Apocalypse Now, Tennis Version — Exiled to “5.0 Siberia”!

I was teaching my second period class this morning when I received the text.

A friend informed me I had been booted up to the NTRP 5.0 tennis level for the next year by the United States Tennis Association.

“Noooooo!”

I had seen this happen to others. They are moved up to the higher 5.0 level of tennis competition where they have no friends, and they languish without any USTA leagues to join or matches to play, and then the next calendar year they get reclassified back down to a 4.5 player — whereupon they can rejoin humanity and get matches again.

But until that point they are exiled to “5.0 Siberia,” as I have called it.

Now, much to my surprise, I am exiled myself.

I was not expecting it.

I never thought this would happen to me.

When I complained to my wife she replied, “Maybe you should lose more often.” But I did lose tennis matches in 2021. By my count I had 9 losses (versus 35 victories), and some of those were bitter losses against middling opponents. I am far from the sort of superior player who almost never loses and therefore automatically gets moved up to the next level. I belong at the 4.5 level. I don’t belong at the 5.0 level.

So why did I get moved up?

All I can do is speculate.

I did have some notable victories over solid players, and I did make it to USTA sectionals twice in 2021.

Am I the victim of my own success?

On the other hand, when I competed against players at approximately the NTRP 5.0 level I lost most of the time.

Yet I did beat a couple of them. This inspired victory, in particular, was won against rock-solid competition —

— maybe that triggered something in the USTA computers? But my partner Prashant was not re-ranked. He remains a NTRP 4.5 player.

I don’t know.

I am pretty sure no human was involved in the decision to move me up to the 5.0 level. The USTA ranking algorithm decides, and who knows how that works? It took me two years of almost undefeated play to get moved up from NTRP 4.0 to 4.5 ranking — and I’m not sure exactly what made that happen. There did not seem like much finesse in looking at me and my strengths and weaknesses as a player. Somewhere I probably triggered some alarm that re-ranked me. I suspect you beat even a few really good players, and that gets you moved up.

My current 5.0 ranking puts my weekend tennis competition into doubt. This is no small matter; the alarm bells are ringing. Will I have USTA matches with my friends next year? Will I be able to enjoy the beer, conversation, and camaraderie after those matches? This is an important part of my social support network. Instead of safely ensconced in my warm and supportive 4.5 tennis bubble, will I be exiled to frigid and lonely 5.0 Siberia?

It would appear so.

“Noooooo!”

I occasionally come across these 5.0 tennis players. There are not many of them, and there are almost no USTA 5.0 league teams in my area because there are so few players. Those guys are way better than me, or at least just better. That world offers little in the way of matches or companionship. I cannot really contribute to a 5.0 team, and I don’t want to be a “weak sister” on one, dragging the team down. One wants to play tennis with those at the same level, more or less. 

I can hear some buddies telling me this re-ranking is a complement, and that I deserve it. That I should become comfortable with the uncomfortable and find 5.0 players to hit and compete against while seeking to elevate my whole game overall. I should want to become a 5.0 player.

No.

I am 54-years old. My tennis game is what my tennis game is.

The air will always be too thin for me at the 5.0 level. Such tennis players are above me; I can compete with 5.0 players, but I almost always will be in over my head.

Even at the upper echelons of 4.5 tennis I struggle to stay in shape and to compete, although that is my tennis home nowadays.

I would like to stay at the 4.5 ranking — with my 4.5 friends and peers — until I am too old and decrepit to play at that level. 

I would like to enjoy the competition, fitness, and friendship while I can.

I appealed my being moved to the NTRP 5.0 level but was automatically denied. This is what the USTA told me —

— again, no human being was involved. It was all done by computers. I did not meet “automatic appeal criteria.”

Am I at the mercy of USTA computer algorithms? Is there no human being with three-dimensional judgement to whom I can appeal?

Is it worth it to complain and make a stink at my local USTA office? Contact the people at the Los Angeles Tennis Center?

To try to be a good ol’ fashioned pain-in-the-ass American complainant — the “squeaky wheel which gets the grease” — and so maybe manage to get moved down to the 4.5 level again for the 2022 year?

Or should I just do my year in “5.0 jail” and re-appear in 2023?

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