Ratings and levels

Four numbers on four different scales, none of which converts cleanly into the others. NTRP is a banded self-rated and computer-rated US system. UTR is a continuous scale driven by match results. WTN is the ITF's equivalent. A club level is whatever your club says it is. Any mapping between them is an approximation, and anybody presenting one as exact is selling something. How Deuce reads them.

Seed them from the most conservative signal you have, then let the first match correct it. The fix matters more than the guess: a new player's first challenge should reach their whole band, so one match puts them roughly where they belong. Placement accuracy is not a problem worth solving in advance, because a played match answers it better than any form.

Sandbagging is claiming a lower standard than you play at, to win a lower band. Signs: a placement well below the claimed external rating, a run of one-sided wins, and a player who declines to move up when asked. The fixes are structural. Read the conservative end of a claimed rating, give a new player a first challenge that reaches their whole band, and let the organizer move a player between bands with the move logged in public. How placement reads a claim.