Spin Rating Launch

Spin Rating Launch

Spin Rating

27th September, 2022

Announcing a new league format based on Spin Rating

We are happy to announce an important change to Spin tennis leagues which comes primarily from speaking to many of you and listening to all your feedback.

IMPORTANT - This will affect how the divisions are organised so please read this carefully to understand how you will be allocated from now on.

As some of you may have noticed, we have recently been displaying a “League Rating” on the profile of every league player on Spin. We’ve been experimenting with this rating for a few seasons now, tweaking and ensuring it is reliable as a measure of a player’s skill level, regardless of whether they are experienced or just picking up tennis for the first time. And we are excited to finally be rolling it out to everyone!

What is the "Spin League Rating"?

The Spin League Rating is a number which determines your skill level and gets updated as you play your league matches - the higher your number the better your skill level. It’s based on a well known mathematical algorithm for measuring skill levels called Glicko.

With Glicko, a player gains points after winning a match and drops points after losing a match. The number of points is determined by the difference in rating between the players (i.e. The higher the rating of the player you beat, compared to yours, the more points you will get) and how certain both players ratings are (based on the number of matches played and playing in the league consistently).

Why use a League Rating?

Have you ever looked at the divisions and thought “Why am I in division X?” Previously, sorting divisions was extremely difficult when the number of divisions changed every season because the number of players taking part changed too - not to mention trying to adjust for promotions and relegations for divisions that no longer existed!

However, whilst allocation was fair but not always clear, the main issue was that players didn't have an easy way to track their progress and improvement in the league - so we came up with a better way to do it!

A Spin League Rating allows us to simplify player allocation and help our players understand clearly why they have been placed in a certain division and what they need to do to move up.

You will be able to see the rating of the players you've been matched with and compare yourself against other league players easily.

No more looking at self assessed "Intermediate" or "Improver" descriptions that can be modified by players at any time. Your Spin League Rating is what determines your real skill from now on so you can track your progress and improve your game!

How will this be used in the league?

Players will now be ranked and allocated by their Spin League Rating.

This means if 300 players join a season, they will be sorted by their league rating and placed accordingly in divisions of 6-7 players. Fair and square, everyone will know their rating and why they’ve been placed where they are.

Entry Divisions (for new players who have never played a league match before) will continue to exist to ensure that new players whose skill level is still uncertain don’t get mixed too soon with players who have been playing the league regularly. All new players will receive a provisional Spin League Rating which will be re-assessed once the season ends.

Promotions and relegations will be determined by 'Competition' points: 

Division winners get a prize for winning their divisions and hopefully that’s a good enough incentive to win! However, we know how important it is to get a shot to play the better players which is why the winner and the runner up from last season will also get “Competition' points for this season’s allocation.

This is intended to “simulate” promotions and relegations. The division winner will get awarded 100 'Competition' points and the runner up 75 'Competition' points that will be temporarily added to their Spin League Rating so they can be in a higher position when players are sorted by rating.

For example if you won your division last season and your Spin League Rating was 2400 then this season you will be allocated as if your rating was 2500 (2400 + 100). Your actual rating doesn’t change however, it stays as 2400 (since it’s a measure of your skill level) but the boost will ensure you get matched with higher rated players this season. The competition points are valid only for one season and will be removed after that.

The bottom 2 players in a division from last season will lose 'Competition' points from their league rating (-100 and -75) which will put them in a lower position when players are sorted. This means there is no guarantee that you will actually be promoted or relegated a division but we will review this allocation system and adjust next season if necessary.

Skipping seasons will result in a loss of 'Competition' points:

Starting next season, players that skip a season will lose 25 Competition points for every season they skip. This is just for allocation of players and will not affect your actual Spin League Rating. This is to reward players that play regularly and ensure that returning players are not placed higher than the last time they played.

How is my Spin League Rating determined?

For new players, a provisional League Rating is set initially based on a self assessment questionnaire. For existing players, we have analysed all your previous Spin league match results to get to your current Spin League Rating.

How do I improve my Spin League Rating?

Play and win matches - simples! The more matches you play and the more you win, the higher your rating will go.

We will be releasing a new version of Spin next week that will allow you to view divisions not only by standings/points but will also have full visibility into all player's Spin League Ratings and Competition points.

Will my Spin League Rating change if I don't play any matches?

The short answer is no, it won't. The only way your League Rating changes is by playing matches. However, it's possible your rating might change if you played someone who’s skill level was not yet verified and then they got verified later.

This is actually a good thing. Suppose you are an advanced player and played someone who self assessed as “high-intermediate” but you lost that match. Because your rating drops more points if you lose against a high-intermediate player than an advanced one, it’s quite a good thing that when our system identifies your opponent’s initial rating was wrong and adjusts it, you will get back some of those points you lost and your match gets re-evaluated as an advanced vs advanced one.

How often will it update?

Your Spin League Rating will get updated every Tuesday. And from Summer 2023 your rating will get updated as soon as you submit your match result!

Why don’t you use WTN (World Tennis Number)?

Conversations with the governing bodies, about any kind of collaboration have been very slow and so we decided that the best way for us to continue innovating and improving the leagues was to roll out our own Spin Rating.

WTN and the Spin League Rating both use a Glicko based algorithm to rate players but the big advantage of creating our own rating system is that we can match players on Spin faster and more accurately.

We have confidence that this change will bring many positive changes to playing in our leagues and of course we are open to any feedback so please let us know your thoughts!

The Spin Team

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https://spintennisapp.com