Does winning move you up a level?

Usually not. Players who won three-quarters of their rating-relevant matches in a season moved up a level the next year a little more than a third of the time. Across 795 seasons of Marin-area USTA NorCal adult league, 49 of the 131 seasons like that ended in a move up, which is 37.4%, against 16.4% across all seasons. Even so, most of the players who won that much were at the same level a year later.

Is it harder to move up at a higher level?

Yes. Among players rated 3.5 and below, 55.2 out of a hundred dominant seasons were followed by a move up (37 of 67). At 4.0 and above, 18.8 out of a hundred were (12 of 64). Part of the gap is room to move up: this sample has 220 teams at 3.5 and 25 at 5.0.

If I have one big season, will I get bumped?

Not reliably, and not on a schedule. Of 105 players who put up a season winning 70 out of a hundred or better between 2022 and 2024, 56 had moved up a level by 2026 and 49 never did. This data cannot say what will happen to any particular player.

Tennis Desk Research · Marin-area USTA NorCal · Adult league

At 4.0 and up, winning three-quarters of a season's matches usually isn't enough

By Thomas Chung

A winning season usually does not move a player up a level, especially at 4.0 and above. At Marin-area clubs from 2022 to 2025, players won 75% or more of their matches in 131 seasons. Of those, 49 ended in a move up, or 37.4%. At 4.0 and above, the share was 18.8%.

How often winning moves a player up a level

won under 50%

4.6% n=280

won 50–65%

14.1% n=256

won 65–75%

25.0% n=128

won 75%+

37.4% n=131

Share of seasons followed by a move up, 2022–2025, from 478 players.

What a move up here means

A move up is a higher NTRP rating on the roster the next year. USTA sets that rating, so no rate here predicts any one player's move.

Across all 795 seasons, 130 ended in a move up, or 16.4%, so the rate after a season of 75% or better was more than twice the usual one.

Where a player already sits matters more than how much they win

The 37.4% blends two groups. At 3.5 and below, 37 of 67 big seasons ended in a move up (55.2%), while at 4.0 and above only 12 of 64 did (18.8%). Part of the gap is room to move up, because this sample has 220 teams at 3.5 and 25 at 5.0.

Last season on its own

The 2025 season looks much the same, and its 35 players who won 75%+ of their rated matches are already part of the four-season figure above.

moved up (15) still at the same level (20)

One dot per player. 2025 season → 2026 rating.

Big seasons, followed over the next few years

About half the players who had one big season moved up within a few years. By 2026, 56 of the 105 players who won 70% or more in a season from 2022 to 2024 had moved up.

A player accused of being underrated may be, or may be rated correctly and play a lot. Results alone cannot tell which.

A worked example, with permission

I'm in this data, so here is mine, including the parts that don't flatter. In 2023 I went 14–3 in Adult league (19–8 counting the Combo and Mixed matches this analysis excludes) while self-rated 3.5. My first computer rating came back 3.5. I went 20–5 the next year and the move to 4.0 landed. Then at 4.0 I went 2–5 in Adult league last season and stayed put. The level found me eventually, it took its time, and it has not been kind since.

Read next: What happens after a bump?

Where do you actually stand?

Look up any player or team →

All Tennis Desk Research·Browse every league the Desk holds, by year and area

How this was measured

Every team has the player everyone side-eyes, the one who wins too much for their rating. So I pulled four seasons of USTA results and asked how often a dominant season actually comes before a promotion.

Every figure here counts match results and the ratings USTA published the following year.

Scope. The data comes from USTA NorCal league rosters and scorecards from 2022 to 2026 at these ten Marin-area clubs:

BELVEDERE TENNIS CLUB
BAY CLUB ROLLING HILLS
MARIN TENNIS CLUB
MILL VALLEY TENNIS CLUB
MT TAM RACQUET CLUB
RAFAEL RACQUET CLUB
TIBURON PENINSULA CLUB
SCOTT VALLEY SWIM & TENNIS CLUB
NOVATO TENNIS CLUB INC
HARBOR POINT TENNIS CLUB

The ten clubs are a sample, not a census of Marin or a study of all of NorCal. Players at other clubs appear only as opponents, so their own records and rating changes are outside the data.

Method. Win rates count only the matches USTA uses to set a year-end rating, under the USTA League Regulations. That means every Adult Division age group: 18 & Over, 40 & Over and 55, 65 and 70 & Over (Reg 1.04D(5)). The 55, 65 and 70 & Over groups play at a combined team rating, but they are Adult Division all the same. Combo is not counted, because NorCal runs it as a local league rather than one of the two USTA League Divisions that generate ratings. Mixed is not counted either, with one exception. For a player who played no Adult Division matches that season, Mixed play is what sets their rating, so it counts for them (Reg 1.04F(1)b). The rating level itself is read from all of a player's teams. A record is the wins and losses USTA shows on a player's own page, summed across their teams that season. Each season needs at least 15 matches, which in practice means players on two or more teams, the most active in the sample. A lower minimum would lower every rate here, and a higher one would raise them.

What "moved up" means. The player's NTRP level rose between seasons. The Desk cannot tell an earned year-end bump from a self-rate correction or an appeal, and about one in seven of these moves began from a self-rated or appealed rating. A season of exactly 75.0% counts in the 75%+ group, and players who did not return the following season are not counted.