Coup Droit wrote:

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Interesting, The Opti. Just to make sure I've got it, you're saying that the 6.1, 6.2 etc. (i.e.. 10.2 to 1.1) system is the 'rating'? And there's also a 1,2,3, list of players which is their 'ranking'? And that entry will now be done via ranking?
Because the rating system also has everyone thrown together, doesn't it? i.e. a 13 year-old can be rated 5.1, alongside a 30 year-old? So what exactly will be the difference? Is it just which victories are taken into account for each system?
(NB Sorry if I'm being dense . . .)

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 Yes.  Rating is 1.1, 1.2, 2.1....down to 10.2 plus various mini-tennis ratings.  Ranking has been per age group, so a 14yo could have a 14&U ranking, a 16&U ranking, an 18&U ranking and an open (adult) ranking.  Until recently acceptance into a domestic competition was based firstly on a players rating, followed by their age-group ranking.  For almost a year, entry into the very top level of domestic junior competition has been based on domestic age group ranking only without regard to rating.  This system is being extended downwards to cover all but local competition.  It resulted in very strange entry lists for some age groups in the nationals.  Some younger juniors who might have been expected to be accepted weren't - they had played in a variety of age groups and didn't have a high enough ranking in any one age group to be accepted.  Quite a few older juniors who had been playing BT rather than their age group competitions were excluded because they only had an adult ranking.  Bit chaotic really.

The problem is that ratings have become a bit devalued and skewed.  They used to be upgraded twice per year based on a formula taking into account wins and losses.  This was then changed so that 3 months after an adjustment, any player who had achieved the right win/loss percentage had their rating raised again, everyone else being looked at when the 6 months came around.  Then the formula for wins/losses was changed.  Only losses below a player's rating counted as a loss, wins at a player's rating or above counted as wins.  Juniors stopped playing tournaments where they could be drawn against lower rated players and took to playing matchplays where they would only play opponents of their own rating.  They kept playing until they got the right number of wins (6) and then regardless of how many losses their rating went up, often 4 times per year when they had lost many more matches than they had won.  In any given area it's the same group of kids playing each other in matchplays and their ratings all seem to move up as a group - they haven't necessarily got any better, they've just managed to scrape together enough wins against the same group of kids.

Hope the above para makes sense, it's a bit of a tortuous system to describe.

The focus is now going to be on rankings for juniors rather than ratings, although I think the ratings system is still going to be with us (for the time being anyway).  If you want to be identified as a top junior you'll need a good ranking rather than rating and the best way to get that is to play up and have the highest value ranking points for when the single age group rankings come into effect.  I think they're also hoping it will keep kids competing all year.  At the moment, as soon as a junior has their 6 wins at their level or above, they stop competing until after the next ratings adjustment.