NTRP to Padel to Squash: A Cross-Sport Rating Rosetta Stone

You've spent four years building a 3.5 NTRP rating in league tennis. A friend invites you to try padel and asks what level you play. You've got nothing. Your tennis number doesn't mean anything on a padel court, and honestly, the padel scale barely means anything either since it changes depending on the club or the app. Try squash next and you get handed a third system, with its own scale and its own idea of what "intermediate" looks like.

We hear a version of this constantly from Rally players who switch sports. Every racket sport built its own rating scale on its own, for its own community. Nobody ever sat down and worked out how a 4.0 tennis player compares to a B-level padel player or a 3500 on SquashLevels. So the moment you switch sports, years of playing experience turn into a shrug.

This guide walks through how each system actually works, then builds a practical way to translate between them, so you can walk onto a new court with a rough idea of where you stand instead of guessing out loud in front of strangers.

The National Tennis Rating Program (NTRP) is the scale most US tennis players run into, usually through USTA leagues. It runs 1.0 to 7.0 in half-point steps.

At 1.0 to 2.5 you're new to the game. Rallies are short and footwork is still a work in progress. Most club and league players sit at 3.0 to 3.5, rallying consistently and keeping score without chaos. Push into 4.0 to 4.5 and you've got real depth, pace, and enough shot placement to go after a weaker side. Past 5.0 you're looking at former college players and serious tournament competitors, the ones who make a solid 4.5 sweat.

NTRP ratings can be self-assessed or generated from match results, and that gap is exactly where the trouble starts. More on that later.

Padel has a problem tennis solved decades ago. Nobody agrees on one scale. Depending on where you play, you'll see A to C letter grades, a 1.0 to 7.0 numeric scale that mimics tennis, or a plain Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Pro split at casual clubs and apps.

Roughly speaking, beginners (or C-level players) are still learning wall play and glass rebounds, so points end fast. Intermediate or B-level players start using the walls on purpose and can cover the court with a partner well enough that rallies actually last. Advanced or A-level players bring consistent lobs, bandeja and vibora shots, and real pressure at the net. Pro is exactly what it sounds like: tournament players and coaches.

None of this inconsistency is really padel's fault. It's what happens when a sport grows faster than its own infrastructure. Padel went from a niche pastime to one of the fastest-growing racket sports on the planet in just a few years, and the rating systems never caught up. That's why a "B level" player at one club can look like a completely different player at the next one over.

Squash runs on two main systems depending on where you play. In the UK, SquashLevels gives every registered player a numeric rating, somewhere between 0 and 8000+, calculated from match results. It's closer in spirit to a chess rating than a tennis one. In the US, the Universal Squash Rating (USR) uses a decimal scale, roughly 0.0 to 7.0, which feels a lot more like NTRP.

Beginners are working on the T, court movement, and basic shot selection. Improvers and intermediates hit with consistent length, mix in some volleys, and start playing with real tactics instead of just hitting the ball back. Advanced players move well, disguise their shots, and manage a match instead of just surviving it. Elite covers county, national, and professional players.

Squash ratings are more data-driven than padel's, since match results feed straight into your number. That makes them more consistent inside one system, but a rating earned in one country's league still doesn't automatically carry weight in another's.

There's no official conversion table between NTRP, padel levels, and squash ratings, because no single body governs all three sports. What follows isn't a formula, and it won't settle an argument about who's "really" a 4.0. It's a working framework based on how each system actually describes ability, useful mainly for figuring out where to start.

Here's the rough map:

• New to the sport: NTRP 1.0 to 2.5, padel Beginner or C, squash Beginner.
• Solid recreational: NTRP 3.0 to 3.5, padel Intermediate or B, squash Improver to intermediate.
• Strong club player: NTRP 4.0 to 4.5, padel Advanced or A, squash Advanced.
• Competitive: NTRP 5.0 and up, padel Pro, squash Elite or national.

Use it as a starting point, then drop down a band the first time you try a new sport. Hand-eye coordination and footwork carry over fine. Wall play and squash movement don't. Most solid 4.0 tennis players land in intermediate padel or squash for their first few sessions, not advanced, no matter how good their tennis serve is.

Cross-sport confusion is only half the story. Inside a single sport, self-reported ratings drift for reasons that have nothing to do with actual skill.

Some players sandbag on purpose, under-rating themselves to dominate a lower bracket. It happens often enough in tennis that NTRP sandbagging is a running complaint on r/tennis. Others just rate themselves generously because self-assessment is hard and nobody wants to tick the "beginner" box in front of people they've never met.

Either way, you end up with two players who both call themselves "intermediate" and aren't within a mile of an even match. That's frustrating if you're the stronger player and discouraging if you're the weaker one, and it's the main reason cross-sport matchmaking on your own tends to fall apart before it starts.

Rally exists because self-reported levels fall apart the moment you actually try to find a fair game. Instead of asking you to guess your own number, Rally builds your rating from how you play against other Rally players, across squash, padel, and tennis, on one consistent system instead of three unrelated scales.

So when you show up for a match, whether it's your home sport or one you just picked up, whoever is across the net or across the wall got matched to your real level, not a number you typed into a form six months ago.

It's also worth reading why self-rated levels drift in the first place, which is exactly what our piece on sandbagging digs into.