In approximately seven weeks the United States Tennis Association will update its NTRP ratings for the next year. Much to my shock and chagrin, I was re-ranked at the 5.0 level last year on December 3, 2021. I managed to win my appeal eventually to move back to the 4.5 level, but I am a 4.5 A ranking – “A” for on appeal.
I am sort of on probation.
So if I had a good season competitively in USTA Flex Leagues during 2022, I could be moved up again.
I will know if that is the case in early December. The Sword of Damocles hovers above me, and I am waiting for it to descend. Seven weeks from now. It won’t be long.
I have been dreading that date all year. I have been reaching out to the 5.0 tennis players in my area, in case I do get moved up. I can try to start a league for 5.0 players and at least have somewhere to play regularly. But I am so exhausted by the prospect, and the appeals battles from last December, that I have little energy for it. If I get boosted to 5.0 I might just go quietly “into that good night.” If the USTA decides to exile me to the higher level, I might just gather my warm weather clothes and sit out 2023 in tennis Siberia.
It might even be a good thing. I can focus on other areas of my life if the USTA Flex Leagues are taken from me. I can take my study of the martial arts, which have given me so much joy in the past months, to the next level. I can roll with the punches. My friend Roger Wang has already been in 5.0 tennis exile for a year, and he is doing OK. With time to prepare myself psychologically since last year’s re-ranking disaster, I am in a more sturdy posture to absorb whatever news the USTA sends me. “Control what you can control, and let the rest go,” I tell myself. Taking the long-view, 12 months in tennis jail is not so long. It would give me an opportunity to rest and re-evaluate. I could come back stronger than ever in 2024. I can try to make the best of things. But it is frustrating.
Whatever.
I am tired of even thinking about the whole thing. Tired of worrying about it.
What a hassle.
There were times in the middle of intense matches this year when I thought to myself, “It would not be bad to lose to these guys to preserve my 4.5 ranking…” and alternately, “I might really have a problem with my ranking if I beat these superior players on the other side of the net!” That is no way to think during a match. I should just straight up play my best and let the match go as it might. Hedging my bets in the middle of a match because of my NTRP rating? It is hard to believe it has come to that. But it has.
My record right now is 23 wins and 4 losses. I will probably have some 30 wins and 5 losses by the December re-ranking. The TennisRecord website has me with 31 victories somehow, and they predict I will be moved up to 5.0 –
– so that would seem to portend badly for me. There are a whole lot more victories than defeats in my 2022 record. But I am 55-years old. I am not a 5.0 player. Not really. Yet the lopsided record might make that claim seem a bit murky.
But my captain has been having me play off of line #1 in the USTA Flex Leagues, and that supposedly helps keep you from getting bumped; he claims that will help me keep my 4.5 ranking. Furthermore, I have not had any huge upsets over much better players, unlike in 2021. But do such unexpected victories trigger the USTA algorithm to bump your rating? Or do you get re-ranked by crushing the opposition decisively 6-0, 6-0 on line #1? Or is it a matter of just too many victories and not enough losses? Nobody really knows. The USTA NTRP ranking system is opaque. They don’t really tell you how it works or why. I reached out to some of tennis peers online about my predicament, and here is what one of them replied with –
– do you see what I mean in terms of an “opaque” USTA ranking process? It can be positively byzantine.
At any rate, the USTA will let me know in seven weeks.
Uggh.
The waiting is irksome.
Just get it over already, USTA.
Let me know either way.
So I can get on with it.
P.S. This was the end of year USTA re-ranking result six weeks later on December 1, 2022.
2 Comments
Kaylee
Good read. I’m also on the (TR) cusp of bumping back up after being bumped down last year. But unlike you, I want to play at the higher rating. I was also 2-1 at the championship levels this year so not too shabby and hoping that helps weigh in for a higher rating.
Would you know when the absolute cutoff date is for the last match played for 2022 championship year? (TR has been bubbling my rating around the cusp for late October/early November.)
Kevin Allen
Haha.. good read. It was literally LOL for a few moments while I take a break from checking orders at the hospital pharmacy.
For me, it’s the dreaded 4.5 rating…if you are 4.5 east of Raleigh, NC you literally have no one to play. It takes 4-5 clubs to scrounge up enough players to have one team let alone playing another team in your local league. I started out at 4.0 in 2010 and got bumped up in 2013. I hate to say it but I had to throw my season in 2014 so I could get bumped back down to 4.0. Then I stupidly went 39-2 in 2015 and got bumped back up to 4.5 (including only losing 8 games in 5 matches in #1 singles at the state tournament–I know, dumb)..so I decided to quit playing. 4.5 wasn’t worth it. But…as time passed, I missed tennis and reapplied to get my rating in 2021. I was always told that if you do not play league for 3 years then you can ‘re-up’ where you want. Yeah, WRONG. They put me right back at 4.5. This time, I appealed it based on my ‘thrown’ results from 2014 and they accepted it [whew]. SOMEHOW, I didn’t play a single spring league match (always had to work)…and ended up with a 4.0MX rating…I thought that this would satisfy the computer ranking requirement for 2022 but OH NO my 4.0MX became a 4.0A AGAIN in 2022…. So, every match I played I had to think in the back of my mind ‘you gotta lose at least 5-6 games per match so I do not get strikes’. Ended up losing some matches where I was way ahead just so I could protect the 4.0 rating….anyway, sitting on the edge of my seat for December 1st and hope I can stay at 4.0. Good luck with your rating! Hope you stay 4.5