How CaptainAIQ works

It's lineup intelligence for USTA league tennis. Pick your team and your opponent and it builds the strongest lineup court by court with the win odds, scouts any player in the city from real match history, tracks who still needs matches to qualify for State, collects availability, and answers rules and stats questions from the official handbook. Right now it's Memphis, and it's free while we get it right.

USTA Memphis league players (18+, 40+, 55+, combo, mixed, and Tri-Level) with match results from January 1, 2025 onward. Someone who only plays tournaments, or who hasn't played league in that window, won't be in it yet.

Free right now. Captains who join during the pilot will get a founder deal when paid plans arrive.

Our match data starts with the 2025 season (FY2025). Ratings, records, form, and lineup projections are all built from 2025 forward, so results older than that aren't reflected yet.

No. The Power Rating is CaptainAIQ's own strength number, built from real match results, who beat whom and by how much, on a roughly 1000 to 2200 scale. We are independent and not affiliated with the USTA, and we never show an NTRP-style decimal of our own. We also show a tier (Elite, Advanced, Established, Rising) and where you rank within your level.

Because the rating weighs who you played, not just wins and losses. A modest record against strong opponents can outrate a padded one against weak ones. Every player card shows the typical opponent strength so the record makes sense in context.

We froze our predictions of the next year-end levels in July so we can be graded against USTA's official ratings when they publish in December. It's a prediction, not an official number.

Your tier is where you rank inside your own level, and against your own gender, so 3.5 women are ranked among other 3.5 women. Elite is the top 15% of your level, Advanced is the next group (roughly the top 15 to 40%), Established is the middle (about 40 to 70%), and Rising is the bottom third, named for the upside because everyone starts somewhere. Tiers reset at every level, so an Elite 3.5 and an Elite 4.0 both mean "top 15% of that level," not that they'd play evenly. One exception, added 2026-08-03: if a player has played at least 8 matches and has more losses than wins, the card leaves the tier off entirely, along with any "Top %" and any bump prediction. A badge that says Elite over a losing season reads as broken, so we show the Power Rating, the level, the record and the strength of the schedule instead, and let those speak.

On the Scout tab, "Top players by level" ranks one level and gender by CaptainAIQ's own Power Rating and shows the top half of everyone who qualifies. Two rules decide who qualifies. A player needs at least 8 decided matches, so a 3-0 start doesn't sit above a full season of work. And no losing record is allowed in the top 10% of a level: the rating rewards a hard schedule, and a losing record floated to the very top of a public board reads wrong. Below that line a losing record can still appear, marked "tough field." A player card uses the same ranking, so the place on the board and the place on the card always agree. It's our own rating, not an NTRP or USTA ranking, and we're independent and not affiliated with the USTA.

We show a range instead of one exact rank when a player sits in a crowded part of the level, where lots of players are bunched at almost the same strength. When the pack is that tight, a hair of difference moves someone past many people, so a single number would be false precision. A wide range doesn't mean we're unsure about that player, it means she's in a logjam of very similar players. A narrow range means the players around her are more spread out.

Tap "New here? Claim your name" at the top of the Lineup screen, type your name, and pick yourself from the matches (players with the same name are shown with their level so you can tell them apart). You get a one-time code by email, enter it, and this device stays signed in. Your captain (or our team) confirms it's really you. You only verify once, even if you're on several teams, and you never have to hunt for your team or scroll a roster to do it.

Your own matches across every team you play on, your availability buttons, the shared team notepad, and the "You played" history on past matches. Those surfaces are all tied to knowing who you are, which is why claiming your name is the first thing the app asks for.

Yes. All your teams show under My Team and you switch between them. If you captain a team the app hasn't matched you to yet, tap "I'm the captain of this team" and it comes to us to approve.

The captain and any co-captains build and post it; everyone else sets their own availability and views the posted lineup. If no captain is set yet, anyone on the team can build it until one is assigned.

Yes. Open My Team, open the "Roster and co-captains" section, and tap "Add a player to the roster." Type the name, pick the player, and they're on the roster right away, ready to set availability and be used in your lineups. No waiting on us. It adds a player who's already in CaptainAIQ, so a brand-new player who has never played a league match yet won't come up in the search yet. Every other row has a Remove button for a player who has left the team, which takes them off the roster, the availability list, and any lineups, and you can add them back any time. Only the captain and co-captains see these buttons, and your own captain row has no Remove on it, so changing who captains the team is a role change rather than a removal.

Yes, as long as there are courts for everyone. The builder starts from the players who answered In and only borrows a Maybe when there aren't enough In players to fill the card. Even then the In players keep their spots and the Maybes only fill what's left over. It will never bench someone who said they can play in favor of a stronger Maybe.

Yes. Build against a team and CaptainAIQ reads that captain's real scorecards and tells you what they tend to do: which pairs they keep together, whether they stack their strength on the top court or spread it out, and which courts they actually win. That read also drives the projection you play against. Flip the opponent projection to Likely and the app places their players where they actually play, using each player's usual court and their regular partners, then rebuilds your lineup against that. Strongest assumes they field their best on paper instead. Patterns, not promises, but it's the read you used to only get from years of playing them.

Yes. The posted lineup shows a likely opponent under every court, and if you're on the card you get a "Your matchup, court 2" line naming the players you'll probably face. Tap a name to scout them. When we have enough of a team's match history, that projection comes from where those players actually play and who they usually partner with. When we don't, it falls back to ratings and the app tells you so on screen. Either way it's a projection, not their filed card, so treat it as a good guess rather than a promise.

Open the match and tap "Build the lineup" and it builds right there on the match sheet. Every court is a dropdown, the odds move as you change a name, and the same screen carries Publish and Save as draft. A draft is private to you: come back to the match later and it's waiting with your pairs, and one tap posts it to the team when you've decided. Nothing reaches your players until you publish.

No. The same match built twice gives you the same lineup, whether you build it from the match sheet or from the season planner. It only changes when something real changes: who's available, who you've pinned to a court, or whether you're reading the other team as Strongest or Likely. If you see a different answer, something in those inputs moved.

Open the match once it has been played (your schedule keeps played matches under "Earlier matches") and tap the court you were on. It saves as you tap, and tapping a different court changes it. Pick your name at the top of My Team first so the app knows which player to log. Which court a player actually played is the one detail no results feed hands us, so every court logged makes the Likely opponent projection and the scouting sharper for everyone in that flight. After a match you also get a "How'd it go?" email whose button opens that match sheet directly, and while you're there you can tap an opponent's name to leave a quick scouting note.

Yes. Open the match and tap Reschedule, then set the new date, start time, or location. The schedule, the match sheet and the Add-to-Calendar link all follow the new time, and a lineup you have already posted stays exactly as you set it. Captains and co-captains only. It does not email your team on its own, so let them know the way you normally would.

Yes. On the Scout tab, tap "Find a team" and type a captain's last name or the team name. You get that team's roster ranked by our Power Rating, with every name tappable through to the full player card, plus where that team sits in its flight's standings. It all opens on Scout, so you never leave what you were doing.

Yes, two ways. Open My Team and expand "League standings" for your own flight: every team ranked by match record, then by courts won minus courts lost, with your team highlighted. For any other flight, ask the chat, for example "who's in first place in Mixed 18+ 3.0?" Both are computed from the results we import, not official USTA standings, so treat TennisLink as the record of truth for anything that decides a playoff spot.

We show where you sit among the players at your level and gender when you're in the top half of that group. Below the halfway mark we leave the number off on purpose. "Number 214 of 300" isn't information you can do anything with, and it's a lousy thing to hand someone in the middle of a season they're enjoying. You get an honest line about still climbing instead. Your Power Rating, your tier, your record and your Bump Watch are on the card either way, so you can still see exactly how you are doing.

Tap "I need a sub" on the match, pick how many spots you need, and paste the ready-made message into your group chat. The first player to tap "I've got it" claims the spot and everyone else sees it as filled, so two people can't both think they're in. The match shows a "need a sub" chip until it's covered, then the sub's name.

The recommended lineup assumes a likely opponent card, so we also stress test it: your lineup gets re-scored against the different legal ways they could order their courts. If your plan only wins under one guess, the app says so and names a steadier lineup whose worst case is better. You still make the call; it just tells you when you're betting on one read of them.

Yes. Every team has a shared notepad any player on the roster can post to, with names and timestamps, for carpools, court changes, and "running ten late." Captains and co-captains can remove a post. It's separate from the captain's private notepad, which only the captain sees and which feeds the lineup builder.

Yes. "All my matches" puts every team's schedule on one month calendar, color-coded by team, and rings any day where two of your matches collide. Tap a day to see the details, set your availability, or open the opposing roster. You can also subscribe to the feed so your matches appear in your phone's own calendar.

Yes. On the Scout tab, tap "Compare players or doubles pairs." Drop in any two players and you get the head-to-head odds, or drop in four players as two pairs and you get the projected court odds, the same math the lineup board uses. It's the quickest way to settle who really has the edge before you commit a court.

Yes. Open any player on the Scout tab and tap Share at the top of the card. On a phone that opens your usual share sheet, so the card drops into a text or your team's group chat in one tap; on a computer it copies the message to your clipboard instead. What sends is that player's level, Power Rating and record, plus a link that opens the same card for whoever receives it. It's the card any user can already pull up, so nothing private travels with it, and your own private notes are never part of a share.

The play-style tags you tap (hand, serve, style, what a player struggles against, and so on) are pooled anonymously into a shared read, so captains see the group's take but never who said what. The captain's private notepad is only ever seen by that captain. The team notepad is the opposite on purpose: it's shared, and posts there show your name to the rest of your team.

Public match results. We compute our own ratings from those facts. We do not use anyone else's rating system.

Yes. Reach out through "Send the developers a note" in the app and we'll take care of it.