How your rating works

Every player carries a rating that estimates playing strength. It starts at 1500 and moves with every confirmed match: beat expectations and it rises, fall short and it drops. This page explains how the number is calculated, and why it should be read with some care while the community is still growing.

The basics

You have a separate rating for each sport and each format. Singles and doubles are fully independent: your singles results never move your doubles number, and the other way around.

Only confirmed matches count. A result you record enters the rating once your opponents have confirmed it. Your rating moves only with results; it never drops just because you took a break.

Winning by more counts for more

Before each match, the rating gap between the two sides predicts how the games should split. Your rating then moves by how far the actual scoreline beat or missed that prediction, not just by who won.

A 6-0, 6-1 win moves you far more than two tie-break sets, and a heavy favourite who barely scrapes through can even lose a point or two. Reading the margin draws much more information out of every match, which matters when you only play now and then. In doubles, a side is rated by the average of its two players.

Finding your level

For your first 30 confirmed matches your rating moves at double speed, so it can find your real level quickly. After that it settles and a single result moves it less. Your skill tier label appears only once the rating has settled; until then you can set a self-rated level on your profile.

Why early ratings can be misleading

A rating is not an absolute grade. It only reflects your results against the people you actually play, and players are compared through chains of shared opponents. Those chains need a large, well-connected community to line everyone up on one scale.

Picture four friends who only ever play each other. The strongest will settle clearly above the other three, but that number only says one thing: best of these four. A player with the exact same rating in another group across town might be far stronger or far weaker. As long as the two groups never meet on court, their numbers are not comparable.

Rating points are won from the players you beat, not created out of thin air, so being the big fish in a small pond does not make the number climb forever. It does mean the number is calibrated only to your own circle: early on it can overstate your real level just as easily as understate it.

This corrects itself as the community grows. Every match against someone outside your usual group carries rating information between circles and pulls everyone onto a common scale. The more players there are and the more the groups mix, the more accurate and comparable every rating becomes.

So if you want your number to mean something, the best thing you can do is simple: play new people.