OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Can anyone shed some information on the various players ranking systems in use?
World ranking - ITTF ranking
USATT ranking
Ratings Central
TT England ranking
Europe ranking?
Ranking systems in other countries
Do China and Japan have their own ranking system?
And perhaps how the various systems can be co-related? Like a USATT 2,000 pts would be equivalent to how many ITTF ranking points.

The country ranking systems don't map across to ITTF ranking. If you want an ITTF rank you need to play (and win) in an ITTF accredited event.

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Chasse Patate

Very broad (but interesting) question, which is almost impossible to answer, since most of us are familiar with one or two systems at most. Note that there is a not so subtle difference between 'rating' and 'ranking' - the former is a number that is supposed to quantify your absolute strength as a player, and the latter is your position in the group of people. I noticed that in US folks mostly would describe themselves as 'I am 1800 player' (rating), while in UK it would be "I am #234 among seniors" (ranking).

Some useful info:

USATT: http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis ... ing-System
RatingsCentral - http://www.ratingscentral.com/GeneralInfo.php

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

It shall be good enough should anyone who are familiar with one or two systems comment about it.
This should generate interesting reading.
But could also lead to an analysis of the pros and cons of each system.
Hopefully the rankings / ratings can be used to make TT more popular.

More prize money would make the sport more popular. It's still just a pastime for most folks.

I will disagree on this. Prize money only benefits professional players.
The vast majority does not play for money and they pay to watch good entertainment.
Golf, soccer, tennis, basketball and sports with huge sponsorships command large viewerships due to their entertainment value.
When TT has a large number of recreation players who are able to appreciate the finer points of the game, then the game has entertainment value.
Sponsors would then be interested, pouring money to promote the sport.
That's how it builds up, isn't it?

So we need to make the game more popular before money will creep in.
One way is to make recreation play more interesting / challenging / more social / more publicity ...

Rankings and ratings is not only about an ego trip for players.
It is also about making play more interesting amongst recreation players. (Pro players already have their ratings and ranking)

You might be right, but it's also possible that more prize money will attract better and a great variety of players, which in turn provide better entertainment value, and therefore bring more interest to the sport. It would be interesting to see some statistics on this.
This year's Australian open might be a good test case... the prize money is almost 10x of what it was previously... let see if it really makes it a more spectecular event that might attract more players to the sport.

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Money always helps, provided its used in the right way.
Sadly I don't see it happening. Here's a factual situation to digest.
I play 3 times a week. Yet we do not mention/discuss about the Australian Open at all, not even once. Right now it is not known which star players would be playing, don't even know about which venue. The Open does not have anything exciting to talk about. Of course guys in the inner circle would know the venue by now, but we are talking about the general public and those who play for recreation only.
Just stating one view, out of many, that TT really needs promotional work.

I don't disagree that we could do a lot more, but lets not forget almost the entire AU/State organisations are run by volunteers with very little money to promote the sport, so we can't be too harsh on them, since they do a lot more than most people.

I'm sure your example is quite typical of many clubs in Australia. However you now know about this via this forum. So you could be the one spreading this news and there by promoting the sport. All it takes is one person in one area to do this.

What I hear only too often at clubs (and this is not directed at you lionto as I have no idea what you do) is people complaining about how poor a job the associations do at promoting the sport, while these people do nothing themselves. Little do they know how much organisation goes on in the background, and the sport would be far worse off without all this work.

I certainly agree though that TTA should at least start promoting this event on their website now!

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I am aware what’s the position of volunteers, doing work and holding office in a volunteer capacity for the past 2 decades. (Not in TT though) I know the nature of volunteer work. That’s why I come to realise that if the job is not done properly (or not at all) the organisation will not do well.
This is the perennial response “You talk too much, why don’t you take over the job”. This attitude is wrong for:
1) Becoming a volunteer or not can have many reasons. So not everyone can be one.
2) Not all criticism and suggestions are coming from armchair critics.
Therefore as with all jobs one must filter all criticism (harsh or constructive) as well as all praises (bias or genuine) as feedbacks to monitor decisions/actions/results.

We are being side-tracked here. This thread is about Players Ratings and Rankings. I was hoping that ratings and rankings would help make recreation play more interesting thereby popularising the game. And to start off, just wanted to know what systems are in use and how. But somehow we got ourselves into this situation.

I guess that's the difference I see between American tournaments and the rest of the world. American tournaments are not just for elite players. You see players from international level to basement level. There's something for everyone. Attendances​are large, and are mostly people who come to play. I can see good and bad sides to this, but at the current state of popularity of the sport outside of China I think it's the best way to go. Only when table tennis is popular enough to attract huge paying audiences will such tournaments become a hindrance to the development of the sport in a given place.

Iskandar

I sensed the game in USA is popular. But I have no idea how popular. Perhaps our US friends can give us an insight and a clue to the basis for its demand.
We might learn something from you.

Ah Ah Why the popularity in China? I heard something very surprising from a visitor from China the other day.
It seems that there are limited facilities to play in China. 'Ordinary folks' does not have a chance to play and only the priviledged and elite can afford to go to a club with facilities like ours. On the other hand, every mainland Chinese I have played with possess the knowledge, strokes and skills, including the guy I spoke to. So what makes the game that popular in China? Some insight from our Chinese friends?

From memory, USA & Australia have around the same number of registered players, 8000ish. However the population of USA is greater than Australia by an order of magnitude. So I wouldn't necessarily look to the US for pointers as having table tennis being more popular.

The USA has two rating systems, one for tournaments, which is the one that most quote, and one for "league play". Mind you what the US means by "league play" is somewhat different to what Australia, UK and Europe mean by "league play". For the US think individual round robins on a night, for the others think team matches spread over a season.

In Australia, many local clubs, associations and states are implementing Ratings Central for ratings. NSW and South Australia (ask haggisv) enter tournament results. My local association is entering "league play" results. Hopefully this year our championships (a tournament) will be entered as well. A glance at the Ratings Central home page will show you how many Australian "events" are being recorded there.

There used to be a rule of thumb that a Ratings Central rating plus x 100 points was the equivalent of the US tournament rating. I am not sure how true this is any more.

Also unless there is a lot of "cross-pollination" there can be local enclaves where the rating (US or RC) is high or low. Both rating systems suffer from how the initial rating is determined. Over on My TT there have been threads about how some areas of the US are accused of giving new players too low an initial rating, and then because they only play others who have started out similarly then go on to the US Open or Nationals with a rating lower than their "skill/ability/whatever" and win their rating event.

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Retriever (sometimes golden, but often leaden)
Moderator, Inverted Retriever Technique sub-forum - http://ooakforum.com/viewforum.php?f=74

These things are separate: I mean amateurs vs, professionals. The former are there to play because they enjoy the game, the latter are mostly to be watched.

When I was playjng golf, let me assure you, I was not talking to my partners about upcoming US Open or whatever the next PGA Tour event either. I was mostly worried about finding my damn ball in the bushes and/or thinking whether I should be using 8 iron or a pitching wedge for my next shot.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887

No, it is not. Ultimate Frisbee Association has more registered members. And so is pretty much any major sport. It is a niche sport, mostly popular among immigrant community, both young and old. 'Ping pong' is reasonably popular as a basement/recreational activity, but getting these folks into clubs/tournaments is a tough challenge, given the gap in skills.

As Retriever correctly pointed out, US and AU have more or less the same number of registered competitive players, which implies that AU is quite a bit ahead.

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USATT: 1807 | League: 1887