10,000 hours is the standard to 'master' something. Assuming you are a grinder (for pvp) you will begin to amass a large chunk of hours towards pvp.
everyone essentially starts out the same, and begins the grind (for example, at full recruit) if you win more, you get gear faster, and therefore are rewarded for your grind, by not having to grind at a lower level anymore.
if you lose a lot, you are still rewarded, tho not as much, and eventually you as well will not have to grind at the lower level anymore.
So the gain is constant, as is the increase in gear and skill.
guess what? someone just coming into the pvp scene, starting at the low level grind (lets say, full recruit) will have to grind just as much as the people before them, until they too, are rewarded with gear, and increased skill
all in all, the more you play, the better you will become, and you will get rewarded for this, because honestly, if you put a larger number of hours into something, you should by any means be better than someone who hasn't.
If that someone is better than you, then the difference is your gear, which is your reward for investing the time, and they will eventually scale up to meet you / beat you.
TL : DR the gear does not make the player