Questions about the Desk
What is a Desk level?
A Desk level is The Tennis Desk's estimate of how a player is playing now, on the NTRP scale to two decimals. It is not an NTRP rating.
A level is recomputed on every data run, so a page shows the estimate as of the run it names. A published NTRP rating names a range, and a Desk level names one point inside that range. So a Desk level that reads below the published number is not a mark against the player. USTA does not publish a Desk level and does not stand behind one.
What is a line?
A line is one person's individual match inside a team match. A team match is one club against another on a date, and it holds several lines. A rated line is one the Desk could score: both sides named, a winner recorded, and nobody defaulted. A line that was not played is left out, which is why a count here can differ from the roster's own.
What is the small chart beside a level?
It is that player's rated lines for the year the match was played, drawn in order, with that match marked. The mark is the dot. A player with only one rated line shows that dot on its own, with nothing drawn through it.
What does the word after a level mean?
A trend word reads up or down. It appears only when the level moved at least 0.20 across the year's rated lines. Below that floor a direction word would be wrong about one reader in three, so none is printed.
What does upset mean on a line?
A line is tagged upset when the side with the lower Desk levels won it. The levels compared are the two printed on that line, which are the estimates as of the data run. The tag does not compare levels as they stood on the day of the match. A gap of 0.05 a player or less is not tagged, because a gap that small is noise.
What does default mean on a line?
A line tagged default was not played. One side could not field it and the other side was awarded it. It is left out of every record the Desk computes, and it is never an upset.
How is a league table ordered?
The USTA League Regulations & NorCal LLAR set the order, and the Desk follows it. The edition is 2025, revised 7/21/2025, page 34. It ranks on most team matches won, then most individual match wins. After that it is fewest sets lost, then fewest games lost, then head-to-head. A four-line 40 and Over flight ranks on cumulative points instead, and a win at number one doubles counts two. Teams still level after that are separated by a coin toss, which the Desk cannot perform, so they share a position. Every set and game comes from the recorded scorecards, so nothing is missing from the scores. Two published rules decide a result with no scorecard to read. An unplayed match counts as a loss for both teams. A NorCal staff draw picks the winner of an unfinished match. The Desk holds no record of either, which is why its table is headed unofficial.
What do the letters after an NTRP rating mean?
They are USTA's, printed here exactly as the roster publishes them. C is a computer rating, s is self-rated, and A is a rating the player appealed. D marks a rating USTA disqualified during the year, and the two numbers are the old level and the new one. The rating names a range of play, not a single point, which is why a Desk level sits inside it rather than matching it. The Desk makes none of these judgements and does not change them. On a league page the column prints only the letter when the rating is that league's own level. A rating from another level is printed whole. A disqualified rating is printed whole too, because it carries two levels.
What is a data run?
The Desk reads USTA's published results once a day and rebuilds every page from what it found. That is a data run, and the foot of each page names the one it was built from. A result played after that run appears on the next one.
What costs money?
Everything you can read on the site is free, and always will be. Every result, every level, every record and every page: no account needed. A Desk Pass buys the read ahead of a match, which is the part no published result can give you. It groups an opposing roster by playing level, with the record behind each name.
Where do the results come from?
The Desk is built from USTA NorCal league results that are already published. Each match, player, team and league page names its data run at the foot.