Sweat dripping down you, you’re out of breath. You input your win on Playtomic after a 3 set thriller. It gets accepted. The first thing you do is check what it has done to your Playtomic level, as we all do. But what does it mean?
Without a doubt Playtomic is the leading provider for Padel court bookings and events, it gives access to courts all around the world (literally) and is ahead of its competitors such as Matchi and Padelmates.
We have found every player is fascinated and are curious as to how they compare with other players and what their ‘ranking’ truly is. Over time a repeating theme is that players are starting to feel as though their rating system is flawed or simply unreliable.
What is the Playtomic rating system?
On Playtomic there is a guideline for what each rating suggests your level is, a 0-1 is beginner, 1-2 is beginner plus, 2-3 is intermediate, 3-5 is advanced and 5+ you are considered to be a high level player or even professional.
When starting your Padel journey you are given a questionnaire by Playtomic that gives you your initial rating, a common theme we have heard from players is ‘I have answered the questions as honestly as possible but my rating is definitely too high’.
One issue is that the description of the ratings between 1-7 are not necessarily accurate.
The largest issue for everyone is that the questionnaire leads to inaccurate ratings from the start, which take a long period to level out. If everyone were to start from the same level this would help in some elements, however would lead to issues for those who have played on other platforms (e.g padelmates, Matchi).
Playtomic rating system between 0-7 works alongside a reliability rating. Once you finish a competitive match with your friends or an open match, you will get asked to evaluate your opponents and teammates rating on a scale that it should be “lower”, “correct” or “higher”. If 20 different people were to select “higher” you will get asked if you would like a 0.5 level up boost. The more games you play the more your reliability rating goes up, therefore in theory it should be more accurate. However, there are still flaws to this even once it has become reliable.
What are the issues and why are they a problem?
The reliability helps gauge how accurate someone’s rating is. However, there is sometimes a case you will join a match and someone has played a considerable amount of games, but all of these matches are within their friend group. This means their reliability is considerably high although they have not necessarily improved to that level due to the lack of playing different people.
One of the reasons why this is a big concern as it leads to some people playing matches and feeling like it was not only a waste of time but a waste of money. Furthermore, it means that many players end up picking and choosing their open matches more and more carefully to ensure it is an enjoyable match.
One of the fixes that have been made to the system is a ‘Playtomic levelling class’. This is when you participate in a match and a couple of tasks with an affiliated levelling coach. After the session he/she will assess your level and boost your score to what he/she feels it should be. There are two big deterrents to joining one of these classes, which are the price (typically high due to the club paying a coach) and it lowers your reliability to 50%.
Why is lowering your reliability to 50% an issue you may ask? If you were to lose a game on 50% reliability it causes your Playtomic level to decrease considerably more than if you were to have a reliability of 70% for instance.
As previously mentioned, the questionnaire always causes confusion but that is almost impossible to prevent complications from.
Companies such as PadelLevels are working towards improving a rating system, which has also been used in squash for many years. It will be interesting to see how it develops and we could potentially see PadelLevels and Playtomic combine.
Conclusions
Overall, Playtomic is the leading and the best booking system that Padel has. It allows for access to your level and courts from every corner of the world.
However, with every positive there is always going to be flaws. The flaws are not detrimental to how the system runs and does not ruin player enjoyment. Playtomic is majorly positive and is only in its infancy as it is only 8 years old.
The booking system has evolved as Padel has grown and spiralled to becoming the fastest growing sport in the world. Therefore, it is always important to understand that they are working and improving as we speak. The system works amazingly for now and it’s hard to see anyone take over the Padel space like they have.
Proper Padel 
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