the men went from 94K to 98K.

Looking at bump rates, overall 6.5% of players were bumped down while 9.7% were bumped up.  This compares to 2019's 4.9% down and 10.5% up.

Breaking this out by gender, women had bump down/up rates of 6.1% and 10.6% which compares with 2019's 5.3% and 9.2%.  The men had 7.3% down and 7.9% up compared to 2019's 4.0% down and 12.9% up.

Stay tuned for more stats in the coming days.

2021 year-end NTRP ratings have been published!

It has been much anticipated, and has finally happened, the USTA has published year-end ratings for 2021!  As I write this, there are at least some players with 2021 year-end ratings on TennisLink.

When the USTA did not publish ratings for 2020 year-end, it created a backlog of players that were probably at the wrong level, and after waiting an extra year we now get to see how the ratings have played out and how players have been bumped up or down.

To check what your rating is, you can go to TennisLink and look yourself up, or login and it should show your rating.  Make sure to check the date and that it is 12/31/2021 as that is what all new ratings should show.  If it still says a different date, yours may not be updated yet, or you didn't play enough matches to get a new rating.

Stay tuned for analysis of the ratings, but if anyone has any questions or wants to get a report to understand why they were/weren't bumped up or down, contact me!  And I'm always interested in situations where players successfully appeal, so if you do that and it is granted, drop me a note.

I'll be doing my usual analysis in the next few days, looking at general bump rates, then drilling in by gender and level and section (those links to 2019's analysis) to see what we can tell about how the USTA handled things this time around.  So stay tuned!

2021 Southern Combo Sectionals are this weekend - Get a simulation report!

While USTA League Nationals are over, and ratings are due out in days, USTA League playoffs continue, and in the Southern section is holding it's Combo League Sectionals this weekend.

More and more sections are adopting the unflighted round-robin format and it appears it is being used for Combo Sectionals, which makes it fun for me as that is when my simulation reports are useful and give an idea how balanced the schedules are and who is most likely to advance to the semis.

I've already done one simulation report for one of the levels at the event, if you are interested in getting one yourself, let me know!

2021 year-end NTRP ratings are being calculated, when will they be published?

2021 USTA League Nationals are over, and that means 2021 year-end NTRP ratings are now being calculated.  I've confirmed the cut-off date for matches this year was November 14th so everything should be in and calculations can commence.

I don't know the specifics of the process the USTA goes through at year-end, but believe that National does the calculations, taking the final dynamic rating for all players and then doing their year-end calculations to factor in what happened at Nationals and filter that back down through the sections.  I understand sections/districts may be given preliminary ratings to review, presumably to look for gross errors or things that seem out of whack so those can be researched and a determination made on if/how to correct or adjust things.

So when will it all be done and ratings published?  The date that seems to be out there this year is December 1st and this would be consistent with past years where the ratings generally come out the week after Thanksgiving and 12/1 would be the Wednesday after Thanksgiving this year.  Could they come out a little earlier or later than that date?  Sure, but my guess is the ratings will begin to show up late the night before, or right around 12:00 AM ET on 12/1.

It will be interesting to see what happens this time around, I've already written a bit about what might happen and why, and I'll likely write some more using my ratings as a predictor of what could happen.  But this is an odd year with a 2-year rating period and more matches played than normal, so it might not exactly fit the profile of prior years.

If you can't wait the two weeks for ratings to come out, or are just interested in seeing a detailed breakdown of how you did in 2020/2021, I continue to do my Estimated Dynamic NTRP Rating Reports that uses the ratings I calculate that give what has historically been a pretty accurate correlation with what the USTA publishes.  If you are interested, contact me at ratings@teravation.net.

What might the results from 2021 USTA League Nationals mean for year-end bumps? And why did some sections do so well?

I took a look at how each section did at Nationals, both at a high level and by division, and several sections did very well, Southern, SoCal, and Florida topped the list, while others struggled to make the semis more than a couple of times.  One logical question is why it can be so lopsided, and another is what it might mean for year-end ratings?

On the first question, I think there are several contributing factors.

One is that some sections just have more densely populated areas, so more players to pull from, so it isn't necessarily that a top 4.0 in section A is better than a top 4.0 in section B, rather section A just has more top 4.0s to form teams from and so they are a deeper team.

Another is that the road to Nationals for some sections is more grueling than others, and the team that survives and advances is more battle tested and prepared for Nationals and able to pull out the close matches.  Southern teams for example generally have to go through local playoffs, State playoffs where it is multiple flights leading to semis and a final, and then Sectionals where it is against multiple flights leading to semis and a final.  Many other sections may only have two rounds of playoffs, and a given round may involve just round-robin, or two small flights and a final.  Less matches in pressure situations may not prepare a team for Nationals as well.

It is also possible that despite the USTA's best intentions, their year-end benchmarking doesn't perfectly level the playing field across the sections.  For example, at 2019 year-end, Southern had a large number of players bumped up, but then in something of a reversal, suddenly a lot of players were able to appeal down.  It may be that the mass bump up was justified and would have leveled the playing field, but allowing the appeals tilted things in Southern's direction again.

But another big factor this year is that this is a 2-year rating period and there were no bumps in 2020.  This means there are players that had two years to improve and be clearly out of level now, but still be eligible to play at their 2019 year-end level at Nationals.  While this could happen in any section, it is more likely to happen in sections where more tennis could be played year-round, for example where COVID restrictions didn't close indoor courts for periods, and guess what, Southern, SoCal, and Florida certainly fit this definition.

What do you think?  Why did some sections do significantly better than others this year?

On to the next question of what all this means for 2021 year-end ratings.

I already wrote about Intermountain's success in the 18 & Over division, particularly for the women, and that that might mean more bump ups in the section than normal.  For the same reason, Southern, SoCal, and Florida very well could expect to see more bump ups than normal.

We know the USTA, whether with an override or as part of the normal year-end calculations, tends to have higher bump rates for sections that do well at Nationals, and in some years some sections are hit hard in what appears to be attempt to level the playing field.

What is unknown is if the USTA will feel compelled to make any adjustments this year with the 2-year rating period, or exactly how the 2-year rating period will affect things, or if things will just change organically.

My League Coordinator has already notified captains in our league starting in January that are now forming teams that they may expect more players to be bumped up than normal due to the 2-year rating period.  If that is true as a baseline, and sections that did well at Nationals get an even higher rate, we may see some "interesting" bump rates in two weeks when ratings are published.

What have you heard, or what do you think will happen?

A finer grained look at 2021 USTA League Nationals results by section - Who did the best in each division?

I wrote earlier today a high level summary of how the different sections did at Nationals, and it certainly wasn't balanced.  Southern, SoCal, and Florida, along with Midwest and Intermountain, had significantly better results than the other sections.

In the earlier post, I broke it down as far as men/women/mixed, but now I'll go further and break it down by different divisions.  A few other sections did well, but overall the big-5 still appear the most.

For 18 & Over, here is the full breakdown.

The women were led by Intermountain making the semis in 5 of 6 events and making the final twice.  No championship, but their 11 points bettered New England who only made the semis twice, but too the championship each time.  Southern did well with 7 points just ahead of Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Florida.

For the men, Southern led making 4 of 5 semis and garnering 9 points which just beat out the Intermountain men making 2 semis and coming away with two titles.  Missouri Valley led a group just behind along with Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, PNW, and Southwest.

For 40 & Over, here is the full breakdown.

The women were led by Florida and Southern Cal with 2 semis and 6 points apiece across the 4 events.  Midwest, Northern Cal, and PNW also had good showings.

The men saw Midwest and Texas garner 7 points across 2 semis each, Middle States and Eastern did well too.

For 55 & Over, here is the full breakdown.

The women saw Florida not only make 4 semis, but made all the finals and took 3 titles home!  Southern Cal had a very respectable 8 points making 3 semis but was well back.

But the Southern Cal men made all the finals and took 2 titles home to better Southern who made 4 semis and got one title.

Last, here is the full breakdown for Mixed.

In 18 & Over, Southern Cal stood out making 4 of the 5 semis and garnering 10 points, well ahead of Intermountain and Northern Cal.  Midwest and Southern were close behind those two.

The 40 & Over had Mid-Atlantic make 3 of the 4 semis, but Florida made 2 semis and won both titles to lead in points.  Texas also did well making 2 finals and winning 1.

What do you think?  What does this say about all the sections?

2021 USTA League Nationals Summary - Southern, SoCal, and Florida Dominate

2021 USTA League Nationals ended this past Sunday with 40 & Over Mixed, which means we can look at a summary of all of the events.

For this summary I'm looking at the number of times each section made the semis, and then points accumulation where 4 points are awarded for 1st, 3 for 2nd, 2 for 3rd, and 1 for 4th.

The overall leader for semis appearances is Southern making the semis in an astonishing 20 of 36 events.  Not far behind is Southern California with 16 semis appearances, and Intermountain, Midwest, Florida, and Mid-Atlantic were all in doubles digits with 12 or 13.

But if we go by points accumulation, the overall leader is SoCal and Southern, both with 45 points.  While SoCal didn't make the semis as often, when they did, they did well.  Florida and Midwest were not far behind at 40 and 37, then Intermountain is next at 30 and Texas makes an appearance at 24.

Broken down by gender though, Florida is the clear leader for the women with 8 semis and 26 points, with SoCal (6/15), Midwest (5/14), Intermountain (6/13), and Southern (6/12) next in line.

For the men, Southern leads with 10 semis and 24 points, with Midwest (6/17), SoCal (5/16), and Intermountain (4/10) also in double digit points.

Last, in Mixed, SoCal leads with 5 semis and 14 points, with Florida (3/11), Southern (4/9), and Texas (3/9) next in line.

No section went home completely blanked, Caribbean and Hawaii brought up the rear but both made the semis twice and garnered 4 points.

Here is the full table, the leader in each category (row) is in green.

More to come.

Update: See a finer grained breakdown of the events by division by section.