Universal Tennis Rating has become one of the leading tools for college coaches, players, and recruits are using to compare how they are against other players, schools, and what school they are interested in for playing after high school.
However, UTR is not the most accurate tool to determine the potential of a team or a player's ability.
According to the UTR blog, the UTR only looks at the "top 6 players to determine the overall team UTR and posts the score of all six scores to determine the teams overall UTR score.
The acclaimed "UTR Power 6" is a great tool for Division I and stronger Division II and III players that most players has high UTR scores and helps makes the team more appealing to recruits and sends a "intimidation factor" against other schools.
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| Andy Murray, British number one, hitting a backhand. |
The Truth about UTR
Players, coaches, and parent need to remember that UTR ratings are based on match results, which is still similar to the NTRP system by USTA. Tennis players can have bad days and lose 6-0,6-0 and that score directly effects his or her UTR score.
I'm gonna say this again, tennis players can have bad days. Let's take me for example, you can look up my UTR score and it will say I'm officially rated as a 8 for singles and one of my teammates is a 9 in singles. My teammate is the number 4 singles player on our lineup and I play at 3 singles and was 2 singles in past seasons.
So this leads the question, how am I playing above him in the lineup for singles and doubles? After all, he has a higher UTR than me in singles. Well recently, my teammate is winning matches and playing very competitive matches with his opponents (my teammate is a beast).
For me however, I'm not doing too well in singles and focusing more on doubles this season (I'll explain why I'm focusing in doubles in another blog). Therefore, I'm losing a lot more in singles which effects my UTR rating for singles.
In terms of skill level, I am a solid 9-10, but since I play a lot of competitive matches and been losing in singles, my rating is a 8 due to my match scores against other opponents.
So how can the "power 6" and the UTR rating scale determines the school's playing level? The truth is that it doesn't help with determining a player's skill level but more of their competitive edge in matches. When college coaches look into a recruits UTR rating, most of the time they are looking at how well they can play in a match. After all, you can have all the skill in the world but won't do you any good if you can't win a single match.
So next time you look into a UTR rating of a player, make sure you don't just look at the number, but also the match results.
So this leads the question, how am I playing above him in the lineup for singles and doubles? After all, he has a higher UTR than me in singles. Well recently, my teammate is winning matches and playing very competitive matches with his opponents (my teammate is a beast).
For me however, I'm not doing too well in singles and focusing more on doubles this season (I'll explain why I'm focusing in doubles in another blog). Therefore, I'm losing a lot more in singles which effects my UTR rating for singles.
In terms of skill level, I am a solid 9-10, but since I play a lot of competitive matches and been losing in singles, my rating is a 8 due to my match scores against other opponents.
So how can the "power 6" and the UTR rating scale determines the school's playing level? The truth is that it doesn't help with determining a player's skill level but more of their competitive edge in matches. When college coaches look into a recruits UTR rating, most of the time they are looking at how well they can play in a match. After all, you can have all the skill in the world but won't do you any good if you can't win a single match.
So next time you look into a UTR rating of a player, make sure you don't just look at the number, but also the match results.
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