After every match, Tennis Log invites you to rate 15 aspects of your game from 1 to 10 — and to rate your opponent on the same dimensions. It takes about a minute. Over twenty matches, those sliders become the single most useful coaching artefact in the app, more valuable than any individual stat. This article is about how to fill them in honestly, what each dimension actually means, and how to read the performance radar that aggregates them.
Why self-rating matters more than you think
Statistical metrics like hold % and break % tell you *what* happened. They do not tell you *why*. A 45% hold rate could be a flat first serve, a soft second serve, poor placement, a slow start, or fatigue late in sets. The numbers cannot separate those causes. Your perception can — if you record it consistently.
Self-rating works because tennis players have surprisingly accurate intuition about their own play *in the moment*. Five hours later we rationalise; five days later we forget. Capturing the rating immediately after the match, while the muscles still remember, gives you a data signal that nothing else in the app can produce.
The 15 dimensions and what they mean
Summary tab (the ones you should always fill in):
- Forehand / Backhand — your overall comfort and effectiveness on each wing in this match
- Service — first-serve quality, placement, hold of pressure
- Return — how often you got the ball back deep and neutral or better
- Volley — net play and finishing
- Drop shot — your touch and timing on short balls
- Lob — defensive and offensive lobbing
- Stamina — energy levels across sets
- Speed — court coverage and quickness to the ball
- Unforced errors — *lower* is worse; a 3 means you sprayed errors, a 9 means you almost never gave away points
Detailed tab (fill when you have a minute more):
- Winners — clean point-enders
- Tactics — shot selection and patterns
- Awareness — court positioning, anticipating opponent
- Shot variety — slice, topspin, change-ups
- Court coverage — were you in the right place at the right time
Psychology tab (most valuable, most skipped): Mental and emotional dimensions like focus, frustration management, confidence and clutch play. These are the dimensions that change most after coaching — track them.
The two-rating principle
For every dimension, you rate yourself and your opponent. This is non-negotiable. A single rating in isolation has no anchor. "I gave my forehand a 7" means almost nothing without context. "I gave my forehand a 7 against an opponent whose forehand I rated a 9" is a clear coaching signal: the gap is the story.
The performance radar overlays both ratings so the gap is visible at a glance. The wider the green-vs-blue gap on a dimension, the more urgent that gap is for training.
How to rate honestly: anchors
The most common mistake is treating 5 as "average" and inflating from there. The correct calibration:
- 1-2: Worst version of that skill you have ever seen at your club
- 3-4: Below your usual standard for this match
- 5-6: Your normal level today
- 7-8: A genuinely strong execution today
- 9-10: Career-best on this dimension
If you rate your forehand 8 every single match, you have no resolution. The slider becomes a flat line on the radar and tells you nothing. Be willing to use 3s when you played poorly — that is where the learning is.
How to rate your opponent honestly
The temptation when you lose is to rate the opponent inflatedly to soften the loss; the temptation when you win is to rate them low to magnify the win. Both destroy the data.
A practical rule: rate the opponent for what they would be against a stronger field, not against you specifically. If their backhand was bad against you but you suspect it would be solid against an average opponent, give it a 6, not a 3. You are calibrating the opponent's skill, not their performance against you.
What the radar actually tells you
Open the performance report after 10–15 rated matches. The radar shows you and your average opponent across all 15 dimensions. Look for:
Big green-out-of-blue gaps (you rate higher than opponents): These are your weapons. Build the next month of practice around setting up situations that play to these. If your volley is consistently higher rated than your opponents', you should be approaching the net more often, not less.
Big blue-out-of-green gaps (opponents rate higher than you): These are the leaks. The classic amateur leak is "Tactics" and "Awareness" — most players overrate their own technique and underrate their tactical level relative to opponents. If you see this pattern, the next month of training should focus on point construction, not stroke mechanics.
Roughly equal lobes: This is the most useful pattern. You are matched on most dimensions; one or two outliers in either direction are the actionable items.
Common self-rating mistakes
- Rating only after wins. You will skew positive and the radar becomes propaganda. Rate after every match, especially losses.
- Filling in all 15 dimensions every time. You will burn out. The Summary tab (10 dimensions) is enough for 90% of matches. Use Detailed and Psychology for important matches only.
- Forgetting which player is which. The app is consistent: the left column is you, the right is your opponent. Double-check the first time.
- Comparing across formats. A 7 forehand in doubles is not directly comparable to a 7 in singles — the demands are different. The radar lets you filter by format for this reason.
- Re-rating later. Don't. The hot memory is the truthful memory. If you missed rating a match, leave it unrated rather than reconstructing it.
How ratings combine with other charts
Self-ratings are most powerful when paired with:
- Hold/break % — if you rate your serve high but your hold % is low, the rating is wrong or you faced an exceptional returner
- Per-game success chart — if "Stamina" is rated low and your win rate collapses after game 7, the slider confirmed something the data already showed
- AI Insights — the heuristic engine cross-references your rating sliders with match outcomes to find patterns like "you win 80% when you rate your return ≥7"
A 5-minute weekly review
Once a week, open the performance report, set the filter to your last 10 matches, and answer three questions:
1. Which dimension has the *largest* opponent-minus-me gap? That is this week's training focus. 2. Which dimension has the *smallest* gap (or biggest in your favour)? That is your set-up shot in matches this week. 3. Did any rating swing 2+ points compared to the previous 10 matches? That is the signal of either real change or rating drift — investigate.
That is the entire system. Fifteen sliders, twice (you and opponent), honestly, after every match. Twenty matches in, you will have a more accurate map of your tennis than any coach who only watches one session.