So just how good are the girls in our area that made it to the NYSPHSAA State Tennis Tournament (High School states)? It depends on who’s rankings you look at.
Shannon Mukerji
Lets start with the singles finalists. Section 2 Champion Shannon Mukerji (Junior) is ranked 36th in New York and 600th Nationally on the Tennis Recruiting web site. Tennis Recruiting ranks players by graduating class (Seniors, Juniors, etc.). The Tennis Recruiting ranking is based on head to head results. If you are beating players who are ranked at a certain level, you will be ranked above them unless you are also losing to players ranked below them. Shannon’s is ranked #68 in the Girls 16’s in the USTA/Eastern Section and #1161 in the country. In the USTA system you get points based on what round you get to, regardless of who you beat to get there but you do need a win. Different levels of tournaments have different point values for wins getting to each round. For example, in the USTA system if you were to play a draw that had only 2 players in it and you won the match, you would get the same number of points as someone who played a tournament with 64 players in it that had to beat, even though they had to win 6 rounds to get the points. There are bonus points for beating top players too. The advantage of the USTA system is that you can actually figure out what your ranking should be. Find your best 6 tournamwnts, add up the points you earned in those tournaments using the points table. In the Tennis Recruiting System, the formula is in the computer. It’s really a black box and sometimes it doesn’t seem to make sense but it does really produce more accurate results. The down side of the Tennis Recruiting System is that it only produces accurate results if it has enough data about players. I have seen where an injured player who starts a match and can’t finish it, who is highly ranked, can really affect the rankings. The player who benefited from the default, withdrawal or retirement can get a big boost in their rankings.
Section 2 Runner Up Claire Schmitz (Junior), a 3 star recruit on Tennis Recruiting, is ranked 17th in New Yorks State and 391st in the nation – she has been a high as 295th. Her USTA national ranking is #462, while her Eastern Sectional ranking is #49. Third place finisher Chassidy King is ranked #141 in the Section. She does not have enough results in the system to have a Tennis Recruiting ranking.
The doubles team players – Keishorea Armstrong, Mitali Das, Kailin Baechle, Samantha Blond do not have enough results for a Tennis Recruiting ranking. Nisha Detchprohm (Freshman) is ranked 537 National in her grade and 28 in New York State. Nisha is 157th in the Girls 16’s Sectionally, Samantha is 358th, but Nisha is actually still in the Girls 14’s where she is ranked 60th in the Eastern Section.
In order to help sort things out, I hope to do an article in the near future about what some of the coaches look at, USTA Rankings both Sectionally and Nationally Vs. Tennis Recruiting Rankings. Check back soon to see.
Adirondack Tennis 