I need to be educated on the points system in tennis s'il vous plait

Question

could someone be so kind as to explain the basics of the ranking system in tennis which is based on a points system? i hear people talking about how players have to defend points and gain points to increase their ranking but i don't understand any of it?

Answer 1

The ranking is basically a ranking of your performance of all tournaments played in the past 52 weeks. You gain or lose points when you do better or worse at the same tournament the last year. For example, Federer lost a whole lost of points by being knocked out in Toronto (last week's tournament) because he was the champion there last year and this year he lost in the first round.

This year it's a little complicated because the Beijing Olympics caused some tournaments to be moved around in the calendar. That's why you hear Nadal won't actually become number one officially until later in August.

Here is some important information from the ATP:

The South African Airways ATP Ranking is based on calculating, for each player, his total points from the 13 'mandatory' events - the four Grand Slams and the nine ATP Masters Series tournaments - and his best five results from all eligible International Series tournaments from the past 52 weeks. The Tennis Masters Cup counts as an additional 19th tournament for players who qualify for the circuit finale.

For each 'mandatory' event a player is not accepted he may count one extra International Series event towards his South African Airways ATP Ranking.

Answer 2

The WTA – ranking or scoring is based on the tournaments played (Round points) and the opponents which are played (Quality points).

The scoring system runs for a whole year but only the 17 highest ranked tournaments are important. It also determines whether players are seeded for a particular tournament. (e.g. Justine was 3rd seed at Wimbledon 2003)

Players, who only play 12 or 13 tournaments a year, are only judged for the tournaments played.

The number of points is also stipulated by the category of that specific tournament. There are Grand slams, Tier I , II, III, Tier IV and Tier V tournaments.

Each Monday the ranking scores are readjusted by the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association). When a player starts a tournament, the points she scored at the same tournament the previous year, are subtracted from the current total. This way the player can only score extra points by at least getting through to the same round or do even better than the year before.

The South African Airways ATP Ranking is based on calculating, for each player, his total points from the 13 'mandatory' events - the four Grand Slams and the nine ATP Masters Series tournaments - and his best five results from all eligible International Series tournaments from the past 52 weeks. The Tennis Masters Cup counts as an additional 19th tournament for players who qualify for the circuit finale.

For each 'mandatory' event a player is not accepted he may count one extra International Series event towards his South African Airways ATP Ranking.