Universal Tennis will Continue to be the Leading Official Technology, Rating, Event, Recruiting, and Performance Partner for College Tennis.
Palo Alto, CA - Today, Universal Tennis is officially announcing the launch of the Universal Tennis Collegiate Alliance (“UTCA”) to support the future of all college programs in the United States. As a leader in college tennis, Universal Tennis has proven and established itself as the official technology and solution provider with the best and most proven rating and ranking, tournament and event technology, performance data, and analytics.
Created at the urging of many college coaches, the UTCA will be a dedicated effort to help guide and drive innovation and growth in college tennis with a board of college leaders and coaches from all five collegiate divisions. All Universal Tennis college program subscribers will be members without any incremental costs. Members will continue to benefit from our continuing investment in technology, events, and world-class support.
Universal Tennis has a proven track record of rapid innovation and enabling domestic and international recruiting with the gold-standard UTR Rating for assessing talent. Tens of millions of dollars have been invested in new technology, data science, analytics, and events (including camps, circuits, and clinics) to benefit and significantly grow revenue for college programs. Almost all college programs use Universal Tennis’ platform for recruiting, rating, running events, analytics and/or monetization. Universal Tennis generates millions in revenue for college programs each year; Universal Tennis College Camps is a leader after only the initial year of launch, and some 3,000 players have competed in the newly launched Universal Tennis College Circuits. The UTR Pro Tennis Tour (“PTT”) has streamed over 20,000 matches featuring 1,300+ college players globally. Shortly, the PTT will launch on Amazon Prime to elevate college tennis and showcase college players.
“We are committed to continuing to lead the way forward with transformational solutions for supporting college tennis. We are increasing our investment in college tennis. We are providing what collegiate players and coaches deserve, which is innovation, media elevation, revenue generation, data, and analytics,” said Mark Leschly, Chairman and CEO, Universal Tennis.
Universal Tennis’ approach is simple, to provide constant new ideas and solutions — recruiting, revenue generation, team and player analytics, and performance opportunities for players. Coaches and players can choose to adopt selectively or comprehensively to suit their program and needs.
Instead of the significant financial investment and support consistently provided to the ITA, Universal Tennis believes the investment in technology, events, and sponsorship can be better spent directly for players and coaches.
“We are a technology and solutions provider that believes in giving freedom and flexibility to college programs, coaches, and players to be tailored to their needs,” commented Chase Hodges, 15-time NAIA national champion and Vice President, Universal Tennis. “It is unfortunate that the ITA is now eliminating Universal Tennis’ access to college dual match results, which belong to the teams, in an attempt to keep Universal Tennis from being able to maintain updated college player UTR Ratings which we provide free to all players and programs. Universal Tennis is committed to not letting this happen since so many college programs and players currently rely on our technology and UTR Ratings for performance, monetization and opportunities.”
As an alternative to the current process of entering match scores on the ITA website, Universal Tennis has established an easy process for college coaches to provide dual match results directly — it is simple and quick, and results will be quickly incorporated. Similar to the current ITA process, after dual matches are completed, a coach or college sports information director can either submit the scores directly on the Universal Tennis site or email a photo of the completed scorebook to scores@universaltennis.com.
All coaches will be contacted and sent additional details for submitting their scores. Lastly, we are willing to submit college results to the ITA for those coaches who want to simply use our process for results reporting. This will be complementary to the ITA for the betterment of collegiate tennis.
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About Universal Tennis
The mission of Universal Tennis is to connect and grow the sport with innovative events and a global digital marketplace centered around level-based play. The Universal Tennis Engagement Platform is anchored by the UTR Rating, the world’s most accurate singles and doubles tennis rating system. Universal Tennis provides the tools and solutions to make the UTR Rating relevant and valuable to players, coaches, and organizers in their local tennis communities. Universal Tennis is creating opportunities and pathways for players from all over the world, in all stages of life, to find better matches and unlock a more fun and flexible tennis experience. Go to UniversalTennis.com to sign up, activate your player profile and join the global tennis community. Watch Our Video and connect on social @UniversalTennis to learn more.
Starting in early 2023, Universal Tennis will offer one home for tennis and pickleball, beginning a new chapter by bringing a pickleball rating and technology solutions to another racquet sport. Universal Tennis will enable its customers to use its pickleball rating and event management software to create accessible, competitive level-based events.