Hello and welcome to the Tennis IQ Podcast. I'm Brian Lomax. And I'm Josh Berger. And today we're going to talk a little bit about the impact of being too focused on things like... rankings and ratings, you know, whether that be UTR or WTN or, you know, I think for a lot of league players, you know, checking. Maybe checking NTRP or checking players' results online. But the impact of checking ratings and results and focusing too much on rankings, ratings, and results.
um rather than you know some alternatives rather than focusing a little bit more on your game rather than you know focusing a little bit more on the process and um and actually the idea for this came from an interesting place So I play a good amount of chess and was watching a video from a popular YouTuber. His username is Gotham Chess. plays at a you know very high level and was talking about how when he plays he has installed a chrome extension on his computer so that
When he's playing, he doesn't see his opponent's ELO. And ELO is essentially a rating, right? It says, at this moment, what is my opponent rated? And so he doesn't see his opponent's ELO or their name. And it got me thinking that, you know, in tennis, right? Yes, maybe you... cannot look at the draw in a tournament or not look at the UTR website or, you know, look at, look online, but it's tough to do that. We generally know or look up on our own.
the ratings and rankings of the person that we're playing and that can have quite an impact so i think we could talk more about the impact that that has and then some alternatives and some potential you know, different directions that players can go in rather than focusing too much on the results and, you know, on their own results and on the results of their opponents.
And I think that this is a phenomenon that is a little bit more recent, Josh, right? UTR probably has made it in tennis more obvious. I feel like UTR has been around. maybe about 10, 11 years. So maybe we're kind of on our second generation of players who are going through it, maybe third generation of players who are going through it.
NTRP has obviously been out there longer, but NTRP, because you're not seeing the dynamic calculation day to day, week to week, it's a little bit more of a black box about your number and you're pretty much stuck with your number the whole year.
It feels like that doesn't affect players in the exact same way that a dynamic rating does. So we see probably more... discussion of utr amongst our younger players whether they be in the 12s all the way to the 18s there's some concern with it and i think in college tennis but less and And there are a lot of challenges around it because it's very easy to tie your image as a player to a particular number.
The tough part about that number is that it's not fully within your control. There are so many variables that go into it. Although the number often will claim to be 100% reliable.
I think that it's hard to say that it is Josh because it assumes in every match that you're at full energy, that you're not injured. You know, right? It doesn't understand. There's no... sort of compensation for the fact that this is your second or third match of the day there's no compensation for that you might have tweaked uh you know something in your leg or arm and but you decided to go play anyway
And that's on both sides of the court. So it's very tough to deal with this number and see it. I think one of the hardest parts for younger players is everybody knows what it is. Nearly everybody has the app and they can see it. And if you're training in a group. And inevitably, someone in the group is going to be obsessed with UTR and talking about it and telling you, oh, yeah, that guy you're playing in the first round, he's a so-and-so, and you should beat him or her.
kind of should it should be right should being the tough word there and so much focus goes into this number um not only because of the self-image but If you're a young player who wants to play college tennis, whether we like it or not, it's a factor. Most coaches will use that number to decide if I'm going to email you back or not.
or get in touch with you in the first place. So it's pretty brutal in that regard. So, you know, I like the chess story. It's a little bit more of a controlled environment, which is great. You can put that Chrome extension in. And as you said, he's a higher level player. So it would be interesting to ask him, why exactly did you do that? What impacts did you notice on your playing against somebody who is...
rated lower, maybe right at the same level, or maybe a little bit better. You know, we see those scenarios all the time in tennis, but I'd really be curious to hear that from someone in a different performance context. Yeah, and I think that's a great point. And one thing that actually the video that brought it to my attention, he was so he's for people that are familiar with how.
chess ratings work uh so he's an international master which is the level below grandmaster so he was actually facing a grandmaster and i think one of the top uh rated players in the world like maybe one of the top 20 players and so he you know he's playing the game he ended up winning and then afterwards he sees okay you won and you beat
This guy who's, you know, one of the top players. So it's, you know, I think even for somebody like him, who's, you know, playing at a very elite level, easy to get in your head, right? It's almost power, right? Exactly. Exactly. Almost the equivalent of maybe a, you know, let's say a challenger level player who is maybe, you know, ranked, I don't know, 150 in the world, something like that, playing against somebody ranked.
20 or 30 in the world, right? It's very easy to get in your head about that. And it's interesting with UTR and, you know, think... We talked about NTRP and, you know, I've also seen adult players that I work with who will look at tennis record. And, you know, you can see sort of a dynamic NTRP a little bit. It's similar to that. Not giving people another, not trying to give people another resource to fixate on.
I think if we're talking about UTR, which is widely used, and obviously USTA and a lot of national federations now are moving to WTN, but there's still a lot of talk about UTR. I think what ends up happening is players identify a lot with their UTR and they feel, okay, you know, my UTR is this and then that is my level right now.
And, you know, I think there's a lot of players who feel that their UTR doesn't reflect their abilities or their level. And that's fair. And that often can be the case. But, you know, I think a couple of... ways that we can poke holes at that or maybe help a player to see that their UTR isn't exactly reflective of
where they are and then it really is just an algorithm right it really is just an algorithm of formula where it just looks at results did you win did you lose against two against two and what's their utr and what was the score and You know, a player cannot play for a month. And guess what? Their UTR can go up and go down during that time. You can be at an all-time high UTR.
after a month or three months of not playing any matches, any tournaments. Now, does that mean that you're better than you were a month or three months ago? Not necessarily, but... Just based on the way the algorithm works, based on maybe the way that your opponents did, it matches their results. Your UTR can shoot up or, you know, can really rise or really drop.
You can also win a tournament. Win multiple matches, win a tournament, and your UTR can drop. So, you know, I think that we want to find ways to help players.
you know, not think too much about UTR, not identify too much about their UTR or their, you know, ratings and results. Understand what it is. It's a, it's a. resource online it's a algorithm it can be a tool again you mentioned the recruiting process um so you know that that really is what it is and it has certain uses but not you know making sure that
you know, people aren't letting it, you know, letting it completely go overboard. And I think that happens a lot. You mentioned at any, you know, at different tennis clubs or different clinics. that inevitably there's going to be somebody talking about it and a lot of coaches will talk about it and you know and parents talk about it and players talk about it with each other and it's it really at this point is is a you know culturally is
It's something that's widely discussed. But I think, you know, if you ask a lot of people, if you ask most players, does, you know, does checking your UTR, does checking your opponent's UTR, does that actually help you? you know or why are you doing it i think a lot of players will recognize that it doesn't it tends to add a lot of pressure it tends to cause them to maybe you know fear losing or fear what could happen if you lose to a lower rated player um
And, you know, but then people will say, oh, I'm just curious. I'm just curious about who I'm playing or I want to be prepared for that match. So I think we can talk a little bit about sort of the impact of that. But I think it's a... I think it's important that we're discussing it because it's just so widely discussed.
It's so widely talked about in tennis circles, especially among junior players. But I think among other types of players as well, whether it be adults or college, I definitely saw it discussed there as well. I think it's important to do your best to put something like UTR into perspective so that it doesn't become a barrier.
to learning improvement and enjoying the game. Because it can really have a negative impact. I got a call a couple days ago, Josh, from a mom who was crying about how her son... is struggling with tennis doesn't enjoy tennis anymore is really uh showing his frustration not only on the court but at home all because he his utr has gone down so much
in the past few months and that he can't he can't seem to get any wins and to me that's that's not a very good story here but ultimately it's how can we reframe what utr is what it is trying to do and how we can best use it because ultimately it's something that is not within our control and you know we talk about when we have
negative emotions, whether they're on the court or off the court, maybe unproductive emotions, they're often because we are assigning too much value to something that actually isn't that important. And so this is a clear sign, like the story is that this player is assigning too much importance to UTR such that it is blocking his ability. to focus on the things that are important to his growth as a player. And that's not to say that UTR isn't important at a certain level.
But, you know, there are players like my age, we didn't have UTR as a kid. It certainly made it easier in some ways. There were still rankings. Or even as an adult. So I didn't have this particular distraction, but we were still able to become really great players, whether we had UTR or not. So UTR could help in some ways, but it also isn't really necessary. for a player's growth to know exactly where you are. I think the idea of just sort of trying to delete the app, never looking at it.
never talking about it is a good short-term strategy for many. It's a good short-term strategy to talk to one's parents or other training partners and let's just not discuss.
that number ultimately if we focus on doing our job of going out there and playing our identity our a game regardless of who the opponent is better same worse the utr will take care of itself but it's almost like by trying to make it go up you almost inevitably sabotage yourself through that process and as we've discussed many times josh From a philosophical perspective, when you're paying so much attention to your current UTR, you're trying to prove yourself versus improve yourself.
we don't right the most important version of who you are as a player is who you're becoming but you're investing so much into who you are and proving that you're a good player that your game will just naturally plateau The enjoyment will naturally go away because you're going to become frustrated over this thing you can't fully control. And it's a very hard thing, hard to talk to players and parents.
about what they're experiencing with this number you know some players obviously keep it in very good perspective but some really struggle with it and and you know the idea is okay Can we try to put it aside and bring it back to what you can actually control? What is important right now? And really just try to work through that. Work through routines on the court.
work through your game plan sort of like dominic or body let's focus more on writing your game plan than worrying about a rating um of course we all don't want to lose that's a natural excuse me, cognitive bias we have, right? Loss aversion. And that ends up, you know, in fear. And we don't want to play through fear. That's never going to be our way to the top.
But if we can recognize that, if we can get through that by playing a little bit more courageously toward the player we want to become, then we give ourselves a chance of improving, of learning, of enjoying what we're doing. And then we don't have to worry about UTR. UTR will naturally go where it's going to go for us. So I just want to recognize this is really hard. And it can be hard for adults. I mean, there are some adults who pay attention.
to it as well and there's less on the line for them in terms of the number because they're not being recruited for a team based on the number but there can certainly be self-image concerns And I think we also had another episode about performance identity versus purpose-based identity. And I think that's a lot of what is going on with something like UTR.
I think if we look at the rating systems, Josh, to me, UTR is probably the more problematic one, only in that WTN is counterintuitive. It goes... backwards right we we typically associate good performance with higher numbers which is your reverse of wtn it's almost like you go to a movie josh oh this is a great movie that's a one out of five you're like
That's not really how it works, you know? So I feel like players are kind of struggling like what WTN is really doing. Especially since they've gotten used to the UTR system first. Absolutely, right? it was definitely first on the on the map and and why wtn even exists is a question mark it's not really solving any problem that wasn't there that utr wasn't trying to address right it's probably more political but
To me, UTR is still the number, even though the ITA has adopted WTN, USTA, ITF. I never hear anybody tell me they're worried about their WTN. It's always UTR. And I think it was started with good intentions. I think there were some real idealists around it. They wanted to democratize tennis to make it. less about age, less about gender, and more about ability and sharing experiences across age groups and genders. And that all sounds wonderful, but at a certain level, it doesn't make sense.
as much sense and i think one thing that they didn't take into account is this natural bias that we have a lot around the loss aversion they thought it would promote competition because people would want to improve the number But in many regards, it hasn't. It has discouraged competition. Here in New England, where I live, we now have an initiative. called play to completion which means that we are requiring players to fulfill their obligations of playing through the main draw and the back draw
Unless they get injured and they have to submit paperwork for that. But so many players have pulled out of matches because there's a potential consequence to their rating. And they don't want to play this person because it could have a negative effect. So what do they do? They withdraw. And then the other person is left with no match. Or they've driven maybe a couple hours to get to this site only to realize nobody's coming.
to play them because somebody pulled out. That has been much more the case with UTR than encouraging people to play more matches. So... I mean, to me, this has been a bit of a long monologue here, but I think we've got to all figure out how to put it in perspective so that it doesn't detract from our enjoyment of the game.
and learning and improving to become that player you could become we don't know how good you could become that's really it's going to be up to you and how much work you put into it but that potential is unknown But if you're focusing on things you can't control, like UTR, there will probably be some regrets in the future about how you did this. I think definitely, because I think it puts so much...
it puts pressure on us because it, when we, well, if we, if we're looking at our opponent's UTRs, right. Okay. I'm playing somebody in their 0.3 above me or their point.
2.3 below me it's really easy to for for those you know for just that number to lead to expectations okay somebody's above me that means i assume that they're really good that i can't beat them that i'm gonna have to play perfectly to even have a chance and that's not true right and the same goes in reverse that you know okay i'm looking at my opponent's utr and it's lower and that means i should win
and again that word should comes up um or i'm supposed to win um or you know and players will just even mention it casually like And I try to check them on it when they do it. They're like, oh, I was playing somebody who's above me or below me or somebody I was supposed to be. And I'm like, well, what does that mean? What does that mean you're supposed to beat them?
And I think, you know, I think players recognize that, that that's not true, right? Maybe they're watching the, you know, the Grand Slam tournaments and they see all the upsets, right? There's... um you know a draw full of upsets right yes there's oftentimes the higher ranked or rated player wins but there's you know uh upsets every single day And they recognize that. They recognize that lower ranked and rated players beat higher ones all the time, yet they still think that because they're...
Their UTR is above somebody's that they are supposed to win or should win. And they could be simply echoing the words of other people. It could be their parents. Could be their coaches, could be their siblings, could be other players at the tennis club or wherever they train. But I think it's just important that we can take a step back and zoom out and understand that, you know, that.
again, what UTR is. It's just a formula. It's just sort of a measure of results, and it doesn't actually reflect. where somebody is, right? As you said, Brian, it doesn't recognize if somebody's played their second or third match of a day. It doesn't recognize if somebody's injured. Let's say somebody's just come back from an injury, but their UTR is...
what it is it might not actually reflect where they're at let's say somebody's been working on their game a lot working on their physical game their mental game and they've taken strides the utr website doesn't know that so you know again it's just that measurement of those results and the results of your opponents. So I think if we can recognize that and that it's really not who we are, it's just simply a formula that about results.
You know, then then we can move towards that, you know, a better form of identity where it's not so result driven. It really is more about us working on, you know. being the best player that we can be really trying to prioritize excellence and, and improvement rather than it being all about results. And we've talked about this in the past, but if it, you know, if we're.
If it's too much about results, if that's what we're prioritizing, if that's what we're thinking about, you know, that's not a stable or sustainable way to... um to be viewing our identity because nobody wins all the time nobody's utr goes up endlessly every week right if if they if it did then then you would eventually have the world's highest utr
Right. And, you know, currently that belongs to Yannick Center. But, you know, the if we're being realistic, it's going to go up, it's going to go down. Hopefully it trends up. Right. But. checking it too much, focusing on it too much, having these expectations for our matches that we're going to win or lose simply based on that is not...
fair and is not sustainable. And I think there is a place for it. I think we can look at our UTR maybe every six months and say, okay, well, I'm here now. And then where was I six months ago? And where was I a year ago? And it can be a measurement to say, okay, am I trending in the right direction? Am I moving in the direction I want to be moving in? But looking at it weekly, looking at it every day, as some players do, is simply counterproductive.
And you're only torturing yourself. And you're letting your feelings about yourself as a tennis player be driven by an algorithm that sits on some computer somewhere in California, probably. But the hard part, Josh, is it's not going away. Yep. So we have to put it into context. And I think we, you know, generically, what I would give as an exercise to players is to...
And I think we've talked about the idea of a circle exercise, right? Drawing a circle, putting everything you can fully control inside that circle, things that are outside your control, whether they be you have some influence or not, like weather, no influence, UTR. some influence right putting all those outside and start to see okay when i think about my tennis game what am i valuing more so than other things am i putting
Too much value and importance on something that's outside the circle? Do I have an opportunity to maybe shift more inside the circle? Knowing that, my belief is with this circle exercise, the more you focus on the things you can control, the better chance you give yourself of achieving positive outcomes outside that circle. that you want to achieve. It's a little bit of a leap of faith. You have to practice that. But the first part is to examine, maybe take inventory.
of what you're valuing in in tennis as part of your experience and if you find that you're valuing putting too much value on winning too much valuing too much value on utr or ranking or playing well or you know in the case of some other players is a little bit different topic but maybe putting too much value in the last point too much value in being perfect
These give you opportunities to just understand yourself a little bit more. And then, all right, how can I put value into what's actually important? The things that I can fully control. And one that we've talked about a lot, Josh, is you playing your game, your A game, your competitive identity, treating that like a skill in itself. Because UTR tends to trick us out of.
playing our a-game we might play not to lose or against a better appointment we might say ah we got to do more these are all traps that get you to make bad decisions and where you don't practice playing your best tennis that's gonna help you in the longer term um so that would be my first suggestion josh is like let's do an inventory of what you actually are putting most importance on
in your tennis is it in your control or not for sure there'll be some things that are inside your circle that you are valuing um but can you start to look at the things that are outside that you don't fully control and and lower the importance of them. Because you may have influence on them, but your influence is not so much that you want to decrease your performance on things you can't control.
I think that's absolutely right. And it's this idea of controlling the controllables and the... you know the circle of control exercise um you know i think this this idea obviously has has been around for a long time right this idea of controlling the controllables is a originally you know from stoicism you know roughly 2 000 years ago um people
We're talking about it. And, you know, I think being able to apply it to sport and able to apply it to tennis really makes sense because there's there's always going to be things out of our control. You mentioned weather or, you know, you can't. control your opponent, right? How, uh, and maybe you can impact in certain ways, how they play can't control how they act, can't control their playing style. People talk about their opponents, like, you know, pushing or playing in styles that they.
maybe don't like playing against, you know, the fans, the courts, you know, things like that. Also can't control the past and the future. So I think being really clear, you know, crystal clear about what are some of those things that I can't control at all.
And then, okay, what are some of those things that I can impact but I can't fully control? And UTR would definitely fall into that category. But just understanding that, you know, just by us... focusing on winning more and focusing on UTR more and focusing on sort of the result and outcome piece doesn't actually get us any closer to achieving those results and outcomes and wins that we want.
What helps us get there is that process piece, right? Whether it's our attitude, whether it's our effort, whether it's our self-talk, whether it's how we use our tools or how we prepare, how we sleep, how we eat. Hydrate, whatever it may be, the more we can focus on that side of things, the controllable side and the process side, the better chance we have for the result side.
If you can manage all those pieces on the controllable side, on your process side, does that guarantee results? No, but it gives you the best possible chance to have the types of results that you want. And what do you know when you have, you know, when you set yourself up for success with how you play and have in the results that you want, your UTR will improve. So rather than just focusing on it, focusing on how we get there in the process.
required to get there is, you know, is really the pathway towards the types of improvements and successes that a player is looking for. And I think, you know, when players can really adopt this. mindset and this sort of perspective shift, it tends to really reduce their pressure, right? I mean, there's always going to be some pressure, but I think a lot of players end up putting unnecessary pressure on themselves.
And when a player can really buy into this idea of as much as those things out of our control might be annoying or frustrating, that we want to be able to accept those things because there's nothing we can do about them. and shift our focus towards those controllable factors that ultimately lead to the results and outcomes that we want. they tend to experience less pressure and have more clear-cut things to focus on that directly lead to their improvement and to the outcomes that they...
So I think it's, you know, it's, it's a simple concept in a lot of ways. And it's a concept I know we've talked about, but I think it's something that deserves being.
talked about you know repetitively in a certain way and reinforced because it constantly comes up it's so easy to focus on these uncontrollable factors and i think for a lot of players it's it's their default state right focusing on results checking utr um you know going into matches saying things like i should win i need to win i'm supposed to win
and accidentally putting this unnecessary pressure on themselves and actually making it harder for them to perform well and making it more likely that they're going to play tight and probably play in a different style than their... um then they're you know the playing style that they play best right then they're sort of playing identity um but more so play maybe not to lose or you know fall into that loss aversion trap
and back away from that way that they want to play in favor of trying to avoid losing and avoid, again, their UTR and results dropping. And I think it keeps coming up, Josh, because... Our society emphasizes results, similar to like school, emphasizes grades over learning. We emphasize winning over learning. And, you know, if there's one thing that we know, many players, even like Mark Twain.
has said something to this effect. When you start agreeing with the masses, it's time to examine your position. And I would say that the majority of people, players, parents, coaches, don't really have... the right perspectives on competition and what its purpose is. When you hear higher level players speak, you hear about people who get the fact that this isn't about just winning.
This is about learning, figuring things out, right? I love the video from Kobe Bryant where he talks about how failure doesn't exist. And he says, you know, he's not, he never plays to out of a fear of losing or a need to win. He's always playing to figure things out, to learn something so that he can be better and better and better. Because what he gets is that when you make this all about learning and education, the results will come. If you make this all about winning.
Your potential to be a great player is much lower. You'll enjoy things less and eventually maybe even get bored or not happy with yourself. So this is all kind of a mindset shift. that we have to learn to make otherwise utr like many of the other things that are out of our control just becomes another barrier that we have to deal with
And we don't want it to be something that we didn't deal with as well as we could have in the end, right? So good discussion, Josh. I know we have touched on these things in the past, but... I think maybe setting a little bit more importance around the number itself and some of the things that we have seen in working with clients. Hopefully that's been beneficial for people to hear.
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