Most collegiate sports across the NCAA are ranked via the AP Poll or other media polls. However, collegiate tennis is not ranked by a poll, or even people at all. The Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) has a computerized equation used to rank players across the country.
Because the ITA has more expertise in the world of tennis, the NCAA lets the ITA oversee the ranking process. Additionally, the ITA is focused specifically on college tennis, unlike other tennis ranking organizations.
The ranking algorithm set by the ITA consists of three components: win points, loss points and matches played. It focuses on three statistics: results, strength of schedule and opponent’s strength of schedule.
The ranking itself is the result of the summation of win points divided by the total of loss points plus counted matches.
Counted matches must be competed within the division, in the current season and be started matches. Matches that were defaults or forfeited are not counted towards or against either athlete.
For individual rankings, the single’s match still counts even if the team’s match was stopped or suspended.
Each athlete begins each ranking period unranked, since the ranking system is ultimately based on the quality of an athlete’s wins and losses. Road wins serve as a 10% bump for an athlete’s rankings.
Rankings are re-weighted after each weekend, due to the value of every player’s previous results having fluctuated over the weekend.
Players can move up after a loss or even down after a win, depending on their strength of schedule and their opponents’ strength of schedule.
ITA rankings play a crucial role in NCAA championship selection processes each year. Because the ITA rankings do hold such a heavy weight in the NCAA tournament placements, the ITA only considers wins and player performance from this current season.
To land a spot in the NCAA Tennis National Championship players need to perform well consistently. The ITA rankings also take into account a player’s performance, which directly links to their potential appearance in an NCAA tournament.
In preseason rankings, all non-returning players drop out of the top 125. As a result, the players who come back for another season are not re-evaluated; they are bumped up to the highest open spot.
Remaining spots in the fall preseason rankings are filled in by the World Tennis Number — a pre-existing standardized ranking system.
