How the forecast works

A forecast uses published results to answer one of three questions before a match:

• your win chance on each line of a team match
• who has played most for a team this season, line by line
• who would win one line between players you name

Your first forecast each week is free when you're signed in with an email address, and a Desk Pass gives you more. Each one counts toward your weekly limit.

How it gives each line's win chance

You get each line's win chance and about how many lines you should win. There's no win chance for the whole team match, because that would need the lineup each team has actually chosen to play.

The table gives each line a row:

• “Your chance”: your team's chance to win that line alone, with no home-court edge.
• “Your level”: your team's Desk level on that line, per player. A Desk level is the Desk's estimate of how a player is playing now.
• “Their level”: the same for the other team.

When the team isn't yours, the columns name each team in place of “Your” and “Their”.

In Combo and Mixed, “Your pair” and “Their pair” give each pair's Desk level added together, and the league number is under the table. A pair at full strength reads a little under the league number, because a Desk level sits in the middle of its NTRP range, not at the top.

If the Desk doesn't cover the other team, you see only who has played most for your team.

How it reads your own team

Tell the chat who's out, and the forecast leaves them out. Or give it your lineup, like “Ann and Bea play Doubles 1”, which sets the players on each line you fill.

Both work only for a team you're on. The other team's side never changes, and none of its players is named, because the forecast reads that team only from who has played each line.

How it reads each team's level on a line

A team's level on a line is the average Desk level of the players it has put there this season, each at their level today. When a team has played a line only once or twice, the forecast leans more on its whole roster's average, because one or two matches say little.

The full figures

The more often a team plays a line, the more its own players there count, and the less its roster does. Until a team plays a line, the forecast uses only the roster's average. That average counts only players who have a Desk level. In Adult leagues, the roster's average weighs as much as 1.5 earlier team matches on the line. In every other league, Combo and Mixed included, it weighs as much as 3.

On an Adult doubles line, the table shows the level per player, not the pair's total, which is twice that. An agent also gets how many earlier team matches each level comes from.

How it compares two players or pairs

Name one player or a doubles pair on each side, and you get the home side's chance to win that line, with a small boost for playing at home. It weighs each Desk level, a pair's record together, and how much and how recently each player has played.

What it knows

A forecast knows only what scorecards show, so say who's out.

What it won't predict

A forecast never predicts an NTRP rating or who will be bumped up a level.

How often it's been right

The Desk tested the line forecast on past lines, with the lineups that actually played, but only on lines played after it was set up. See how often it picked the winner.

Forecasts after your free one each week come with a Desk Pass.