Each time you register a match result, your play level is updated. The better you perform, the more stars you earn. Most players have 4 stars or fewer, while top club players can reach 6 stars, and world-class players reach up to 10 stars.
Expected score
Your level increases if you perform better than expected. For example, if you are a 3-star player and you win against another 3-star player, your level wll go up and your opponent's level will drop. When you lose a match, your level may still go up. For instance, if you have 3 stars and narrowly lose to a 4-star player, your level will increase while your opponent's level will decrease. On the other hand, if you are a 3-star player and win by a small margin against a 2-star player, your level will decrease, and your opponent's level will increase. In the latter case, you'll need to win by a significant margin to maintain or raise your level.
Gender-neutral rating
Our rating system is 'gender-neutral', meaning a match between a woman and a man should be balanced if their rating is the same. However, men generally tend to have higher ratings than women. To reflect this, we use different level descriptions (e.g. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) based on gender. This ensures that skill levels are accurately represented in words while maintaining a unified rating system.
Team levels
Individual results and team results are tracked separately. In competitions with fixed teams, match results only update the team level. Your individual level is not affected.
Team Individual levels
In competitions with changing teams — such as Americano formats and open matches — your individual rating is updated. A temporary team level is computed using a weighted average of both players’ individual ratings. After the match, the change in team level is distributed back to the two players based on their individual variances: players with higher variance (less certainty) adjust more; players with lower variance adjust less.
Team Individual weight factor
The weight factor depends on the sport. In tennis and padel, the stronger player receives a smaller weight, because opponents typically direct more balls toward the weaker player.
New players
Your level does not change when you play against a new player with an unreliable level, unless you are a new player yourself.
Yearly level corrections
At the start of each year, your level may change even if you haven’t played any matches. This is because we review the entire distribution of player levels to make sure it still reflects reality. This ensures that a regional top player (9 stars) truly stands out as such. To keep the system fair and meaningful, we analyze the spread of all player ratings (their statistical distribution and standard deviation). If the overall scale has drifted during the year, we adjust levels for all players at once, while keeping the relative order exactly the same.
For nerds...
We use Bayesian statistics and advanced mathematical models to quickly estimate play levels based on match results. Our proprietary algorithms operate on normal distributions to update a player's estimated level mean and variance. We transform all player levels into a standard normal distribution with mean 0. From this, we regularly compute the overall standard deviation for each sport, which allows us to determine each player’s Z-factor. The Z-factor determines a player's star rating: A Z-factor of 0 corresponds to a 4-star rating, while a Z-factor of 0.75 corresponds to a 5-star rating, and so on. As any aspiring statistician will quickly notice, a 10-star player (Z = 4.5) is extremely rare.
If you ever meet one, take a picture — they’re rarer than players who don't blame a bad shot on their gear!