USTA NTRP rating

[FIT410s]

Read this bio and tell me what this girl should be rated

Fall 2008
Enters her senior year as a leader for the Herd and a three-year letter winner...Posted a 9-5 doubles record with key wins over South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia Commonwealth...Marked the most fall wins in her career with nine and had vital wins over Lousiville, North Carolina and Michigan State...Appeared in her first East Regional Championships and had a 3-1 singles record...Finished the fall winning nine of her last 10 matches, including winning three matches at the North Carolina Kitty Harrison Invitational.

Spring 2008
Played the singles number four, five and six positions for the Herd...Collected key victories over Michigan State, Louisville, Auburn, Central Florida, and Yale...With partner Thaddea Lock clenched the doubles point for the Herd over Tulsa's duo Jie Zeng and Rebecca Row in the C-USA tournament final match...Played mostly the No. 3 doubles slot...Named an ITA All-American Scholar Athlete...Selected to the C-USA All-Academic Team.

2007
was present in the fourth, fifth and sixth positions...She posted an impressive dual match record of 11-3...In the Herd's C-USA semi-final championship victory over Rice, contributed with key wins... Also at the conference tournament, with teammate Yulia Kashelkina posted victories at the number three doubles rank to win three straight matches...Received the C-USA Academic Medal and selected as an ITA All-American Scholar Athlete.

2006
One of three sophomores for the Herd, has become one of the most consistent players for Marshall...In the 2006 spring season, she tallied the second best win/loss record of returning players with 15-8 season...In doubles play, she and partner Jeanne Schwartz held the Herd's second best record with an 18-6 season...During the fall season of 2006, won the Virginia Tech Hokie Invitational's Flight B...was selected as an ITA All-American Scholar Athlete.

Fall 2005
posted a 4-6 record in singles in the fall and a 4-4 record in doubles, while learning the ropes for the Herd...Posted impressive wins against opponents from Virginia, Virginia Tech and Louisville in singles and wins over Brown, Penn and Louisville in doubles action.

Prior to Marshall
*** joins the Herd as a product of *** H.S. in Virginia where she was the female athlete of the year in her junior and senior seasons...was also a Washington D.C. All-Metropolitan Athlete her junior and senior seasons...One of the top-100 18's in the nation...In her senior year, was a district singles and doubles qualifier, a regional singles qualifier and Virginia State singles qualifier...As a junior, was a state doubles qualifier and a Virginia State singles champion...In her sophomore and freshman seasons, was a district singles winner and a regional singles qualifier...She was a also a state doubles qualifier... was an honor roll student for four-years and a National Honor Society member...

[FIT410s]

this girl is playing usta league as a 4.0


lol

[xwall]

Well, if I haven´t missunderstod everything about this rating system, she should play like 5.5. Otherwise the quality of the school tennis in America must suck big time.. ;) :D

[KendraB]

FIT410s, all kinds of sandbagging goes on in the leagues, which is one of the reasons I don't play in them. I am strictly tournaments only. The leagues are hurting the tournaments. It is a real problem here in Northern California. The w5.0 singles division evaporated a few years ago. The w4.5 singles division is about to evaporate. The leagues have been endorsed by the USTA supposedly because they cause greater participation. Greater participation in what? Certainly not tournament play. Maybe the participation they really want is participation in the USTA - i.e., membership dues.

[MidnightRider]

Kendra, they are absolutely looking for dues, but certainly they're doing this in part to grow the game, too. Fwiw, I don't mind seeing the sandbaggers in the leagues; can only help my game by playing against better players. Someday maybe I'll get up to the "big boys" in the 4.5 and 5.0 levels and will already be prepared ... :)

[KendraB]

MidnightRider, when I played class tournaments back in the 80s the sandbaggers would be given a higher rating and kicked out of the division very quickly. But local people made the decisions then. Nowadays, because the leagues are national a player’s rating is national as well, and local people don’t have the authority to change a player’s rating like they used to. Anyhow the humiliation of getting beaten 6-0, 6-0 in a league or tournament match is not the issue. The issue is the USTA’s vision of tennis, or how it differs from my own vision of tennis. I think that playing in the electric atmosphere of a tournament match is good for the soul. Playing in the atmosphere of a league match is not as beneficial to the person in this way. Now the USTA’s promotion of league play has had a disastrous effect on the tournament opportunities of women. Men too, but let’s look at the women. Today in the Northern California section there is nothing between 4.0 and Open. Well, almost nothing. The 5.0 tournaments have ceased to exist. The 4.5 tournaments are barely clinging to life. Most NTRP events in Northern California have zero W4.5 singles entries. Maybe twice a year there will be a draw of four and all four will be authentic 4.5 players. Tiny draws on infrequent occasions – that is all that remains of the W4.5 singles action. Twice last year I played in tournaments where there was only one other entry, and she turned out to be a 4.0, and not even a very good one. How long can a situation like this continue? Does the USTA believe as I do that tournament play has special value to the person, and indirectly to the whole society because it produces citizens who are better people? Evidently not. Another example is the movement underway to bulldoze the historic public court complex at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The USTA is not only failing to put up a fight against this, but it has actually given money to help make this happen. These courts are a hundred years old. They were one of the very first large public court facilities to exist in the world and they are material proof of America’s democratic values. They want to destroy this and replace it with a new set of lighted courts with a two story clubhouse that has a playroom for infants complete with nannies that can be contracted out and privatized and make a good profit – and the USTA wants this to happen? Honestly, I don’t know what to think of the USTA anymore. The vision that I have regarding tennis in America is certainly not being supported by the USTA.

[MidnightRider]

Good points, Kendra. Pretty much the same out here in the Midwest; above 4.0 the number of players/leagues drops to nearly nil. I would guess this is somewhat due to the statistical bell curve ... Everything I read in tennis mags say that the tennis-playing population is predominately 2.5-3.5. So above that things get tricky ... And the 5.0 and up players are likely college folks, too. The really good folks i see on courts are mostly in mixed leagues like 9.0 where they can get some competition.

The USTA is going after the thick parts of that bell. I agree with ya that it's not an optimal solution, but i understand the economics of their strategy.