Team Leagues

Create and manage In-House, Interclub (like USTA), and school intramural leagues.

League Scheduler - Automatic scheduler to create league schedules each season.
Scores - Captains can enter their match scores and confirm the scorecard created by their opponents. Set their team lineups, enter write-ups for each match, enter team notes.
Online credit card signups. Players can register using a credit card. Complete with reports
Easy navigation - Players can review their league matches or league standings.
Player profiles - complete stats and matches listed.
Player Match Availability - Once a league has been scheduled, players (and captains) can enter their match availability. Captains will no longer wonder who is available to play matches.
Match Write-ups - Captains can enter their match write-ups after the match has been recorded. Players then can read the write-ups immediately online.
Latest Results - Latest Results shows match results by divisions that were recorded within a few days.
Captains looking for players - Captains can post that they are looking for players to fill out their rosters. This information is available to all visitors whether they are logged in or not. Captains can specify singles or doubles, rating level, male or female and can add notes.
Team lineups - Captains can enter their team lineups for future matches.

Calculate Dynamic Ratings

Dynamic Computer Tennis Rating Program. This product has been incorporated into all of our programs. It's no longer a stand alone program.

The DCTR program rates players based on the score of every match entered into the system. The program gives a player an individual singles rating and a doubles rating. It will also rate each doubles team. This program has many benefits for the individual player, club manager, section and USTA. How the Program Works DCTR is a dynamic rating that can change with every match played. Since every match is taken into account the rating should be an accurate indication of the players' level of play. Every match played is entered into the system, but is not given equal weight. The USTA NorCal has decided that for the next year, there will be four different levels of play. "Daily, Practice or Social" matches will be given the least amount of weight in determining a players rating. "Non-USTA league or tournament" matches will be given a little more weight. "USTA League" matches are given more weight than the "Non-USTA" matches. Finally, matches played during a "USTA Tournament" are given the most weight. The weighting factor is determined by the owner of the program and can be changed at their discretion. Flexibility is the key to this program. You also have the flexibility to put in more or less than four weighting categories. Singles Ratings When a singles match has been played, the players fill out a card showing the scores of that match. These results will then be entered into the system. The date of the match, players' names (identified by USTA number or membership number) score of match and type of match are entered. The computer will show the players' ratings prior to the match and will also show their new rating based on the result of the match just entered. Doubles Rating A doubles match is entered into the system in the same manner as a singles match. The computer will calculate a rating for each doubles team. In addition a doubles rating for that individual player will be calculated. If a player teams up with a different partner their individual doubles rating may change. The doubles rating for a team will only change when that team plays together. There is no limit to the number of different partners a player may have. Calculations of Ratings Ratings are calculated based on the prior ratings of the players, the score of the match and the type of match played (which determines weighting). For every match, there are expected outcomes of the match based on the ability of the players. If the actual results of the match are the same as the expected values, then the players will not have any movement in their rating. If the outcome does not meet the expected value, then the players' ratings are adjusted accordingly. With the DCTR program there is a great deal of flexibility in determining movement of ratings. The amount of movement can be adjusted by the owner of the program so that players ratings will change more rapidly or more conservatively. Besides adjusting the amount of movement, the owner of the program has the option of setting limits on movement. In the DCTR program, it is possible to limit the difference in player ability for an acceptable match. For example, USTA NorCal has set the limit as .5. A player with a 3.000 rating may play against a player with a 3.500 rating and the results of the match will be used to determine any movement for the players. If a 3.000 player plays against a 3.501 player, the match will be recorded, but no movement will be calculated since this match is beyond the range of acceptable matches set by NorCal. Another option in the DCTR program is determining the movement of the higher rated player in a match. If the higher rated player loses a match to a lower rated player, their rating will go down. However, if a higher rated player wins a match should their rating change? And if their rating changes, should it go up or down or should the rating only go up? These are variables that are decided by the owner of the program. USTA NorCal has decided that if a higher rated player wins a match, their rating may go up depending on the score, but it will not go down. Again, this is an option available on the DCTR system and may be easily changed. EXAMPLES #1 Player A (rated 3.652) plays Player B (rated 3.482). Player A beats Player B 6-2,6-2 in a social match. The DCTR program would expect that players with these ratings would have had a closer match (6-3, 6-4 for example) Since the match was not within the expected range the ratings will change. Based on the weighting for a social match, Player A’s rating changes to 3.682 and Player B’s becomes 3.452. If your organization decides that this is not enough movement, it can easily be adjusted. #2 Jim (4.500) beats Bob (4.732) 6-4,6-4 in a USTA Tournament. In this example, the higher rated player lost the match. Based on the score and the weighting for a USTA Tournament match, the DCTR program changes Jim’s rating to a 4.575. Bob drops to a 4.657. Jim’s first victory over Bob does not place his rating above Bob’s. Suppose these two players played again in a tournament and Jim once again prevailed 6-4, 6-4. The DCTR program will now rate Jim as 4.635. Bob’s rating falls to 4.597. Jim’s rating is now above Bob’s. If your organization decides that this is not enough movement, it can easily be adjusted. Benefits to Players Tennis players will be able to see how the results of their match affect their rating. Feedback will be immediate upon entry of the match into the system. In addition, players will know that their rating reflects how they have performed in all of their matches instead of just a few. The DCTR system will take into account "best of three set" matches as well as five set matches, split set matches, and pro sets. It is very easy for the player to go through all of their matches and see how their rating has changed over time. Benefits to Club Managers / Community Professionals The DCTR system will make forming teams very easy for club managers and professionals. It is possible to print out a report which shows the current ratings for all members of a club active in the system. Forming teams becomes very objective, based solely on ratings. Divisions for in-house tournaments can also be based on the ratings. If a club has a "club championship" tournament, players can objectively be placed into different divisions based on their ratings. As it is now, it is sometimes difficult to tell a person that they should play in the "C" division instead of "B" and vice versa. Their are a variety of reports available to the owner of the program. In one report the DCTR program will print out address labels. The report can be limited by opting to print only the labels of singles players (or only doubles players.) In addition, the list of available players can be defined by age groups (including juniors) or rankings. This will make it very easy for a club to send out promotional information for which they want to target a specific group. An option available to players is that they can enter the time of day they would like to play matches into the system. The owner of the program can produce a report which shows players of similar ability that are also available at this time. This is a tremendous service to offer to a tennis player. In the DCTR program a player can be assigned to a specific group. This designation may represent all players that take lessons. Or it may be the group of players that take lessons from a specific professional. It may be used to designate people who frequently make purchases from a shop. Another possibility is to designate players who played in a tournament. It is then possible to produce reports using the "group" designation. Another report available in the DCTR system is called "Statistics." This report shows how many matches were played per week. The report is broken down into "singles" and "doubles" and also by gender. This report will be very helpful to club managers who want to see if a promotion had any effect on the amount of play. There is one other report that bears mentioning at this time. This report is called "Points." In this report it is possible to award points based on number of matches played and success in those matches. "Success" can be defined as simply doing better than expected rather than actually winning a match. This is a great method for recognizing the achievements of players that may not necessarily be at the top of the ratings. Benefits to Organizations The benefits to the your organization is increasing membership. For players, it is hoped that the DCTR ratings will be seen as a very accurate assessment of a players’ skill level. Players will accept their rating as accurate because they will be able to review their history and see how that rating was obtained. It is possible for players who are not a member of your organization to play matches against members and have that information put into the DCTR system. However, they will not be able to view their rating or see how their rating changes over time. This should serve as an incentive to become a member. When the player decides to become a member, you will have some background information on their ability. The DCTR system keeps a "player profile" on all players in the system. You may choose to print out these profiles on a regular basis and make them available to members. "Player profiles" may be especially important to Junior players. These reports can be produced for the players or their parents and could even be made available to colleges wishing to recruit tennis players. Summary It is anticipated that the DCTR ratings will create enthusiasm among tennis players. Ratings will be assigned that are accurate and fair. In addition, there is the opportunity for club managers and other professionals to benefit from the information provided by the DCTR program. Finally, it is hoped that all the benefits to players will increase membership in your organization.

Issue of Inside Tennis
The DCTR Is In ( FLASH!!! DCTR is sold to the USTA for tennis in the USA.) Steve Broulliard is trying to build a network of tennis players in central Oregon by using a Northern California software program that he thinks can one day significantly change tennis coast to coast--if the USTA gets behind it. "Boy, if the USTA could ever get into this, take it and run with it, why it would almost revolutionize tennis" the tennis shop owner says. "And I'll tell you, once a player is part of this rating program, they want all their friends in on it, too." Brouillard, whose shop is in Bend, Oregon, is the proud possessor of the Dynamic Computer Tennis Rating (DCTR) software program. It's the program that a USTA NorCal committee approved for a trial, after getting the okay from the national USTA to investigate solutions to the NTRP rating shortcomings. Now in its second year of experimentation, DCTR is being used by eight clubs in Northern California, one in Arizona and by Broulliard. Even if it's not very well known at this stage, it has had inquiries from Great Britain and Hong Kong. The DCTR program does a lot of things. It's an answer if not the solution to complaints from players that the annual NTRP ratings get misleading as a season wears on. Some players' games take nosedives. Others surge confidently with a newfound skill level. DCTR would reflect this. It takes results of official tournament and league matches and dynamically adjusts NTRP ratings on the spot. But it also takes other results, too. Non-sanctioned club or park competitions, for example. Even practice matches. All the results are weighted, of course. The DCTR program also works handily with doubles results. Then there are additional practical aspects of DCTR. It can group players by rating, age, availability and gender, and the computer can print player records in an instant. "The main thing is it brings to a club, or group of players, a common competitive ladder program," says Maricio Achondo, tennis director of the Twin Abors club at Lodi. "People can play against each other but they won't automatically lose their position on the ladder. It takes two or three wins to overtake a position, which encourages play instead of making people afraid of it." Oddly enough, there is a strong element of fear in conventional ladder play that inhibits ladder activity, club pros say. A one-time winner taking over the higher-ranking loser's position after one match is too abrupt, too brutal, many players feel. So some players who love their ladder rank, hide. Many feel that advancement should be proved more convincingly, which is what DCTR requires as it adjusts ratings, however minutely, after every score that's entered. People move up or down based on their changing ratings, and it may take two or three matches to overtake a position. The job of the committee selecting DCTR, incidentally, was to not just make the ratings accurate but to increase a player's input, plus involve more players. DCTR is not a handicapping system. It is a dynamic rating with bells and whistles that sometimes take time to exploit. "I've had it for a while but I'm slow getting to use it," says John Matkulak, tennis director at Lakeridge Tennis Club in Reno, who has used it only as a ladder for about 50 men. "We have a ton of leagues. And people always think they belong higher than where they do belong. Some don't want to play what they call patty-cake tennis and want to play up. We hope this will resolve a lot of those league problems. I'm excited to use it. The scores go in and a new rating is calculated. It puts a sharper edge on the rating." In Lodi, Achondo says using DCTR is a great way for in-coming members to find where they rank. Based on their NTRP rating, a new member picks a place to challenge. "But they don't get into the system until they have a win," Achondo says. "The computer doesn't know how to deal with a loss with no prior record." Actually, Achondo has been using this system and, before it, its predecessor TopDog, for six years. Michael Friedman of Placerville developed the software. His Topdog software is being used full-time for the first time this year by the USTA NorCal leagues in all 14 sections for such things as scheduling and team rosters. The only downside Achondo sees is that DCTR is long term commitment. "Interclub people are used to ladder systems and challenges to take over positions," Achondo says. "That doesn't work with DCTR. It protects people and gives rankings a true meaning. It's very accurate. But it may take two years for the accuracy to jell. "You have to have meetings with everyone to explain these things. They need to know, too, that there is a logic between winning a match love and love or three and three or in three sets. A win is weighted as to its characteristics. There is an expected score. And every point is important. "If everybody inputs every match then there is movement and there is competition and its true. But if you have 60 active and 40 protecting themselves it doesn't happen. Whatever, I do think the service ought to be free." What most excites Steve Brouillard, who found out about DCTR from a friend at Arden Hills and then contacted Friedman on the Internet where he has a Web page, is the flexibility of DCTR. "It has a unique social component and competitive component too," he says. "Some people can use it just to meet people. The biggest complaint I ever hear is 'I can't find people to play.' Well, here it is. I can just hand them a list of other players within a half point of them." Brouillard has his computer in his sports store on Century Drive on the way to Mt. Bachelor, a skiing resort like Vail, Colorado, that attracts a lot of vacationers and tennis players. He has three other stores in a 200-mile triangle in Salem, Eugene and Portland. With 150 on his ladder now, and another 50 expected soon from a recent tournament, he wants to soon link all his stores up with DCTR and spread his network. "I went down to Eugene the other day and dropped in a club where a guy was running a ladder for the area," he says. "I asked him how things were going and he said just fine, he had 15 on his ladder. Fifteen! It made my 150 look pretty good." Brouillard charges a $15 annual fee. He has dumped about $800 into advertising, plus the $300 cost for the software. Having gotten a few manufacturers involved, he awards incentive prizes for ladder activity. Weekly he emails results to half his ladder, the others drop by the store for them, as they do for player histories. An immediate goal for Brouillard is to be able to give any player from Bend going off to visit in Portland, Salem or Eugene, a list of players to contact. "Leagues have been such a huge plus in getting that participation level up in the U.S.," he says. "But if this program was available in every section around the country, matches could be recorded from Oregon to Florida. People would use it on vacations and to meet and play other players, and all the scores would be recorded. And this all could go on the Internet." Right now the program exists in 8 experimental sites in Northern California and two out of state. All are proceeding at different rates. But the goal among the Northern California sites is to hook up by the end of the year when the two-year experiment will come to a close. January 9, 1997 Contact: Tom Carter 510-748-7373, x2927 USTA NORCAL IS DYNAMIC (NTRP) RATING EXPERIMENT IS MID-WAY IN TESTING DCTR SOFTWARE AT PLAYING SITES Imagine playing a match and immediately afterward seeing your NTRP rating change on a computer screen, even if it's a practice match you've just played. The USTA Northern California section thinks this is not only possible, but that such a dynamic rating service, and its associated benefits, may soon be available for thousands of players at hundreds of Northern California sites. The section is in the middle of a two-year experiment geared toward delivering that capability now. Taking part are more than a dozen Northern California sites and one in Arizona. The worker bee at the bottom of this is a software program called Dynamic Computer Tennis Rating (DCTR). It takes into account four levels of results: practice matches, non-sanctioned club or park competitions, USTA leagues, and USTA tournaments. The results are weighted, of course. What stimulated this development was the grousing of finicky players over static NTRP ratings which are given at the start of the year and remain in concrete until the end. But along the way, as everyone knows, some improving players jump out of their ratings, and others fall behind them. Hence the demand for accuracy. Hearing the plea, the USTA NorCal got the go sign from the national USTA to examine the situation. NorCal formed a four-man study committee and after many months the possible solution it came up with was DCTR. It's a design by Michael Friedman, a software developer from Placerville, his version of a software called TOPDOG. The program has nothing to do with handicapping, incidentally, only dynamic rating. Right now, the locales which have been inputting and receiving onsite information are issuing updated NTRP ratings every two weeks. Player participants in the experiment are restricted to those within a half NTRP rating point (.5) of each other. Any site that wants to join the experiment can do so for $300, the software cost. Later this year all of the sites will be linked together. The collective player input will be evaluated and ratings will become instantaneous from on-site kiosks. These kiosks will also serve as repositories of information and able to call up a player's profile, and other select data. Input can be both singles and doubles, for each will have dynamic ratings. As committee member Kim Fuller says, "Before, the system was taking in two to 15 (league) matches a year (per player), which wasn't very many." The committee's job was to increase a player's input, involve more players, and to make those ratings accurate. The section has so far put $15,000 into the project. The benefits of DCTR: * Immediate rating adjustment feedback, with a wide range of the kinds of results that can be entered and no restriction on the amount. * Profiles available for players, coaches, league team-forming captains, tournament directors, in-house competitions. etc. * The kiosk as a central focus where players interact with it and each other, increasing traffic in pro shops or any retail outlet where it is placed. * Availability of a variety of other reports (mailing lists, phone numbers, etc.) Other informational progress reports will be released on DCTR in the future.