USAPA ANNOUNCES
NEW TOURNAMENT
RATING SYSTEM
USAPA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
JUSTIN MALOOF
I
n a continuing effort to provide the
finest in competitive pickleball play, the
USAPA recently announced a new official
tournament rating system powered by
PickleballTournaments.com. The new joint venture
will greatly enhance the tournament structure for
all pickleball events, enabling tournament directors
to create fair and balanced player brackets, while
participants will now know their standings from
the newly created rating system. As part of the
agreement, PickleballTournaments.com will be the
exclusive official provider of tournament ratings
and tournament management software for USAPA-
sanctioned tournaments. PickleballTournaments.
com will develop a new user interface and
integration of a single master tournament calendar
for PickleballTournaments.com and USAPA.
We couldn’t be more excited to bring a fully
automated, results-based ratings and ranking
system to our sport and believe this system will
be a huge benefit to tournament directors and
serve as yet another value-added feature to USAPA
membership.
The new USAPA Pickleball Tournament Rating
System will be similar to those currently being
used in tennis, badminton, squash, table tennis,
and other sports. Ratings will be extremely
accurate, objective and universal. They will be
calculated by computer using strategically created
algorithms based on tournament results from
the past two years and adopting weighting factors
such as tournament format (sanctioned vs. non-
sanctioned), recency of play, and strength of the
player’s opponent. PickleballTournaments.com
worked closely with data specialists from Pickleball
Ratings to develop the new ratings system.
Unlike the 2-digit skill rating (e.g. 3.5) that’s
been used for many years by players, clubs and
tournaments, the USAPA Tournament Ratings will
be a 4-digit rating (e.g. 3.786) and will prove to be
more precise. Based on accumulated statistical
data, the 4-digit rating will map to a player’s
updated or new 2-digit skill level. For example, a
player rating of 3.994 maps to a 3.5 skill level and
a 4.014 rating maps to a 4.0 skill level. The USAPA
Tournament Ratings will be calculated for five
competitive divisions—Men’s Singles, Women’s
Singles, Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles and
Mixed Doubles. USAPA member players will be
able to check their ratings on their USAPA.org
member profile, and by July of this year, players
will also be able to view their ratings on their
PickleballTournaments.com member profile.
Additional features will include the ability to access
other USAPA member players’ ratings, and a list of
the “Top 100” rated players in the five divisions.
Additionally, an advisory board established by the
USAPA will oversee improvements to the USAPA
Tournament Ratings system. They will include
representatives of PickleballTournaments.com,
major event tournament directors, 5.0 tournament
players, statisticians, and computer scientists.
While we wait for the completion and launch
of the new rating system, USAPA will no longer
be accepting rating recommendations from
tournament directors or raters. Players wishing
to appeal his/her rating for an event prior to
the release may continue to do so by emailing
[email protected]. Players without a rating
may self-rate following the guidelines on the
USAPA website.
Once the new ratings are in place, players will
register for tournaments using the new USAPA
Tournament Rating. All registrations prior to the
release of the new system will not be affected. A
FAQ document is currently being drafted and will
be available soon.
MAY/JUNE 2018 |
MAGAZINE
9