Universal Tennis's Role in Jr and College Tennis

Summary

Chase Hodges — VP at Universal Tennis (UTR’s parent company), former head men’s and women’s coach at Georgia Gwinnett College (15 NAIA national championships) — joins Lisa Stone to explain UTR’s ongoing role in college tennis recruiting following the ITA’s announcement of its WTN partnership. The episode is UTR’s response to the previous two weeks of ParentingAces coverage (Tim Russell on WTN, Amy Bryant on recruiting), and Hodges makes the case that UTR remains the gold standard in player rating with 92% college coach adoption, 50,000+ annual events, and a growing suite of college-facing tools including UTR Pro Tennis Score, the UTR NIT Tournament (streaming on Proton Video), and the Universal Tennis Collegiate Alliance (UTCA). The conversation also covers how college coaches use UTR Power 6 benchmarks to evaluate recruits and why level-based play volume matters more than rating gaming.

Guest Background

Chase Hodges is VP at Universal Tennis overseeing college and high school divisions. He joined Universal Tennis in June 2022 after a decade-plus as head men’s and women’s coach at Georgia Gwinnett College, an NAIA program that won 15 national championships under his leadership. He has been involved in college tennis since age 18 and maintains active relationships with college coaches across all five divisions.

Key Findings

1. UTR Claims Gold Standard Status Despite WTN Partnership Announcement

Hodges is direct in dismissing the ITA/WTN announcement as primarily a sponsorship arrangement rather than a shift in coaching behavior. His evidence: 92% of college coaches are active UTR platform users, coaches look at UTR daily to gauge recruit talent, and millions of dollars in college coaches’ program revenue (from UTR-platform camps, circuits, and events) was generated in 2022 alone. His framing: WTN is “just another metric” while UTR has been battle-tested over a decade with the coaching community. Whether this holds as WTN matures and builds data depth is the central open question, but Hodges is confident in UTR’s near-term position.

2. UTR Power 6 Is How College Coaches Use the Rating Functionally

The practical use case Hodges describes for UTR in coaching: every college tennis program has a “Power 6” — the UTR of the first through sixth singles players in the lineup. When a coach evaluates a recruit, they compare the recruit’s UTR to the Power 6 range for their team. A 9.3 UTR recruit can see immediately whether a given program’s Power 6 would put them at the top of the lineup (potentially too weak), in the middle (ideal development position), or far below the number six player (unrealistic target). This makes UTR an immediate bilateral tool for both coaches filtering recruits and recruits filtering programs.

3. College Coaches Focus on the Trailing 6–10 Months of Results, Not the Full Archive

Hodges describes how coaches actually use UTR data: they look at trending performance over the last six to ten months, not the historical archive. Recent results tell the story of where a player is right now and where they’re heading. Stale results from two or three years ago carry minimal weight. The implication for junior families: consistent competitive activity with updated results in the months leading up to recruiting conversations is more valuable than a strong historical rating built on limited recent matches.

4. Universal Tennis Is Pivoting to College Elevation — UTCA, NIT, and Amazon

Hodges announces several new Universal Tennis initiatives: the Universal Tennis Collegiate Alliance (UTCA), a 12-coach executive committee representing all five college divisions (including Manny Diaz at Georgia and coach Cohen at Oklahoma) focused on elevating college tennis; a UTR NIT Tournament in the Atlanta area (May 2023), featuring eight men’s and eight women’s programs competing for a national championship, streaming on Proton Video; and plans to bring college tennis teams to the 2024 Australian Open for grand slam exposure. The UTR College Match Challenge at Indian Wells (Pepperdine vs. USC) drew 1,800 fans at BNP Paribas venue. These are all framed as speed-of-execution advantages over governing bodies constrained by bureaucracy.

5. UTR Pro Tennis Score Is a New College-to-Pro Bridge Tool

Hodges highlights a relatively new product: UTR Pro Tennis Score, which has nearly 1,500 current or former college tennis players competing internationally. It provides a pathway for college players who want professional tennis exposure to earn a financial foothold without abandoning college careers entirely. Hodges says Universal Tennis is continuing to invest in this product, particularly through an Amazon streaming relationship for visibility. This product is explicitly designed to compete with what WTN and the ATP Accelerator are doing on the institutional side.

6. Gaming the Rating Algorithm Doesn’t Work — Just Play More Matches

Both Hodges and Stone address the rating-gaming behavior some players attempt (avoiding certain opponents to protect UTR, cherry-picking matches to maximize upward movement). Hodges is blunt: the algorithm is designed to account for these behaviors, and the best thing any player can do is play as many matches as possible. Volume of competitive play is the most reliable path to an accurate and improving rating. The UTR platform has 50,000+ annual events, giving every geography access to level-based play without expensive travel.

Actionable Advice for Families

• Use UTR Power 6 data on the Universal Tennis website to evaluate whether a school’s lineup level is a realistic target — compare your player’s UTR to the listed Power 6 range for each program on your target list
• Focus recent match activity (last 6–10 months) rather than historical results — college coaches weigh recent performance most heavily in their evaluation
• Do not attempt to game the rating by avoiding matches — play every available match at all levels and let the algorithm normalize your number over volume
• Use the Universal Tennis college search/fit tool to identify programs across all five divisions that match your player’s UTR range before initiating coach contact

INTENNSE Relevance

• UTR as a player pipeline tool: With 92% of college coaches actively using UTR and near-1,500 former/current college players in UTR Pro Tennis Score, Universal Tennis has the most comprehensive database of INTENNSE’s potential player population — UTR data could inform initial player identification and recruitment shortlisting for the league
• UTR Pro Tennis Score as a competing product: Hodges’s description of UTR Pro Tennis Score as a financial bridge for college players who want professional tennis exposure is a direct product-market overlap with INTENNSE’s college-to-pro bridge — the league should monitor whether UTR’s pro platform expands in ways that compete with or could partner with INTENNSE’s player pipeline
• Atlanta market connection: The UTR NIT Tournament (Atlanta area, May 2023) and Hodges’s Georgia Gwinnett College background signals Universal Tennis’s deep engagement with the Atlanta tennis market — directly relevant to INTENNSE’s Atlanta base and potential grassroots partnership or co-promotion opportunities
• Broadcast elevation strategy: UTR’s Indian Wells College Match Challenge (1,800 fans at BNP Paribas venue) and the Proton Video streaming relationship demonstrate that college tennis can build live audiences in professional venues — this is proof of concept for INTENNSE’s own format and broadcast positioning at similar or higher production values
• Level-based play as a format principle: UTR’s core innovation — level-based rather than age-based tournament play — maps well to INTENNSE’s professional team format, which creates natural level-appropriate matchups without the age-group structures of junior tennis

Notable Quotes

“UTR is the gold standard. It has been. Coaches are using us. We have over 92% of college coaches on the platform utilizing the rating in terms of being able to find players.”

“ITA and WTN — that’s a sponsorship, you know, that’s what that is. UTR has proven itself and we’re going to continue to prove ourselves as the gold standard.”

“Every college tennis program has a UTR Power 6. As a coach, you know where your number one is, you know where your number six is. When you’re looking at a recruit, you know where they would fit in your lineup based on the algorithm.”

“Coaches are looking at where you’re trending in the past year. Recent results tell the story of where your level is at the current moment. Results from two to three years back don’t carry that much weight.”

“Just play. There’s a program for everyone, regardless of your UTR. It’s just a matter of finding them and reaching out to those coaches.”