By Roger Graves
You are probably aware that many programs are offered on the basis of skill level, and that the skill level is often described using the DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating) rating system. This rating system sorts people into levels at tournaments, and it is also now being used to help get people of similar playing abilities grouped together in classes and play groups.
While DUPR provides one measure of playing ability, it is not a complete or perfect or permanent assessment. What that means is that you should not accept it as a definitive assessment of your playing ability or even the most accurate assessment; rather, it is a general marker of your recent level of play in competition. Other factors, such as your dynamic with a particular partner together with the normal variability in your play from day-to-day, will also affect your performances in competition. One of the problems with DUPR is that it expresses itself as a number and people tend to see numbers as authoritative. But a famous statistics book’s title expresses this best: it is entitled “Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics” (Wheeler 1977). Your DUPR rating is a statistic.
Rating Systems: DUPR and Skills assessment
DUPR (https://www.dupr.com/?r=0) assigns a number from 2 (beginner) to 8 (professional) based upon your results playing in competition (tournaments, leagues, groups). It uses an algorithm to generate your number or rating. When you play in DUPR events, you are playing against other people who also have a DUPR rating. If they have a higher number than you and your partner, the algorithm will expect you to lose by a certain number of points; conversely, if they have a lower number than you and your partner, it will expect you to win by a certain number of points. Either way, your number will constantly adjust based on the results of your matches (which is why it is called Dynamic). The algorithm will also adjust how much your rating changes based on the type of match (tournaments affect a rating more than informal play) and weigh your most recent matches more heavily.
That is one way to arrive at a description of your playing level. Another way to describe your skill level is your ability to perform various skills related to playing (https://pickleballcanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Ratings-Chart-EN.pdf). This kind of skill assessment does not rely on the performance of a partner or within a competitive context to describe your skill level. However, many of the criteria listed are difficult for an individual to judge on their own (“develops patience during exchanges”). For that reason, these kinds of skills ratings are only generally accurate within a wide range (beginner, advanced beginner, intermediate, and so on). A coach who is trained to conduct assessments can provide a much more accurate skills-based assessment.
How to find your level
A way to try to get a sense of your level of play is to play with different players and then see which of those players you are closest in ability to. Again, this is somewhat difficult to determine with any accuracy but it might help give you a general sense of whether you are in the beginner zone (2.0-3.0), intermediate zone (3.0-4.0), or advanced zone (4.0+).
You could also hire a coach to formally assess your play. They will watch you hit many different shots, measure how consistently you can perform those shots, and factor in other aspects of how you play that are not easy to quantify.
Another way is to sign up for DUPR events at a club. This will give you matches with various partners and opponents, and that will begin the process of generating results that can be fed into the DUPR algorithm.
You can also recruit several friends, play some games, and record the results in your various DUPR accounts. That, too, will generate data to feed into the DUPR algorithm.
You can hire a DUPR coach (https://www.duprcoach.com/coach-locations?utm_source=dupr&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=find-coach) who will watch you play and assign a ranking. While costly, this is perhaps the quickest way to obtain a more reliable rating.
How to increase your playing ability
Most people are poor judges of when they are learning and when they are not learning (Graves 2020). One implication is that you need someone else to observe you when you are learning to identify if you are actually learning or are stuck (ie, a coach). Secondly, to really learn something and integrate it into what you know, you need to take key ideas and organize them into a mental model; you then need to connect that model to what you already know (your prior knowledge). Again, one function of a coach is to provide you with the bigger picture of how to play pickleball in a winning way. That coach will then (ideally, anyway) connect whatever you are working on with that larger picture of how to play pickleball well. Just working on skills in isolation from the larger picture is unlikely to result in significant improvements in your play.
Learning is a recursive process. What that means is that it does not proceed in a lock-step matter from one step to the next. Instead, you will try something; have some success in one context; possibly not have success in another context; consult friends about how to deal with hard shots; watch some videos on YouTube about “bangers”; try some strategies out the next time you play; and then work these strategies into the way you play when you are not consciously thinking about it. The “going back and trying again” process is a key step: you can’t skip it and shouldn’t try. It is a feature, not a bug. Once you have had some success with the new way you play, you should reflect on when it works, how you figured it out, and what kinds of practice enabled you to integrate it into your style of play. The reflection, it turns out, is also a key part of learning.
Zen and the Art of Pickleball Play
If you really want to get better at playing pickleball, ignore DUPR for the most part. Focus on how you learn, and play with people who are also interested in improving. If you focus on learning and building a mental model of how to play pickleball well, your play will improve (eventually). You might need some help from coaches (I am a coach and I attend clinics offered by others when I can so I do take my own advice!), but more experienced players can also help. Working materials from online sources into your knowledge base can also help. Integrating all of this into your actual playing of the game is one of the challenges of pickleball, and that is part of what makes pickleball fun: it offers new challenges to players at every level of play.
So, that is the way forward: Learn and learn again, and reflect on what works for you and why. Talk with others and get their insights. If you work at improving your overall skills and knowledge of the game, the DUPR number will, ultimately, improve. But don’t expect a well-paved, clear path to the top: that’s not how it works.
References
DUPR Coach. https://www.duprcoach.com/coach-locations?utm_source=dupr&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=find-coach
Graves, Roger. “How we learn: A Compendium of current research-based knowledge for post-secondary instructors.” https://prezi.com/view/9Gid9mYqPE9IfRw883TJ/?referral_token=cIVxlclnB3FN. 2020.
Wheeler, Micheal. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: The Manipulation of Public Opinion in America. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1977.