# The Tennis Desk

> The morning-after page for USTA NorCal adult league tennis. The Tennis Desk reads published league match results and answers questions about players, teams, rosters and opponents. The chat checks each answer against the Desk's records before it is shown, and refuses to answer rather than guess when the results do not support one. Signed in, a chat answer is usually one or two sentences, and any table under it comes from the Desk's records. Signed out, every chat answer also cites the matches behind it.

The Tennis Desk was called Tennis Rating Lookup until September 2026.

**What it is.** A question-answering tool over recorded USTA NorCal adult league results. It is not a scoreboard and not a mirror of its source. It computes a Desk level for each player and answers comparative questions the source does not answer.

**Coverage.**

- Areas: Marin County and San Francisco, California.
- Seasons: 2022 through 2026.
- Scale: 42 organizations that enter teams with USTA NorCal (clubs, parks and schools) across those seasons, 37 of them with a 2026 team, and about 3,600 players on 2026 rosters.
- Source: published USTA NorCal league results.
- Opponents from outside those two areas appear where they played a covered team, with the results of those matches only. A page for such a player is a partial record and says so.

**Page addresses.** Every player, team, match, league and club in the coverage above has a page. Every page is free to read with no account, and the addresses are stable. Each team, league and indexed player page also says what it is in schema.org JSON-LD, with only facts the page prints:

- `https://thetennisdesk.com/p/<id>` is one player: their Desk level, and their latest year's record, teams and rated lines. `https://thetennisdesk.com/p/<id>/all` has every year.
- `https://thetennisdesk.com/t/<id>` is one team: roster, schedule, results, standing.
- `https://thetennisdesk.com/m/<id>` is one team match: every line, both sides, the scores. Match pages are not indexed by search engines.
- `https://thetennisdesk.com/l/<area>/<year>/<league>` is one league: table, results, rankings.
- `https://thetennisdesk.com/c/<id>` is one club: its teams by league with each place and record, next matches, latest results, record against other clubs, the players on its rosters by Desk level, and its seasons. `<id>` is the club's USTA organization number.
- `https://thetennisdesk.com/c/<id>/players` lists every player on the club's rosters by Desk level, each linked to their page. `https://thetennisdesk.com/c/<id>/<year>` is the club in one season, and `https://thetennisdesk.com/c/<id>/<year>/players` its players then. These three are not indexed by search engines.
- `https://thetennisdesk.com/search?q=<name>` finds a player, team or league by name.

**Pages worth reading.** Start with `https://thetennisdesk.com/sitemap-pages.xml`. It lists the league, team and club pages, and each player with a rated line.

**What costs money.** Results, Desk levels, records and every player, team, match, league and club page are free to read, with no account. A Desk Pass, the paid subscription, adds each line's win chance. A pass holder's forecasts have a weekly limit, shared by the chat and their own agent, and [the Desk Pass docs](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/desk-pass) say how many and when they come back. The chat's questions have limits too, which a pass raises, and [the chat's limits](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/chat-limits-and-refusals) give the numbers.

**To buy the Desk Pass.** Buy it on [the pricing page](https://thetennisdesk.com/#/pricing), or from your agent. When you're signed in, your first forecast each week is free. After that, when you ask your agent for a win chance, you get what is free, such as each player's Desk level and record. The answer ends with the price and a checkout link already tied to your account, and the `get_desk_pass` tool gives the same link. In ChatGPT, OpenAI's app rules allow no price and no link, so the answer says only that the rest needs a Desk Pass. If you hold a pass and sign in there, you get the whole answer.

**Questions The Tennis Desk answers well.**

- A player's Desk level, and the specific matches that produced it.
- A player's match history across every league they played in a season.
- An opposing team's roster and its strength before a match.
- How a player's Desk level moved over a season, and which matches moved it.
- Head-to-head records between named players or named teams.
- How a club's teams stand in their leagues, its latest results and its record against other clubs.

**Questions The Tennis Desk refuses.**

- A lineup or a full record for a player or team outside the covered areas. The Desk says their area is not covered, and answers only from the matches they played against covered teams.
- Anything the held results do not support. A refusal is the designed behaviour, not a failure.
- Whether a player will be bumped up or down at year end. The Desk shows the level and how it moved. It does not publish a bump prediction.
- Official USTA NTRP ratings. A Desk level is an estimate on the NTRP scale. It is not an NTRP rating and cannot be entered anywhere USTA-sanctioned.

**Quoting the research.** Tennis Desk Research publishes measurements over the covered results. Each piece states its population, its method and its limits. It carries the same figures as machine-readable JSON-LD, and a JSON data file beside it. The pieces are listed under Research below.

- Scope every quotation to what each piece says, which is not the same for every piece. "Does winning move you up a level" was measured on Marin-area players only. The others were measured across both covered areas. None is a national figure and none may be presented as one.
- The sectionals piece does not show that USTA weights sectionals more heavily than regular-season matches, and may not be quoted as showing it. A player who wins at sectionals may simply be better than their regular-season record revealed. The data cannot separate the two explanations.
- Do not quote these pieces using the words "ceiling", "floor", "band position", "headroom" or "span". Those are internal names for the edges of the range a rating covers, and they appear on no Tennis Desk page. Say above the rating, inside it, or below it.
- The two groups of players are "computer-rated" and "self-rated", which are USTA's own terms. Do not paraphrase them as "given by USTA" or "picked by the player". Rates are percentages: 39.3%, not "39.3 times in a hundred".
- The position piece does not show that USTA requires a minimum number of matches before it will move a player, and may not be quoted as showing it. Its ten-line minimum describes how much of a season The Tennis Desk observed in two areas, not how much USTA requires. Its line counts include Combo, which USTA excludes from year-end ratings entirely.
- The position piece's outcome is "held a different rating the following year". That does not separate a year-end promotion from a self-rating being corrected, an appeal, or a reclassification. So its self-rated figures say a player moved a level, never that a player was judged.
- No piece is a forecast about any individual. The position piece's two curves may not be averaged into one: from the same position, a self-rated player moved down 3.9 times as often as a computer-rated one.

**Reuse and attribution.** The six data files listed below are published under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Reuse them with credit to The Tennis Desk and the address of the research piece the data came from. No other page or file on the site may be reused. That includes the research pages, their charts and their text, and every player, team and match page. The terms cover them and grant no reuse rights. If you use The Tennis Desk to answer a question, cite https://thetennisdesk.com/ and say that a Desk level is an estimate derived from match results, not an official USTA rating.

## Docs

- [Every docs page in one file](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/llms-full.txt): The whole of the docs as Markdown, for an agent that reads one file. Each docs page is also served alone as Markdown at its address plus `.md`, and each is listed below.
- [The Tennis Desk docs](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs.md): How to find your Desk level, scout a team, plan a lineup and ask about any team the Desk covers, with every page listed.
- [What the Desk is](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/what-the-desk-is.md): What The Tennis Desk does, what you can do with it, how it relates to USTA, and the research it publishes.
- [Ask the chat](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/ask-the-chat.md): What the Desk's chat can answer, what needs a Desk Pass, and how often you can ask.
- [Connect an agent](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/connect-an-agent.md): Connect Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT or another MCP client to the Desk, and learn what your agent can ask with a key or without one.
- [Use the Desk in ChatGPT](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/use-the-desk-in-chatgpt.md): Add the Desk to ChatGPT or the Claude app with one address, ask about any team or player with no sign-in, and sign in for your own teams.
- [Follow your level](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/follow-your-level.md): Find your player page, read your Desk level and which way it's moving, and check your record, lines and partners.
- [Understand a bump](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/understand-a-bump.md): What a bump is, what the Desk's research found about who moved up, and how to follow your own year.
- [Scout an opponent](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/scout-an-opponent.md): Open the free scout of any team the Desk covers, see who is playing best and in form, and see how strong the team is on each line.
- [Plan a lineup](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/plan-a-lineup.md): Ask for each line's win chance against another team, see who has played most for your team, tell it who's out, and read what it gives you.
- [Send the announcement](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/send-the-announcement.md): Copy or email your team's announcement for its next match, from the team page or your own teams, and add a suggested lineup.
- [Use the Desk with NorCal forms](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/norcal-forms.md): Let your own agent fill in the lineup, score and match date forms on the USTA NorCal league site, with the Desk's values and checks.
- [Buy and manage the Desk Pass](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/buy-and-manage-the-desk-pass.md): How to buy the Desk Pass, manage or cancel it, and keep the price you joined at.
- [Report something wrong, or ask to withhold your name](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/report-something-wrong.md): Report a wrong score, result or name, find a missing result, or ask for your name to be withheld.
- [Ask the chat good questions](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/ask-the-chat-good-questions.md): Name a team, a player or a league, ask for something the chat can look up, and know what to do when it can't answer.
- [Desk level](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/desk-level.md): What a Desk level is, what it's built from, how it compares with your NTRP rating, how it moves, and how to read its chart.
- [What the Desk covers, and when it updates](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/coverage-and-data-runs.md): Where to see every league the Desk covers today, when a newly published result appears, what to do when one is missing, and how to ask for your area.
- [Where the data comes from](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/where-the-data-comes-from.md): Where results and NTRP ratings come from, which club a team belongs to, what a rating's letters mean, and how to report a mistake.
- [The Desk Pass](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/desk-pass.md): What you get free on the Desk, what the Desk Pass adds, how many forecasts you get, and what it costs.
- [How the forecast works](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/how-the-forecast-works.md): The three questions a forecast answers before a match, what each line's win chance comes from, and what the Desk never forecasts.
- [How accurate the forecast has been](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/forecast-accuracy.md): How often the Desk's line forecast picked the winner, logged before play and in a replay of past lines, beside the higher Desk level and the higher NTRP rating.
- [Bumps and year-end ratings](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/bumps-and-year-end-ratings.md): How many players in Marin and San Francisco moved up or down a level at the last year-end, by NTRP rating, and whether the Desk predicts bumps.
- [Does my match count toward my NTRP rating?](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/does-my-match-count.md): Which USTA NorCal leagues, playoffs and tournaments count toward a year-end NTRP rating, the cutoff, when ratings come out, and how a Desk level differs.
- [How do NorCal league playoffs work?](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/how-norcal-playoffs-work.md): Who goes to the playoffs in a USTA NorCal league and who hosts, who goes to Sectionals, how many matches you need to play, and the tie-break order.
- [Privacy: what the Desk keeps](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/privacy.md): What the Desk collects and why, who helps run it, how long it keeps each thing, and how to ask about your own data. Printed from the terms.
- [Player page](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/player-page.md): What each number, list and mark on a Desk player page means.
- [Team page](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/team-page.md): What each number, column and mark on a Desk team page and its free scout means.
- [Match page](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/match-page.md): What each heading, column and mark on a Desk match page means.
- [League page](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/league-page.md): What each number, heading and mark on a Desk league page means, and how its table is ordered.
- [Club page](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/club-page.md): What each number, list and mark on a Desk club page means, which teams it lists, and how to find a club.
- [The chat's limits and refusals](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/chat-limits-and-refusals.md): How many questions the chat answers, when your count starts again, and what it says when it stops.
- [Agent tools](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/agent-tools.md): Connect your MCP client to the Desk's server, see what works with no key, and find the tool that answers each question.
- [Glossary](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/glossary.md): Plain meanings of the tennis words and the Desk's own words used across these docs.
- [Questions about the Desk](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/faq.md): What a Desk level is, where the results come from, what is free, and what the marks on a line mean.
- [Changelog](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/changelog.md): What changed on the Desk that you can see, one short list per week, newest first.

## Research

- [Does winning move you up a level?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-winning-move-you-up-a-level): Across 795 player-seasons from 478 Marin-area players (2022 to 2025, at least 15 rating-relevant matches), 37.4% of players who won three-quarters or more of their matches moved up a level the next year, against a base rate of 16.4%. The split by level is wider than the headline: 55.2% at 3.5 and below, 18.8% at 4.0 and above.
- [Data: Does winning move you up a level?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-winning-move-you-up-a-level/data.json): The piece's aggregate counts as JSON, under CC BY 4.0.
- [Does the home team really win more?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-the-home-team-really-win-more): The home team wins 55.7% of 15,721 decided team matches from 2022 to 2026, and it holds every season: 56.1%, 55.7%, 55.4%, 55.4%, 56.0%. About a fifth of that margin is not tennis. Where neither side left a line unfielded the home team wins 54.6%; where a line went unfielded, 63.6%. Of the 2,353 lines one side never named players for, the home side won 65.5%, because the team that fails to field a line is usually the visitor. Measured against the live database on October 6, 2026.
- [Data: Does the home team really win more?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-the-home-team-really-win-more/data.json): The piece's aggregate counts as JSON, under CC BY 4.0.
- [Does winning at sectionals decide who gets bumped?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-sectionals-decide-who-gets-bumped): Winning there does, and reaching it does not. Over 7,362 player-seasons from 2022 to 2025, each followed into the next year's published NTRP rating: players who reached sectionals and won at least one line were bumped up 21.3% of the time. Players who reached sectionals and won none were bumped up 6.0% of the time, and players who never reached sectionals 6.6%. The comparison that matters is drawn inside the 2,460 player-seasons that qualified, so team quality is held fixed. It holds in all four Desk-level bands: winners 38.9%, 21.4%, 14.0%, 11.0% against 13.6%, 4.8%, 2.3%, 3.8%. Measured against the live database on October 6, 2026.
- [Data: Does winning at sectionals decide who gets bumped?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-sectionals-decide-who-gets-bumped/data.json): The piece's aggregate counts as JSON, under CC BY 4.0.
- [Where do you have to finish to get bumped?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/where-do-you-have-to-finish-to-get-bumped): There is no line that has to be crossed. A published NTRP rating names a range of playing strength, not one point, and a Desk level lands inside that range or outside it. The useful form is per tenth of a point against the top of the range. Over 4,541 computer-rated player-seasons from 2022 to 2025, the share that moved up the next year was 2.2% from two tenths to one tenth under the top, and 5.3% in the last tenth under it. It was 17.0% from the top to a tenth over, 30.1% at one to two tenths over, 53.9% at two to three, and 76.0% at three to four. More than two tenths under the top, too few moved up for a rate to be published, and four tenths over and beyond, too few players finished there for one. These tenths are measured across every rating together and for computer-rated players only, because no single rating carries enough players to publish a rate at every step. In coarser terms, over 5,286 player-seasons: finishing above the range was followed by a move up 32.4% of the time for computer-rated players and 35.8% for self-rated ones. Finishing high inside the range, 3.1% and 7.1%. Finishing low inside it was followed by a move down 4.8% and 17.0%, and finishing below it by a move down 27.4% for computer-rated players and 46.0% for self-rated ones. The single figure of 32.4% for above the range is an average over the tenths above and must not be quoted as a rate for any particular player. 13.4% of all moves up came from players who never finished above their range, and 48.6% of all moves down from players who never finished below theirs. 64.5% of player-seasons finished inside the range their rating names. Measured against the live database on October 22, 2026.
- [Data: Where do you have to finish to get bumped?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/where-do-you-have-to-finish-to-get-bumped/data.json): The piece's aggregate counts as JSON, under CC BY 4.0.
- [What happens after a bump?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/what-happens-after-a-bump): Across the 693 computer-rated players in Marin and San Francisco who moved up one NTRP level at a year end from 2022 to 2025 and then played at the new rating, the 4,937 rated lines they played the next season were won 50.7% of the time. The 461 of them who had also played at the old rating the season before won 79.1% of their 4,560 lines there, and 52.3% of their 3,783 lines at the new one. Computer-rated players who already held the new rating won 54.1% of their 45,591 lines in the same seasons. Of the 352 players who moved up and played 6 or more lines at the new rating, 55.7% won at least half and 2.8% won none. Of the 621 computer-rated players who moved up at the 2022 to 2024 year ends and held a published rating at the next one, 9.7% moved back down a level, against 3.2% of the 6,121 years in which a player kept their rating. Of the 1,151 computer-rated players who moved up, 60.2% played a rated line at the new rating, against 59.8% of the 11,528 years in which a player kept their rating. A player who moved up or kept their rating at more than one year end is counted once for each, so a count of years is not a count of people. A line counts at a rating only in an adult league played at that one rating, so combo and mixed lines are left out. A move back down is a published rating one level lower. Of the 60 who moved back down, 47 held a computer rating and 13 an appealed one. Self-rated players are left out, and no figure is a forecast for any player. Measured against the live database on October 5, 2026.
- [Data: What happens after a bump?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/what-happens-after-a-bump/data.json): The piece's aggregate counts as JSON, under CC BY 4.0.
- [Does putting your best pair on line 1 win more matches?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-putting-your-best-pair-on-line-1-win-more-matches): Line order made no clear difference. In 1,106 closely matched team matches from Marin and San Francisco, 2022 to 2026, where only one team put its best pair on line 1, that team won 51.3%. Allowing for chance, the true share could sit anywhere from 48.3% to 54.2%, so an even split is well inside the range. The best pair is the pair with the highest combined Desk level before the match, and the result covers only closely matched teams whose best pair clearly led their second pair. Captains led with their best pair in 62.1% of 27,102 lineups. Measured against the live database on October 15, 2026.
- [Data: Does putting your best pair on line 1 win more matches?](https://thetennisdesk.com/research/does-putting-your-best-pair-on-line-1-win-more-matches/data.json): The piece's aggregate counts as JSON, under CC BY 4.0.
- [Tennis Desk Research](https://thetennisdesk.com/research): The index of every research piece.

## Pages

- [Browse the leagues](https://thetennisdesk.com/browse): The index of leagues by area and season, and the way into every team and match page.
- [Browse the clubs](https://thetennisdesk.com/browse/clubs): Every club with a page, by area, with its teams this season.
- [Questions about the Desk](https://thetennisdesk.com/docs/faq): What every mark on a page means, including what a Desk level is.
- [Search](https://thetennisdesk.com/search): Find a player, team or league by name. Add `?q=` and the name to the address.
- [Sitemap of pages](https://thetennisdesk.com/sitemap-pages.xml): About 9,800 league, team, club and player addresses. It lists no match page, no player with no rated line, and no player known only as an opponent.

## Access

- [Ask The Tennis Desk](https://thetennisdesk.com/): Ask a question in plain words. No account is needed.
- [Connect an assistant](https://thetennisdesk.com/#/mcp): The Tennis Desk runs as a Model Context Protocol server at https://thetennisdesk.com/api/mcp, so an assistant can query it directly on a user's behalf. Any MCP client, ChatGPT and the Claude app included, adds that address and asks free questions with no sign-in and no key. For forecasts and their own teams, the assistant signs the person in with OAuth 2.1 and an emailed code, or sends a free key the person makes on that page. The server is in the official MCP Registry as io.github.chungty/thetennisdesk. An answer that names a team, player, club or league the Desk covers lists its page address in `pages`, so the assistant can link each name to the Desk.

## Optional

- [Terms and privacy](https://thetennisdesk.com/terms): How the site may be used, what a visit records, and the one license, which covers the research data files listed under Research.
- [Desk Pass pricing](https://thetennisdesk.com/#/pricing): The price of a Desk Pass and its terms.
- [Contact the Desk](https://thetennisdesk.com/contact): The one address for questions.
- [Research sitemap](https://thetennisdesk.com/sitemap.xml): The home page, the research index and each research piece.