tennis NEWS

Handicapping Best Practice

Manual adjustments

In general, it is a club's responsibility to ensure that their member's handicaps are a true reflection of their ability. Where a player has a demonstrably wrong handicap, it is the club professional's responsibility to ensure that their handicap is remedied - this is usually done by giving a player a series of provisional matches to play. The club professionals are best placed to make this judgement as they are witness to a player's improvements in ability or recent results. In general, provisional matches are preferred over cuts in handicap unless their handicaps are egregiously wrong (often where players are very new to the game and have figured out a technique after their first 10 games of provisional)

In general, a player should be required to earn the right to a manual adjustment to their handicap - for example a series of wins and big wins in their recent matches, or a win against a significantly better handicap off level - rather than be rewarded based on a recent practice regiment or a player's personal aspirations.

If a player is a member of multiple clubs, please consider consulting with their other club pros before making a manual adjustment, especially if their primary club is not your club.

However, players less than 20 handicap, who in general are eligible and play regularly in national and international tournaments, should in general not receive manual adjustments. This is to protect the integrity of the qualification to and seeding in national and international tournaments. If an adjustment is clearly warranted, please consult the IHSC for approval, who will evaluate given that adjustments at this standard have knock-on effects beyond the specific players and their clubs involved. As of 2025 this scruity now also applies to women players under 40 handicap due to the new qualification rules for the World Championships and the British Open.

The IHSC periodically reviews all manual adjustments, but if you have concerns, please let me know.

Entering scores from incomplete competitive matches

Where a player withdraws from a competitive match before it has concluded, the score should not be input into RTO as it stands at the moment of retirement. Instead, the non-retiring player should be awarded games to make up the remainder of any active set. If a player retires at the end of a completed set, the non-retiring player should be awarded an extra 6/0 set. This is to prevent a player manipulating their handicap by strategically retiring the match when the result is advantageous to them (i.e. to protect a win or to prevent a loss turning into a big loss). This includes withdrawals due to injury.

For example, in a best of 5 set match, if a player retires when leading 6/2 1/3, then the result should be input into RTO as 6/2 1/6 even though this results in an inconclusive match from a winners point of view. If the player retired at the conclusion of the first set, then the match should be input as 6/2 0/6. If the player retired at set point in the first set, then it should be entered as 6/2.

These rules do not apply to social matches.

Entering "on the hour" social matches

The common practice for entering social matches is that the scoreline at the end of the hour should be what is input into RTO. There are some clubs which do not enter incomplete sets, or do not enter any scores after a player has won two sets, or who enter the majority of their results as competitive non-sanctioned, or who do not enter any social matches at all.

Similarly, players wishing to play "friendly" or "off-book" matches should make their intention known at the time of booking, rather than at the time of the match. This is to prevent people who "don't feel up for it today" from manipulating their handicap by waiting for a day where they feel better, and is generally unfair to their opponents who booked the court on the basis that they willing to stake their handicap in the match.

While the IHSC cannot enforce club policy in this regard as it pertains to the culture within each specific club, it is recommended that as many social games played should be entered into RTO as is reasonably possible, at the scores at the conclusion of the hour. This gives the players involved the best chance of having an accurate handicap for when they play matches against other clubs, or in internal handicap competitions.

Whole club adjustments

Occasionally, clubs with a lot of new or young players fall out of sync with other clubs and wish to realign their handicaps with those other clubs. While this is a good step to ensuring integrity of the handicap system at an inter-club level, please consider reaching out to the IHSC to work out how to best set the new level. It is often too easy to overestimate how small an adjustment is necessary to meaningfully impact a player's chance of winning a match. The data is available in RTO to work out what level of adjustment is appropriate.

Any questions, please do reach out, especially if you are concerned about any anomalies you notice in RTO.

Ben Geytenbeek (International Handicap Sub-Committee chair) ben.geytenbeek@gmail.com