Heads up!
Beginning in April, tournaments will be described as either for Advanced, Intermediate, or Beginner levels.
There’s too much discussion and fixation over everyones’ ratings and your own ratings, whether you received it from a Villages rating clinic, or by playing in a DUPR workshop, within a league, or a sanctioned tournament, is just an indicator of how you performed at a rating clinic or with the partners and opponents you are playing with and against.
By hard work and effort, lot’s of players have been steadily improving their game and maybe they are the best players within the group they are playing with. Does that make you an ALW, J-Dub, or Ben Johns? Probably not, even if you own one of their signature paddles!
What you should consider is how you match up with some of the better known better players in TV. Do you play with those better players or with players who play with those better players. How are you doing against those better players? Can you hold your own? Great if you are but even if you are not, you learned where you stand and what else you need to do to take your game to the next level.
For the sake of argument, I will use the following descriptions for our levels:
- Advanced: strong 4.0 and better
- Adept in all parts of the game
- Use advanced strategies
- Experienced in competitive play
- Intermediate: strong 3.5 to average 4.0
- Can hit a mix of shots
- Can sustain longer rallies
- Incorporate rules and strategy and use effective court positioning
- Beginner: average 3.5 and lower
- Can hit simple shots
- Have basic understanding of rules, scoring, and positioning
In the end, you need to have an awareness of your skills and abilities in determining where you fit on this pyramid.