INSTRUCTIONAL SHEETS & SELF-HELP CHARTS
NTRP Rating
NTRP – Your Skill Building Plan
To develop your skill building plan it’s good to know what skill level you are at and what skill level you would realistically like to get to.
The USTA’s National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) is the best way to get an idea of what level you are at.
The NTRP is a well structured document that breaks down the game with descriptions of playing characteristics at beginner / novice, intermediate and advanced levels.
The levels range from 1.0 (beginner) to a 7.0 (world-class pro). The document states that if you are a 6.0 or 7.0 you really don’t need a rating, as your rating will be determined by tournament play. The system was developed to place players in the appropriate level for Team League play.
The NTRP is a great tool for assessing how you currently play and determining what you’ll need to do in order to get better (i.e. move up the ratings). As much as we all have our individual strengths and weaknesses, the NTRP provides and accurate summary of the main playing characteristics at the various levels.
We’re mostly concerned with the ratings from 1.0 – 5.0. The ratings go up by .5
1.0 – 1.5 = Beginner
2.0 – 2.5 = Novice
3.0 – 4.0 = Intermediate
4.5 – 5.0 = Advanced / Open level player
The levels are not rigid. Some days you could be serving at a 4.0 level, other days at a 3.5 A good 2.5 player will be able to play with a 3.0 player. However, in competition, a 3.0 player should routinely defeat a 2.5 player. Just as a 4.0 player will routinely defeat a 3.5 player. The point is to get an understanding of what level you are at and why.
Here is a link the the USTA’s NTRP self rating guidelines.
https://assets.usta.com/assets/639/15/National%20tennis%20Rating%20Program.pdf
Self Assessment = Self Awareness
The process of self-rating is the beginning, or continuation, of your self awareness as a player.
The more aware you are of what you can do and what you want to do, the better you will be as a complete player. As simple as it sounds, self-awareness of your abilities is one the most challenging skills to develop.
What’s nice about the NTRP ratings, is that you don’t need to play competitively in order to get an idea of what level you are at. Similar to a golfer’s handicap number, you’re really just comparing yourself to yourself.
The playing descriptions are quite accurate. Reading through them all will give you a good understanding of what primary skills are needed to play tennis at all the levels.
What is your NTRP rating? What is your NTRP goal?
“Competitive Tennis, Climbing the NTRP Ladder” by Brett Schwartz and Chris Dazet
A great reference book to go to again & again, as you can see by my dog-eared copy.
Book Review
“Competitive Tennis, Climbing the NTRP Ladder” by Brett Schwartz and Chris Dazet
This is a fabulous book that uses the NTRP levels to explain what players need to do to be the best at their current level and what they have to do to get to the next level.
The authors are experienced NTRP raters and coaches.
“We wrote this book to parallel your progression through the levels. It helps you learn how to capitalize on your strengths and improve your stroking and strategic weaknesses. It shows what it takes to get to the next level and beyond.
Each chapter deals with an NTRP level. Even though the NTRP guidelines begin at 1.0, the book starts at 2.5, which is really the level where players are bringing skills together to play the game.
“Your objectives as a 2.5-level player are basic. To become successful at your level and, consequently, advance to the 3.0 level, you have to conquer five tasks. You must develop consistency and directional intent, learn the defensive lob and how to return high balls, and learn positioning.”
It’s telling that the longest chapter at 68 pages is the 3.5 level. This is a solid intermediate level. A 3.5 level player has a “fairly sound understanding of the fundamentals of stroking and strategy. However, you objectives at a 3.5 level player change now because your competition becomes multidimensional.”
It takes a lot of work to get to a 3.5 level if you start as a novice player. It takes a lot more work to go from 3.5 to 4.0.
The 4.0 level “deals more with the physical aspects of increasing your inventory of shots and refining the shots you already have, because the real difference between 3.5 and 4.0 level players is the ability to execute shots and strategies better.”
Consistency is important at any level, but it becomes even more important as you develop more power in your game. The use of spin, particularly top-spin, allows for being more powerful but still staying in control (i.e. a greater margin for error).
A part of the NTRP descriptions of a 4.0 player deals with the importance of consistency:
“Generally, your groundstrokes are dependable, and you hit with directional intent and depth on moderately paced shots. However, you may still lose rallies due to impatience, and you’re not yet playing high-percentage tennis.”
I used the bold font for the last part of that quote. A 4.0 player is a good tennis player, but their weakness is not playing within their game and trying to do more than the realistically can execute on a consistent basis.
The 4.0 chapter is the second longest at 56 pages. The 4.5 chapter is only 24 pages and the 5.0 chapter is three pages. This is because a 5.0 level player is really an advanced, open level player. They will be training and competing on a regular basis. The 2.5 and 3.0 chapters are 40 and 46 pages respectively.