For a few years now, USTA has been saying it was going to adopt the International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Number (WTN). Over the past several months, a few USTA sections have been piloting junior tournaments using WTN for selection, seeding, or both with varying levels of success. It appears USTA is ready to roll out WTN across all 17 sections by Fall 2022, so you need to be informed, educated, and ready.
To that end, USTA is offering a series of free online webinars for parents, coaches, and players:
They are also offering a series of webinars for tournament providers:
According to my contact at USTA, “Regarding rankings, for tournaments on the national junior calendar (L1-L3 open), there will be no changes to any selection processes for the remainder of this year. Currently, in the junior regulations a rating can be used as a tool to help identify any outliers with seeding and we plan to use the ITF World Tennis Number to help in that regard. It will also be used to help with flighting and lineups in some of our summer national team events. How WTN is implemented at the Section level (L3 closed – L7) for the remainder of the year is up to the discretion of the Section. USTA Junior Rankings and the ITF World Tennis Number will co-exist, we believe both will be valuable tools for our tournament directors and players.”
USTA has also set up landing pages on its website for WTN information. For players, parents, and coaches, you’ll want to visit https://www.usta.com/en/home/play/itf-world-tennis-number.html where you’ll find definitions and FAQs. For tournament providers, you’ll want to visit https://www.usta.com/en/home/coach-organize/tennis-tool-center/run-usta-programs/national/itf-world-tennis-number.html where you’ll find information on running tournaments and other events using WTN.
The most informative USTA page is https://customercare.usta.com/hc/en-us/articles/4414716969492 which includes answers to many of the questions you’ve been asking me over the past several months. The information isn’t quite as detailed as I’d like to see, but I’m hopeful that USTA will continue to develop this page as WTN is rolled out.
One question on that page that jumped out for me was:
Will college coaches use WTN?
USTA says WTN will become one of the key tools college coaches may use [emphasis added] to assess players worldwide. Most every nation where a college coach is recruiting will be providing their national association results to WTN. The significance of having many nations providing data is that it allows for an apples-to-apples comparison amongst players of various parts of the world. More data = more accuracy. However, the college coaches I spoke with earlier this year said they will continue to rely on UTR as a major factor in addition to other ratings and rankings, their interactions with players both online and in person, and a variety of other metrics and subjective criteria in the recruiting process.
As I’ve been saying for a long time, college coaches are smart and don’t make recruiting decisions based on one number or one tournament result – they look at a variety of data when making the decision of who to bring onto their team and into their culture, so please don’t get too caught up in having yet another rating out there.
The important thing is that your player(s) continue to work hard, love the game, and strive to be their best each and every day. That goes for the youngest players as well as the ones preparing to play in college. As parents and coaches, we have a duty to help our young players develop a growth mindset in order to help them achieve their goals and dreams. Focusing on a rating or ranking interferes with their ability to try new things on and off the court, so let’s try to keep WTN in its place as just another way to organize data.
Per the USTA Webinar on May 17, 2022 (Jenna Kelly, Dan Holman, Adelaide Wood):
All match results reported in TennisLink (League & JTT) and Serve Tennis (Tournaments) will go toward a player’s WTN. WTN will be updated on USTA.com and your profile each week. You will also be able to view your WTN on the ITF website. The ITF is already using WTN as the 2nd entrance criteria – after ITF World Ranking – for selection into its tournaments. Starting this June, tournament directors will be able to integrate WTN into their L3 closed through L7 events depending on how each section plans to roll it out so be sure to check with your section for details. For 10-and-under events, WTN will count all green and yellow ball results – players must be at least 7 years old to be rated. Red and orange ball will NOT generate a WTN. In USTA Junior Circuit events, WTN will be used to group players. USTA rankings and WTN will co-exist to compliment each other for junior competition. Same with the USTA PlayTracker for 10-and-under. PlayTracker rules trump WTN rules in terms of progressing from one ball to the next. For Jr Team Tennis, WTN will replace the Junior NTRP rating in terms of placing players on teams in the 2023 championship year. USTA is piloting a high school tennis program to incorporate high school results into WTN. For those in the college recruiting process, WTN will be a valuable tool for college coaches as another data point when looking at players. USTA continues to work with tech partners like Universal Tennis (very vague answer to the question of how WTN impacts or will work alongside UTR). Playing one competitive match will generate a WTN; the more matches you play, the more accurate the rating. Response from pilot tournaments using WTN has been positive. The Family Profile on USTA will include all family members’ WTN.
For those interested in yesterday’s USTA webinar, here is a link to watch the recorded session: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iJ6TawV78s8RALqQWAa5-yXJHcK6TukP/view?usp=sharing