It wasn’t a big thing but I’m still trying to understand a new system in tennis. In golf, there is a handicap system so that people with varying skill levels can play together and have a competitive game. Viewpoint Tennis Club has now instituted a similar system for tennis called ten cap.
To be a 2.5 level tennis player, your ten cap would range from 55 to 61. If you had a 54, you would be at the 3.0 level and if you were higher than the 61, you’d fit with the 2.0s. When I came in the fall, mine was a 55 based on my last year’s tennis results. Actually, it was based on the percentages of games I won.
Each week as I’ve played this fall, my ten cap dropped about half a point and really, each second week, dropped by one. I was a 54, then a 53, then a 52 which is really at the 3.0 level. Last week a 3.0 captain phoned asking if I would play up at the 3.0 level. I was honored and Wednesday morning, I was there bright and early, helped the team in the kitchen, went out and played my best game. We lost our first set 2-6 but won the next set 6-2 so had a tie breaker.
This partner and I won the tie breaker so imagine my surprise when I look at my ten cap and it was now a 53. It went up. The system which is all computerized knows what my partner’s ten cap is and each of my opponents. It is able to determine how many games I should have won based on their ten cap ability. The computer was telling me I played below my ten cap ability.
It wasn’t a big thing but it’s a nicer feeling to be continually having a ten cap dropping.
I am happy to report on Friday I played well at the 2.5 level, winning all my games. I am now a 52 again.
– 17 February 2017 –
ellensagh 