Rating Procedures
Promotion Evaluation Q&A
Sept 2025
Why does CTPA have an evaluation process?
All CTPA members have a rating. When you join you will start with a 2.5 rating. A CLUB rating is used solely to allow players of similar skill and ability, without regard for age to be grouped together for more enjoyable play. The evaluation process we use is in place to achieve this standard for the club. The evaluation helps not only a Prospect be placed in the appropriate rating level based on their skill and ability, but also maintains the standard of play for all the other Members of that level the Prospect is being evaluated for. Your evaluation is not really for you, it is to protect all the others members of the level you hope to get into. The biggest success of CTPA is helping to assure “level play”.
How will evaluations be conducted for 3.0 & 3.5 ratings?
Evaluation events will be conducted to allow the prospect to participate in a Promotion Evaluation to determine if they satisfy the criteria for promotion to a higher CTPA club rating. During these events the prospect will participate in six round robin games with and against selected ‘controls’ from the level in which they are being evaluated. These games will be with/against two teams of three controls. All games will be to 7 points, win by one point. At the conclusion of these six games, the game in which the prospect scored the fewest points will be discarded. The prospect will achieve promotion if they have scored a total of 27 points or more. If they score fewer than 27 points the prospect will remain at their current CTPA club rating.
I’m a female and am concerned that I will be paired with 3 male controls.
Many believe ratings should be the same no matter what age or gender you are. Either you have equal skills to compete, or you do not. Nonetheless we have made special concessions to this concern by assuring that 2 of the 3 controls will be of the same gender as the prospect. In other words, a female prospect will have 2 female controls and 1 male control. A male prospect will have 2 male controls and one female control.
How will evaluations will be held for 4.0 & 4.5 ratings
Evaluations at these levels will include three controls of the same gender playing three games with different partners. Then two games in a mixed setting where you will have a opposite gender as a partner for two games. You will have an option to play a third mixed game and the chance to throw out the lowest score of the mixed only. The prospect will achieve promotion if they have scored a total of 27 points or more for the 4.0 evaluation. If they score fewer than 27 points the prospect will remain at their current CTPA club rating. For 4.5 level they must obtain 24 points (This is because the women are at 5.0 level in mixed play)
Is there a fee for an outdoor evaluation?
Yes. A $40 fee applies to all outdoor evaluations and is required to be paid prior to the scheduling of the session. If unsuccessful, the fee will increase to $60 for a second attempt and to $80 for all subsequent attempts this year AND future years. There will be no yearly reset.
Indoor evaluations in the dome will have a $40 charge plus a court rental cost on top of that. For the Indoor/winter season the total cost including court cost was $59 plus any addition E-20 or E-40 fee if you are retaking the test again at the same level.
What is the E-20 & E-40 fee?
This is as added fee for taking the evaluation at the same level for the second & third time. The E-20 & E-40 fee can be found on the last day of the month (at 9PM) . When you sign up to retake the evaluation you will pay your $40, plus you must also sign up for the E-20 or E-40 fee on top of that. If you did not pay your E-20 or E-40 fee when you take the evaluation, it will be manually charged to your account and auto-paid. You cannot avoid not paying this fee. This fee and wait time was added because we had several members taking this evaluation 2-3 times a month in the hopes of passing and preventing others from finding a spot. Once we implemented the fee and wait-time, it stopped this problem.
If I am evaluated and not successful, when can I re-evaluate?
- First unsuccessful evaluation: Wait 8 weeks and buy an E-20 fee PLUS evaluation fee
- Second unsuccessful evaluation: Wait 12 weeks and buy an E-40 fee PLUS evaluation fee
- 3rd, 4th, etc unsuccessful evaluation: Wait 16 weeks and buy an E-40 fee PLUS evaluation fee
NEW MEMBERS ONLY INSTRUCTION FOR OBTAINING A HIGHER RATING
You have 45 days after joining to declare a higher rating. You will then have 45 days to take an evaluation at the level you declare. After 3 months of joining, you no longer can do an evaluation higher than one-level.
Based on your skills, you may ‘self-assess’ to determine the appropriate level at which to be evaluated. You would temporarily be given a club rating ½ point lower than the level at which you want to evaluate. This provision applies to members who are new to the club, and they must contact the brucemazzoni@zoominternet.net within 45 days of joining the club. This provides you with opportunities to participate in events at that level prior to your evaluation.
For those new members testing for 4.0 & 4.5 ONLY: If you do not achieve at least 24 points during your evaluation, your club rating would revert to the default 2.5. If you score at least 27 points, your club rating will permanently change to the level you evaluated at. If you score between 24 and 26 points, your temporary club rating will be permanent, but you will be marked as failing the evaluation requiring you to wait a certain time and to pay an extra fee to do another evaluation as described in this document.
For those testing for 3.5 ONLY: You will have a temporary rating of 3.0 for 45 days. If you do not achieve at least 27 points during your evaluation, your club rating would revert to the default 2.5. If you score at least 27 points, your club rating will permanently change to a 3.5 club rating. If you score between 20 and 26 points, your temporary club rating will be permanent at 3.0 , but you will be marked as failing the evaluation requiring you to wait a certain time and to pay an extra fee to do another evaluation as described in this document.
New members who want to test for 3.5, 4.0, 4.5 must contact Bruce Mazzoni directly at brucemazzoni@zoominternet.net to set your temporary club rating within 45 days of becoming a member. You will then have another 45 days to do an evaluation. A temporary rating will expire within 45 days no matter where you are in the process. We will not extend your temporary rating for any reasons. Consider it may take 1-3 weeks to get evaluated once you sign up, so factor that within your timing. If you did sign up for the evaluation and your 45 days expired, you will still be able to test at that level, but your temporary rating goes away and you will be listed at a 2.5 club rating. If you pass your evaluation we will then adjust it to the new level. If you did not sign up for you evaluation within 45 days, you will be consider a 2.5 club rating and must sign up for a 3.0 evaluation and work your way up to the level you think you are. We highly recommend if you feel you are between two ratings, that you do the evaluation for the lower one. Its better to start successfully than to fail and then you remain at 2.5.
Procedure to sign up and pay for Evaluations:
Evaluations for 4.5 ONLY: You will need to proceed as following to register to be evaluated.
- On the last day of the month will be four sign up on Court Reserve at 9:30 PM. This is only the area where you sign up and pay. There will be one for 4.5 level. Please know this is not the day and time of the evaluation but you are signing up to get on the list. You will need to sign up and pay the evaluation fee.
- When you sign up and pay you should receive an email from Court Reserve confirming you registered and paid. You are now in the queue to evaluated for 4.5
- If you did have an evaluation at the same level before in prior years or this year then you will need to also sign up for the E-20 which will charge $20 for taking the evaluation a second time. Or if this is your third or more attempt, then you will need to sign up for the E-40 which will charge $40
- The level coordinator will contact you when they have a potential spot available for you. This may be as soon as one week, but may take many weeks depending on length of waitlist. If you are a new member you will be given a priority to test as soon as possible but if your 45 days limit expired, you will go to a 2.5 rating until can pass the evaluation. If you have been offered to test 3 times and its been 16 weeks since you signed up, we will remove you from the queue and not refund you. So please do not sign up if you are not planning to test within that timeframe.
For 4.0, 3.0 & 3.5 testing: You can sign up for the day and time you want to do the evaluation directly on Court Reserve. The 3.0 level have testing on Monday 4 to 8PM, Wednesday 1-4PM and Sunday 2 to 6PM. Please be aware of the specific gender being tested. For the 3.5 testing, you can pick between Monday 6PM to 8PM and Friday 7AM to 11AM. Again be aware of the gender. For the 4.0 testing it will be Monday 6PM to 10 PM. There is a 14 days advance sign up and you will not be able to cancel or get a refund 4 days prior (unless another person is found to take your place). In case of cancellation of weather you will get refunded as club credit and can use that credit to schedule your next evaluation.
If you have questions, you can contact these level coordinators directly.
3.0 Level: Ellie Wolf eleanorwolf719@gmail.com or Jacki Herring s1w1@msn.com
3.5 Level: Mark Ruston ruston@zoominternet.net
4.0 Level: Eric Gulnac egulnac@zoominternet.net or Steve Graham spgraham1961@gmail.com
4.5 Level: Barry Watkiss bwatkiss@zoominternet.net
How do I pay for an Evaluation Fee?
When you sign up for an evaluation and pay the fee at that time on Court Reserve to get on the list. You only need to sign up and pay once.
What if I must cancel?
For 3.0, 3.5 & 4.0 you can cancel directly on Court Reserve up to 4 days prior of the evaluation time. If you need to cancel inside of 4 days, please contact the coordinator ASAP because if they can find a replacement, we can then refund your money, but if no one is found you will not get a refund for any reason. For those who waitlist on 4.5 evaluation if you decline twice when offered to be evaluated, you will be taken off the list without refund. Please remember that it takes nearly 10 volunteers and 30 hours of time to coordinate one evaluation session.
Will CTPA use any other methods to determine club ranking?
No we do not and the reason why.
UTPR: CTPA use to accept USA Pickleball UTPR only for new members based on that member had played in three or more sanctioned tournaments in the two years prior to the request and the last tournament occurred within the previous six months. As of 2025, we no longer accept UTPR as less events are now sanctioned, and most data was too old.
DUPR: We do not honor DUPR to establish CTPA club rating. There are a few reasons, but the main one is our club ration is 2.5 to 5.0, while the UTPR has a range of 2.0 - 5.5 the DUPR rating is 2.0 to 8.0. DUPR are more popular in clubs or general play where there is no rating system. Many clubs who use DUPR has stated that DUPR is at least ½ level higher or more than UTPR was. Another is most of our club members have rejected playing in DUPR events that we have attempted to schedule.
IPTPA: We do not honor IPTPA to establish club rating. We actually used this for 2019 as a rating tool but discovered many difficulties in scheduling testing and consistency from one examiner to another. Many other clubs have slowly drifted away from this use of rating. Our decision was we wanted a more performance base rating system than one base of skills.
Other Club ratings: No we do not accept.
Will I have any input into the ‘controls’ at my Promotion Evaluation session?
No. The controls have been carefully chosen to fairly represent the level you are being evaluated for. They are trained in how to conduct the evaluation session and, depending on their availability, they will be randomly selected to participate in your session.
I sometimes don’t play well with certain partners. I’m concerned that this may happen to me during my evaluation.
This is why we allow the prospect to discard the lowest of their six scores for the 3.0 & 3.5 and one of your mixed games for 4.0 & 4.5. This procedure minimizes the impact of one bad game.
Is stacking permitted during an Evaluation?
Opposite handed partners, whether they’re prospects or controls, will be permitted to stack only while serving if they choose to, but not while receiving.
If I do really well during my Promotion Evaluation, am I able to increase my rating more than ½ point?
No, but you could immediately submit for an evaluation at the next higher level. The evaluation fee would apply.
Can I direct the control who is my partner to hit to the weaker player?
No. The controls who are your partner are instructed to play the game in a specific way that makes best sense for the evaluation process and pickleball. The goal is for YOU to be the key in winning (or losing) the points.
If I do not pass, will I get feedback?
We encourage you to discuss with the controls and coordinators where you need improvements. Because of so much happening at the courts they may not be able to spend much time with you as they have to get ready for other evaluations but reaching out to the coordinator while another evaluation game is in progress is your best way to get feedback.
At what time should I be at the courts for my evaluation?
Your level coordinator will give you the day & time of your evaluations. If you did not get an email within 48 hours of your evaluation look in your SPAM folder to see if it is there. If not, then contact your coordinator.
Questions for evaluations? Contact brucemazzoni@zoominternet.net