How to Find a College Using UTR

In recent years, Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) has become the global “gold standard” of skill in tennis. UTRs are the index that college tennis coaches use to determine whether a prospective recruit fits their team’s competitive level. Furthermore, the door swings both ways—recruits, maybe including yourself, can apply UTR to finding the right college team. Here’s a crash course on using UTR’s ability to connect potential recruits with coaches and teams. The basics 1. Sign up for a Basic UTR membership. It’s free, here. Once you claim your player profile, you can see your own UTR with two-decimal-place precision. We plan to add many new profile features that will provide notifications, alerts, and enable communication with other UTR profiles, including those of college teams. 2. Read your profile on the UTR system, noting your significant match results. Ask yourself how you’d answer a coach who asked, “What is your level of play?” Tweak it to make an even better response by checking out “The Top Five Questions Coaches Ask.” 3. Look up a college team that interests you. At MyUTR.com, click, SCHOOLS on the homepage and enter the college name. You’ll find the coaching staff, social media links, a list of players with their UTRs, and a list of recent matches with opponents. Compare your UTR with those of the varsity (usually the top six rated players), as well as their teammates. Consider how long it will be before you enter college. Ask yourself some tough questions. How much can you increase your UTR in the near future? (University of Pennsylvania men’s coach Dave Geatz offers some great tips on how to raise your UTR a notch here.) Is it realistic for you to start for this team? Or earn a place on the roster? Could you win a walk-on spot? Doing your research before contacting coaches will save you—and them—lots of time.

How to Move up One UTR Level. Read here.

4. Once you find a likely fit, email the coach expressing your interest, and put your UTR in the subject line. The coach will know immediately if you’re playing at a level that could help his or her squad. 5. If being recruited for a starting spot is not realistic given your UTR, ask about the policy for walk-ons. Do they offer a walk-on tryout tournament? Does indoor practice space limit the size of the roster? Another option: does the college have a club tennis team? If so, you can request contact info for the club tennis captains. The USTA Tennis On Campus program helps students to play recreational collegiate tennis through club tennis teams and intramural tennis programs. Revving up your college search Although the free version of UTR lets you compare your rating with other players, including college varsity players, the advanced tools bundled with a Premium UTR membership do even more and do things much more easily. Here’s how to use some of UTR’s premium tools. 1. Sign up for one of the Premium UTR membership options. (Here, we’ll use tools available with Premium Plus UTR membership.) 2. As a Premium Plus member, you’ll notice that your UTR is more precise, giving values with two decimal places. This lets you observe how your own UTR changes from day to day—it will move upwards with every match as you continue to improve your tennis. (Claiming your player profile—even as a free Basic member—also allows you to see your own UTR with decimal-place precision.) 3. The UTR Fit feature allows a player to see if his or her UTR is high enough to make the starting lineup of a given college team. Our College Search report allows UTR Premium Plus members to view all the colleges for which their UTRs are above that of the sixth-highest player on the roster. Next, you can filter the list by gender, state, public/private, athletic conference, or NCAA division to focus your search. Beyond the prospect’s UTR, each college coach will apply his or her own criteria for what they seek in a recruit. The UTR Fit tool provides a very quick “reality check” to help set expectations regarding college tennis. 4. The UTR Power 6™ Rating adds up the six highest, most reliable player ratings for each college team. The Power 6™ Rating and the UTR Fit are great measuring tools to help you prequalify college teams, based on your competitive fit. However, bear in mind that individual and team UTRs do not necessarily correspond to player or team rankings since other factors influence such rankings. In addition, a Power 6™ UTR Rating neither implies nor suggests any actual team lineup, which, of course, can change daily. We cannot say when a junior player should start planning for college tennis. The UTR team isn’t focused on the college recruiting process. However, we can recommend the following article to help juniors understand what type of college tennis experience best suits their interests: “Right Team, but Wrong Guy—How making the starting lineup can backfire,” by former ATP Player Council president Eric Butorac. 5. Have some favorite college teams you want to view in the future? Save them to your UTR system dashboard. UTRs fluctuate based on how well players compete from day to day. Sometimes, new people may not yet have a 100 percent reliable UTR. Their ratings will change as more of their matches enter the UTR system. You can find updated UTRs for your saved teams whenever you open the UTR website. You can also save players you’d like to follow your UTR dashboard. 6. We are working on a variety of tools and services to help juniors enjoy tennis more through level-based play, to chart their development, and display their games to college coaches. These include: UTR Powered Events: Expect many more events in 2018 where juniors can play against current college players in a level-based context. For example, the ITA Summer Circuit Powered by UTR had a great summer last year. Video: Video is growing rapidly in the online world. The UTR system plans to accommodate links to matches that will let parents watch their kids play, and let coaches provide match-play feedback, or to view prospective recruits in action. The road to varsity intercollegiate tennis can begin very easily, with a free Basic UTR membership.