DUPR Pickleball Ratings – A Solution to Tournament Sandbagging? – PickleballMAX

Sandbagging. It’s the bane of tournament pickleball players and tournament organizers alike. Sandbagging occurs when a player enters a tournament and intentionally registers for an event/skill level that is below their actual skill level in an effort to win more games, and, presumably, to win a medal.

Sandbagging is not fun for the other competitors within the skill bracket as this higher-skilled player will likely breeze through the draw or round-robin unchallenged. It is equally discouraging to the tournament director who has the goal of creating competitive and fair events for all players.

With the widespread prevalence of sandbagging at pickleball tournaments as a backdrop, DUPR and Pickleball.com integrated in July/August, 2024 with the goal of solving this age-old dilemma by providing each player with a rating of their pickleball ability – or in this case, a DUPR Rating.

What is DUPR?

DUPR, headquartered in Austin, Texas, was founded in 2021 by Steve Kuhn, founder of Major League Pickleball. The company was created with the goal of providing “the most accurate, global rating system in pickleball.”

Pickleball Central

As of late 2024, DUPR has, according to Sarah Carpenter, Lead Data Scientist at DUPR, approximately one million users and 5 million pickleball matches logged.

What are DUPR Ratings and How are they Calculated?

A DUPR rating is a number between 2.000 and 8.000 that reflects a player’s skill level based on match results. Shown below is an excerpt from DUPR that explains their methodology as it relates to calculating the rating.

Pickleball ratings are typically determined using sophisticated algorithms and data-driven analysis. These algorithms take into account various factors, including match outcomes, player performance metrics, and opponent ratings, to calculate precise ratings for each player.

Unlike traditional static rating systems, modern pickleball rating systems, such as the one offered by DUPR, employ dynamic algorithms that continuously adjust ratings based on recent match results. This dynamic approach ensures that ratings remain accurate and reflective of players’ current skill levels over time.

What is the DUPR Reliability Score?

When you login to DUPR.com, your DUPR player profile will display two key figures: (1) your DUPR Rating (2.000–8.000) and (2) your Reliability Score (1–100%).

  • DUPR Rating reflects your skill level based on match results.
  • Reliability Score shows how accurate (or, perhaps, inaccurate) your rating is.

If your Reliability Score is above 60%, DUPR considers your rating reliable, such that there is a high degree of confidence that you will have a competitive experience playing with others at a similar level.

If, however, your Reliability Score is below 60%, (perhaps you are a new player or you have not played in a while) it means that DUPR is not entirely confident in the rating they have assigned.

DUPR Rating & Tournament Registration

For those tournaments on Pickleball.com that integrate DUPR during the registration process, tournament participants are required to connect their Pickleball.com account profile to DUPR in order to complete their registration. The two now talk to each other.

This means, for example, if you have a 3.75 DUPR rating, you will only be able to select the 3.5 bracket (or higher) when registering because a 3.5 tournament bracket encompasses ratings between 3.50 and 3.99. Therefore, this player with the 3.75 rating would not be able to register for a 3.0 bracket (3.00 – 3.49).

If playing gender doubles or mixed doubles, it is important to note that you are required to play at the skill level of the highest-DUPR-rated player on your team.

In other words, if you have a 3.75 rating and your partner has a 4.10 DUPR rating, your team will be required to be registered in the 4.0 bracket. You cannot average the ratings and you cannot play at the skill level of the lowest-DUPR-rated player.

The advantage of using DUPR during the registration process should be straight-forward. It allows for the objective (not subjective) placement of players into appropriate skill brackets. No longer is the onus solely on the tournament director to weed out players who are playing below their actual skill level after they register.

DUPR Ratings are Updated in Real-Time

Please keep in mind that DUPR ratings update in real-time. If registration happened 2-3 months before the start of the tournament, for example, players will generally improve over time and their DUPR ratings will likely increase during that time as a result. However, when determining which skill level a player plays at in the tournament, we look at their DUPR rating at the date/time of registration.

This also means that when a tournament completes and you go back to review the DUPR ratings of your fellow competitors (and particularly those who medaled), the DUPR ratings of those who won will now very likely be higher than the day before the tournament began because the ratings updated in real-time!

Does the Tournament Director Still Have Flexibility with Tournament Registrants?

There is no doubt that, as a tournament director, I like taking the subjectivity out of the determination of the skill bracket in which a player should compete. Having that, however, the tournament director does, indeed, and should, have a certain amount of latitude and flexibility when it comes to making sure brackets are fair and competitive – even if it means reassigning players to skill brackets that are lower than suggested by their DUPR rating.

Remember, we stated that DUPR is not entirely confident in the rating they assign if the player’s reliability score is below 60. This is the precise reason tournament directors have (and should continue to have) flexibility to move participants to different (lower) skill levels if deemed necessary.

There are some players, for example, who have an overly inflated DUPR rating based on a very small sample of match data logged into DUPR. Perhaps they played in just a single previous tournament and did well. With a Reliability Score under 60, I, as the tournament director, would be willing to take a second look and potentially reassign this player at a lower skill level if asked, and, if it passed the smell-test. This would be an exception, however, and not the rule.

Please Understand The Following 3 Points if Stalking Tournament Brackets and DUPR Ratings

If you are one to snoop on or stalk other players’ DUPR ratings (presumably those players/teams in your round robin pool or bracket) before a tournament begins, please understand the following:

  1. It is entirely possible to have a player with a higher DUPR rating than your bracket “permits” if the tournament director reassigned a higher-DUPR-rated player to a lower skill bracket because the player in question had a low reliability score (lower than 60) on their DUPR rating and agreed that their DUPR rating was overly inflated.
  2. A player may have registered for a tournament a couple months prior to the tournament start date and, therefore, their DUPR rating may now be higher on “game-day” than it was on the date they registered for the tournament.
  3. There will likely be a handful of players who have no historical match data from prior tournaments, league matches or club matches entered into DUPR at the time of registration. With no data, they, therefore, did not have a DUPR Rating (NR) at the time they registered. For these individuals, the self-rating on their Pickleball.com profile was used when determining the skill bracket in which they compete – which may or may not be an accurate representation of their actual skill level.

Final Thoughts

The integration of DUPR and Pickleball.com is a very big step forward to making pickleball tournaments fair for all participants. It’s a step that will help minimize sandbagging as it takes the subjectivity out of the equation. It’s not perfect. No rating system is. But it is a step in the right direction.

Let’s hear your thoughts. Although not perfect, do you think DUPR has nevertheless helped mitigate the practice of sandbagging?

Coach Todd
About Todd

Todd is the talent behind PickleballMAX. He knows pickleball and demonstrates it on the court as a 4.5 – 5.0 player. In addition to creating content and running the PickleballMAX business, Todd is IPTPA Level II certified. As an instructor at the Ohio Pickleball Academy, he instructs students and runs adult and youth clinics. He also manages tournament desks throughout the tri state for tournaments ranging from 100-500 participants.

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