UTR Tennis Tournaments (in Britain or with British Players)

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

UTR Tennis Tournaments (in Britain)

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Universal Tennis are a commercial organisation who have essential sowed up the mechanism by which juniors in the US access tennis scholarships ...their blog quoted by CD merely marketing their product.. how much does it cost per year on top of your tennis club membership to maintain a UTR... how is the prize money generated?

indiana · Tennis legend

Oakland2002 wrote:
Universal Tennis are a commercial organisation who have essential sowed up the mechanism by which juniors in the US access tennis scholarships ...their blog quoted by CD merely marketing their product.. how much does it cost per year on top of your tennis club membership to maintain a UTR... how is the prize money generated?

Well we did have a UTR guy on the forum for a short time but he was given pretty short shrift by yourself and left.

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 21st of December 2017 06:47:02 AM

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Oakland2002 wrote:
Universal Tennis are a commercial organisation who have essential sowed up the mechanism by which juniors in the US access tennis scholarships ...their blog quoted by CD merely marketing their product.. how much does it cost per year on top of your tennis club membership to maintain a UTR... how is the prize money generated?

Assume prize money generated through entry fees but no idea really. There is no charge for having a UTR or using the system in a basic (but useful) way. UTR ratings are between 1 and 16.99 and are calculated by how many games a player get against an opponent taking both players' current UTRs into account. They take feeds from all pro events, ITF juniors, Tennis Europe and a significant number of national associations (including the LTA). For free a player can follow their own rating to 2 decimal places and see their own and other players' complete playing history. They can only see the rating of other players to the nearest integer (i.e. anything between 9.50 and 10.49 would just show as 10). By paying a fee it is possible to see all players ratings to 2 decimal places and to carry out some more advanced searches than in the basic free access. It is a great tool for players to see what kind of team they might fit on - reduces the chances of them being over or under recruited and then looking to move after the first year, but the free version more than copes with that.

Personally, I think any extra money tournaments in this country from whatever source have to be a good thing.

indiana · Tennis legend

By the way that monthly fee for the full package site access is $4.95 per month.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

This is my concern about UTR ie a commercial vehicle in this case utilising a statistical tool selling individuals their own data back to them but then also affecting other processes and disenfranching those that do not pay $4:95 a month.

Our best athletes play football the process of entering the professional game is less than perfect but it is accessible to children whose parents are on a cash economy ie. they pay their subs in cash weekly often falling behind and paying 2 the next week. We are talking £55 a year membership £5 a week to pay and train and for that you get a kit, coached, a referee and a game every Sunday September through to May.

Elegant Point made the following comment in the college Tennis thread.

Hope OK to post here - Trying to understand the UTR ranking system - have read their blurb, but since the algorithm changed it seems impossible for any 18U boy player who only plays tournaments in GB (due to schooling or finances etc) to get a UTR of 13. Yet many of the college coaches will only look at players with a minimum UTR of 13. A few coaches are really switched on and realise there's a discrepancy between the new UTR ranking and actual level of play for these players, but these coaches are in the minority. Seems to make it harder for Brits to get the big colleges interested in them.... Any thoughts?

This is a discussion forum, people have been hounded off for being American constantly posting the same point etc.... which in the first case was very wrong the later a pity but less so.

I think questioning posts where there is obvious potential for fiscal gain is something quite different. Generating your own good feedback using articles posted on your own blog is what it is, but what it does need is pointing out and discussing in a forum for open discussion. Part of Tennis problem as a competitive sport is everyone takes a slice which is much more consistent with the Leisure industry and generally not the way the grass routes of more competitive sports in the UK are structured. There are frequent complaints about the LTA who have cosied up to UTR in this venture another £50 a year for parents, in comparison to junior football what does it get that kid on a cash economy, sweet FA! They have some big problems but by comparison to the LTA when it comes to grass roots they are!!

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Thursday 21st of December 2017 07:40:18 AM

Elegant Point · Satellite level

I am all for a system where you can find competitive matches within 1 hours drive, avoiding hours on the road and expensive hotel bills and think the Progress Tour an interesting concept & prize money always helps.

However think that the UTR like every system has its limitations and have done a bit of reading round since last posting here for info on the subject and listed a few points below...

Fairly accurate within groups, less accurate between groups eg fairly accurate between junior boys who only play junior matches, or between senior women who only play senior womens matches. UTR score would be less accurate between groups eg comparing junior boys to senior men. Over 50s mens world champ had a UTR of 9.8 there are few matches (and hence limited data) between a player like this and a 14 year old boy with a UTR of 10+. Not seen any data for players who only play mens LTA matches compared to those who play mainly ITFs or tournaments outside the UK however have seen some really good British Tour matches where Ive later checked the players UTR and been surprise how low it was.

Official ratings are generated from matches with players who have an official UTR rating and a player with an unofficial rating.

Rating generated from last 30 matches so 1 player may have a ranking based on last years results whilst anothers ranking may be based on last 3 months.

Algorithm is continuously being modified, so players can drop definitely saw this a year or so ago for the Brits who only played tournaments in the UK.

Interesting article by Alex Slezak (2016) How accurate is the UTR? Where he did a case study and found the UTR to be.......very accurate I am not a mathematician or statistician but I found his analysis to be very limited he only compared data within a homogenous group (14 year old high school girls), there was no data that compared between groups eg 14 year old girls vs 14 year old boys or vs senior women. Also UTR states that a win over a player with a UTR of 1.0 or greater or a loss to a player with a UTR of 1.0 or more lower is an upset. Yet many of the matches in the case study were between girls with UTRs of 3 vs 8.43, 4 vs 8.66 or 9.0 vs no UTR, so hrdly surprising the girl with the higher UTR won

Suggestions that its possible to bump up UTR by: playing qualifiers of Futures, only playing opponents with a UTR of 1.0 higher than yours and avoid matches against tough opponents with a lower UTR.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Progress Tour 2018 UTR Cardiff Met - Facebook seems to be the only place results posted

Action from Day 3 of the Cardiff Metropolitan University Progress Tour Event 2018... Only four players remain - Semi-final - Cash(1) v Story(3) and Clayton(4) v Recci(2)

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Sunday 7th of January 2018 10:50:06 AM

Oakland2002 · All-time great

It is massively skewed against women, I may be under estimating Serena but I dont think there is a women in the world who could win the Cardiff Met UTR and the prize money available.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Elegant Point wrote:
Progress Tour 2018 UTR Cardiff Met - Facebook seems to be the only place results posted

Action from Day 3 of the Cardiff Metropolitan University Progress Tour Event 2018... Only four players remain - Semi-final - Cash(1) v Story(3) and Clayton(4) v Recci(2)

-- Edited by Elegant Point on Sunday 7th of January 2018 10:50:06 AM

Thanks for pointing that out, Elegant Point.

The Cardiff Met twitter feed has results and some nice video clips too (Julian Cash beat James Story, 7-6(2), 7-5)

https://twitter.com/cmettennis?lang=en

paulisi · Tennis legend

Julian won the event beating Mason Recci(based on the Twitter photo)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I have high hopes for Julian.....Well done !

@cash_julian

Great weekend in Cardiff competing in my first ever #progresstour event hosted by @BF_Tentrade and supported by @TennisSmart. Took the home and am now ready to head back out to the States for my final season of college

pbs.twimg.com/media/DS9wMLyWAAEhtOZ.jpg

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I see that Barry Fulcher is organising another UTR event, this time with Millfield School who have an excellent tennis programme (and a nice coach who posts on our forum

).

It's part of the Progress Tour, with the main draw playing 11th-13th March. (Registration deadline today, I think).

Good luck to all - good to see new events.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

blog.universaltennis.com/2017/09/22/erasing-gender-lines-on-the-tennis-court/

Reasonably interesting article from UTR "Erasing gender lines on the Tennis Court" Suggests that only one span of years 16-32 where a mans athleticism would put him in a different category to a top women player..... I like facts and data and not enough in the article for me.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Well done to Millfield for hosting the UTR Progress tournament.

There's an interesting article from Esther Adeshina who did well, making the QFs, and is talking about the benefits and interest in playing boys:

www.facebook.com/TheProgressTour/posts/2102434956706581

the final's tomorrow, I think, between Sam Bossem and Pierce Widdecombe, with £200 to the winner and £100 to the runner-up