Helping Pickleball Players Get Accurate Ratings
Posted on July 27, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.
As a USA Pickleball ambassador, I can rate other players based on official USA Pickleball player skill rating definitions and assessment sheets. However, because most people think they are way batter than they truly are, even though there are objective checklists and assessment sheets that I can use, I have always found this whole business awkward. People often get butt-hurt and offended if you rate them lower than what they perceive themselves to be so I avoid this whole business at all costs. Thankfully, there’s DUPR to the rescue!
With DUPR any player can get a rating and you don’t need a third party to do it for you. You simply plug in the results of your matches and voila — a few matches later — you’ve got yourself a pickleball rating. I know I’m oversimplifying it here, which is completely unfair, because DUPR’s algorithm is sophisticated and beautiful. You can follow this link to learn more about it.
Anyway, nowadays if anyone wants me to tell them their rating, I just invite them to play in one of our DUPR Match Sessions. Then the amazing DUPR algorithm assigns them a rating based on how they performed against the other players. It’s not a rating that is subjectively assigned by me based on how I feel they performed but rather it’s assigned by DUPR after the algorithm crunches its complex calculations from the inputs (reported scores).
I started hosting DUPR Match Sessions last month in an effort to get as many of our recreational players rated as possible. Here’s a video from our most recent DUPR Match Session over the weekend.
I was originally hosting these events at Riverside Tennis Center. All of the players would split the cost of the court fees. Each session was about two hours. Players would have a different partner each round and I would record the scores and input them into DUPR later.
Here are some pictures from our sessions at RTC last month.
We typically have 16-24 players who participate. At Riverside we can book 6 courts but they don’t open until 9 AM on Sundays and lately it’s been too hot. I decided to move the sessions to Wichita State University where there are 4 public courts that are rarely used in the mornings. We start at around 7 AM and go through 10 AM, right before the temperatures get too hot. The nice thing about doing these at WSU is then it’s completely free for anyone who wishes to participate.
Here are a few more pictures from another session at Riverside.
These sessions have proved to be quite popular. Players not only want to establish ratings but they want to continue to improve and increase their ratings. Currently the Wichita Pickleball club on DUPR has about 300 active members and half of them are now rated. Until next time, GNG.
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