Promoting competitive playing at tennis academies and clubs
Wouldn't it be great to see all junior tennis players at your club doing their very best every time they play, fighting for every point regardless of the score and the strength of their opponents? Wouldn't it be great to see them leaving the tennis court proud of themselves every time - proud that they played as well as they could regardless of the outcome? If you have ever had such hopes, with the equRanking system you can start making them a reality.
The equRanking system is the most accurate, credible and flexible ranking system ever. It is designed to give all players a powerful incentive to fight for every point as though it was match point. This makes it the perfect tool for learning and developing competitive skills, but most of all for inculcating a thoroughly professional attitude from an early age.
The effectiveness of the competitive environment at a tennis academy or club can be measured by how conducive it is to players playing a certain number of competitive points per day. We define a competitive point as one in which both opponents do their very best to win the point. So if every player in a club has the opportunity to play between 120-300 competitive points per day, then we could say that such a club has an effective competitive environment.
It is easy to make players play a large number of points to strengthen their competitive skills. The challenge lies in making players play for each point as though it were a match point. This is what the equRanking system does very effectively. In an equRanking there is no need to explain to juniors the importance of playing for every point against any opponent, because an equTournament's ranking takes into account not only who won or lost but also, and more importantly, the actual score as well as the respective strengths of the opponents.
When the calculation is heavily weighted by the exact score of each match the resulting ranking gives the players the clear message that it is crucial to fight for every game and every point. Every extra game won or even extra point won will improve your ranking.
When the strength of the opponent becomes another major component of the ranking calculation we send another important message, namely that no matter whom you play against it always pays to go out there and do your very best. In fact, in an equRanking system you might gain more from losing 3:6 3:6 to a top-seeded player than from winning 6:4 6:4 against the 22nd player on the ranking. In this way an equRanking solves another problem. A draw to play against the top-seeded player is regarded as it should be - as a 'lucky' draw since it gives you an opportunity to get an idea of what it is like to play against a top-ranked player. And even if you lose the match as expected, if you play your very best game you will still go up in the ranking, just as you would if you had beaten a lesser player.
Imagine, if you will, a big projection screen at the tennis academy. On the screen you can see line graphs for every player similar to the listings of corporate stocks being traded at a stock exchange. Imagine the graphs are automatically updated after every point played according to who won the point and who lost. If you win a point your graph goes up and your opponent's graph goes down. If you win a point against a stronger player your graph goes up even more. Imagine that the information is so precise you can make predictions on future points with a error margin of no more than 5%. Pure science fiction? Not anymore. This is exactly what the equRanking system does. It counts every point, and produces the most accurate ranking list possible, a ranking that makes junior players fully appreciate every single point played.
Of course it is neither necessary to have a big screen at your club nor to update the graphs after every point played unless you really want to. Printing charts at the end of the day and submitting results on a match-to-match basis would serve the same purpose: it will induce juniors to treat each point as a match point.
The following is a demonstration of how to use our software for this purpose.
Assume a tennis club with 24 junior players.
| # | Name | # | Name | # | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Aaliyah | 9. | Francesca | 17. | Qadira |
| 2. | Amber | 10. | Geneva | 18. | Reseda |
| 3. | Bianca | 11. | Hide | 19. | Savannah |
| 4. | Benetta | 12. | Inari | 20. | Thea |
| 5. | Chiara | 13. | Jett | 21. | Umeko |
| 6. | Cailin | 14. | Kelsey | 22. | Venita |
| 7. | Damita | 15. | Liesl | 23. | Wren |
| 8. | Dae | 16. | Madison | 24. | Xena |
Day 1
We recommend limiting the duration of a match by the total number of points played. This makes the duration of a match more predictable and thus the daily scheduling easier. The shortest reasonable duration of a points-based match is probably 24 points. Both players would have an opportunity to serve six points from each side of the tennis court, so no right-handed or left-handed player has an advantage. In general you can set the duration of a tennis match to whatever best suits your needs. Actually, not all matches are required to have the same number of total points played. If it suits your tournament better to limit the duration of a match to 20 minutes for example, you can allow the total number of points played to vary instead.
In this demonstration we will limit the duration of a match to 48 points. The players' objective is to win as many points as possible in each and every match. The more points the player wins the further she advances in the ranking. Each player serves 6 times in a row, which is the average of the number of points played per conventional game anyway. Players change sides as usual, first after 6 points and then after every 12 points.
All of the results in this example will be simulated by the computer software. Assume that on day 1 the players have played 3 matches each, that is 144 points per player, which is approximately two-and-a-half sets.
In the screenshot below all the matches of the first three rounds are entered in the table.
The following screenshot displays the computed ranking.
Day 2
Who plays against whom on day 2 can be decided by the coaches, the software or even the players themselves. For instance, if Aaliah and Francesca are keen to play against each other then you can let them do so and let them develop their rivalry. The current ranking, based on the previous matches, is a highly accurate representation of the players' performances so far. On the basis of this past performance it gives the players before every match the precise predicted result which they must beat to move-up in the ranking. For example, assume that Inari must play Cailin in the first match on day 2, and that there is a difference of 18.56 points between them in the ranking. This means that a result of 32:16 will move Inari up in the ranking while a victory with a result of 31:17 will move her down. In the traditional system there would be no real competition between Inari and Cailin because the likehood that Cailin could win a set against Inari is only 0.12%. Inari would win easily and neither player would have any reason to play at their very best. In our system however it would be a great and exciting match in which both players would be forced to fight as hard as they can for each and every point.
A great feature of this software is that it provides an easy-to-read graphic representation of each player's progress throughout the tournament or competition. Assume that all matches on day 2 are completed. Now we are able to produce the first chart, which graphically displays each player's improvement in the course of day 2.
Day 3
This graphic representation of the performance of the players is highly conducive to learning. The players will all want their graphs to go up. But the only way to achieve that is to win as many points as possible whomever you are playing against. As a result the focus is shifted from trying to win a match to trying to win every point, which is a far more effective way of learning how to win. The following is a graphic representation of each player's progress after day 3.
Day 10
The program's graphic tools have several useful options. For example the software is able to chart the players' performance for any time interval whatsoever. The following is a chart which displays each player's performance over a period of ten days, for instance.
