Mission Statement

The mission of Universal Tennis is to help grow the game of tennis through good competition.

The Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) system provides tennis players worldwide a common scale to determine their level of play. The 16-level scale (from beginners to elite world-class professionals), precisely and reliably determines individual players’ ratings based on actual match results without regard for age, gender or where the matches are played. The Universal Tennis website, at www.universaltennis.com, allows visitors to view more than 2.5 million tennis results.

U.S. college tennis coaches utilize UTR ratings for recruiting, for scouting opponents, and also to track the levels of their current players. The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA is the governing body of NCAA DI, DII, DIII, NAIA and Junior/Community College Tennis) currently uses UTR ratings to assist with selections and seedings for select regional and national events.

Purpose
The purpose of any tennis rating system is to identify and group together players of similar levels of skill and/or competitiveness. Universal Tennis Ratings® were developed to provide a single “universal” system for all players, from anywhere in the world and at every level of play, which accurately, consistently, objectively and reliably identifies each player’s true level of play.

The 16 Levels

Click on the pyramid to get the page explaining each level

Meet the UTR "Corporate Evangelist" David Fish

In his 40 complete seasons at Harvard, Fish has amassed an impressive 663-303-1 overall record for a .686 winning percentage. Fish is the winningest men's tennis coach in Harvard history, surpassing mentor and Crimson legend Jack Barnaby's previous record of 371 wins. A 1972 graduate of Harvard, Fish played on three national championship squash teams and one Ivy Champion tennis team with the Crimson. Fish served as captain for both the tennis and squash teams.

Dave Fish tells us about the UTR founder and president Dave Howell, who was puzzled to find out that kids in France played tennis at more appropriate levels and grew faster than kids in the United States. His conclusion after lots of research: It's the US system of junior tennis that produces so many 6-0, 6-1 matches that are not at all competitive. He started collecting data and after looking at and evaluating 1,000 matches at all competitive levels he created the Competitive Threshold™.

In order to more accurately define a “competitive match,” Universal Tennis introduced the concept of the Competitive Threshold™. A player is described as having reached the Competitive Threshold™ in a match if he or she can win 1 game more than half the number of games needed to win the match. The table below illustrates how this applies to matches of various formats

On average, more than 70% of matches at ATP Grand Slam tournaments, and more than 55% of matches at WTA Grand Slam tournaments (and ITA collegiate championships), are “competitive”.
On the other hand the (American) national junior tournaments rarely surpass the 40% mark and junior events at the sectional and district levels fail to even make it to 30%... meaning that some 70% of matches in those junior events are not competitive.

In contrast, Universal Tennis has helped conduct thousands of level-based matches based on players’ levels (as opposed to age or gender), and the percentage of competitive matches for such events has consistently reached 60%, or higher, across all levels of play. We believe that there is no question, but that playing a high percentage of “competitive” matches is significantly better for player development… and overall enjoyment in the game… than playing a lot of runaway matches.

Guiding Principles

According to UTR, competition is the key to tennis player development, and the Universal Tennis Rating® (UTR) System provides that critical component by facilitating “level-based” match play.

Over the last ten years Universal Tennis has monitored hundreds of thousands of tennis results from professional, collegiate, and national, sectional and district level junior tournaments, as well as high school play. Our research has shown that events with the narrowest range of levels of players (fewer levels) produced the highest number of competitive matches, whereas the events with the largest range (greater number of levels) produced the lowest number of competitive matches.

The UTR system was devised in order to encourage and facilitate competitive matches between similarly rated players. This led to the development of a truly “universal” rating system and methodology—now called the Universal Tennis Rating® System-- that is based on principles not found in other tennis rating systems.

Benefits of using the Universal Tennis Rating® System for player development and player identification

The Universal Tennis Rating® System offers many benefits from player development and identification standpoints, which are highlighted below:

• Player Development: It makes clearer the steps involved in moving from one level of play to another and provides a motivating pathway for improvement at any stage of the game.
• More level-based competitions available locally allow players to remain “potted” for longer in their home soil, which likely produce emotionally healthier individuals.
• Local level-based competition reduces missed class-time and the pressure to resort to online schooling due to the considerable travel needed to compete nationally.
• Players grow up with the opportunity to compete regularly against older more experienced players and this helps them learn how to “play the game” sooner and better, rather than just learning how to hit the ball well.
• It encourages more elite adult players to stay in the game longer. These players are an essential component in building local level-based events that are competitive enough to challenge rising juniors.
• It provides more “at risk” juniors (juniors who are not strong enough to win a round in regular age-based competitions and are likely to give up) with more friendly entry-level tournament play.
• Local level-based competitions make tennis more affordable, since it makes it easy for thousands more players – young and old - to find suitable competition locally, without the need for extensive travel to chase ranking points.

At the time when Dave Fish at Harvard asked himself how to make college tennis matches more competitive and make college players better he learned of Dave Howell's system and connected with him in 2009. He quickly realized that putting players together according to their levels rather than their ages would certainly produce more competitive matches.

UTR works purely on results, meaning using competition data, created with the Competitive Threshold™ methodology. With 2.8 million results from so many matches the system looks very reliable and accurate compared to the "hybrid" NTRP ratings system (Fish) or the SSV System that seems to not get any traction beyond local Southern California.

The guiding principles upon which the UTR system was created include:

• Competition is good for player development: Players get more out of pushing themselves in competitive matches than they get out of badly losing (or easily winning) runaway, noncompetitive matches.
• Identifying predictably competitive matches is desirable: The UTR system is designed to help identify which match pairings would be predictably “competitive” and which match pairings would be predictably “noncompetitive”. It is not the purpose of the UTR system to predict winners and losers.
• One scale for all players is good: Any two players who play at the identical skill level should have exactly the same rating… regardless of whether the two players are the same age, the same gender, live in the same country, play the same opponents, speak the same language, enter the same number of tournaments.
• W-L record is not the best indicator of a player’s level of play: In order to determine how good a player is, it is more meaningful to know how many games he/she won and lost against a given opponent than simply to know whether he/she won the match.
• Objectivity is better than subjectivity: In order to ensure that all players are rated using the same criteria every time and every place, the inherent biases of subjectivity need to be absent from the rating system.
• Staying close to home is good for junior development…regardless of where “home” is: The widespread (American) practice of encouraging junior tennis players to leave home in order to develop as tennis players is not only of limited efficacy, it is disruptive of the family environment, disruptive to junior players’ social development, disruptive of junior player’s class time and school work, pulls players away from their own local teaching professionals, and is costly, physically draining and time-consuming. The UTR system is designed to promote localized junior player development when practical by identifying all potentially competitive opponents, and giving rating “credit” for all match results, regardless of the location of the matches.
• Playing to win every game is good for player development: Continuing to play hard ‘til the end— even when you’re in a predictably losing battle—is beneficial to the development of both players of a match. The UTR system is designed to encourage players to continue to win games, even when far down, by giving rating “credit” for each game won.
• “Gaming the system” is counterproductive to player development: Existing rating systems in which players “game the system” in order to manipulate their own ratings are notorious, well known and counterproductive. Ratings should accurately identify each player’s actual skill level and should not be susceptible to player manipulation.
• “Chasing points” is counterproductive to player development: A player’s level of play is not a measure of how many matches he/she has played, but is a measure of how well he/she plays in each match. Rating/Ranking schemes that award players primarily for chasing points (by awarding ranking points for rounds won) are counterproductive to player development. In effect, players are incentivized for finding events that present the least risk with the greatest reward.
• “Level-based” tournament play is good for the game: The frequent practice of setting up tournament draws wherein the top seeded player plays the lowest-level, and often badly overwhelmed, opponent in the opening round is frequently a waste of time (and, often, travel and money) for both players. The UTR system is directed at facilitating “level-based” tournament play, in which competitors are matched against similarly-rated players and “earn” their way into play against higher-rated opponents.
• Retiring early in tough matches is counterproductive to player development: The UTR system is designed to dissuade players from retiring early against formidable foes in order to “protect” their current rating/ranking.
• Due credit should be given for “Back Draw” match play: The UTR system is designed to dissuade players from dropping out of tournaments in order to “protect” their current rating/ranking.

Dave Fish explains that UTR is creating solid relationships with USTA Sections. Northern California started 3 years ago and also the Midwest Section has adopted the system.

"The future is unlimited for UTR. There are 206 tennis federations around the world and UTR could connect them all. "

Dave Fish says, " We were losing too many players at every level. UTR creates a win-win-win for kids."

• Kids get better faster
• UTR produces a local ecosystem of competition
• More affordable for parents, kids miss less school through less long distance travel
• Level based play creates a higher degree of competitive matches
• UTR produces happier players that are more likely to stay in the sport