Players ranking system of ITTF: Table Tennis News
The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) World Men’s and Women’s rankings along with junior rankings are issued on a monthly basis. The ranking is based on the performance of the players in the ITTF recognised events.
The first ITTF world rankings were published in 1928, two years after the inception of ITTF. The rankings are published for the top player’s men and women. Besides this there are junior rankings, continental rankings, U-21 and U-19 players' rankings.
It was after 1991 that the ranking was issued on the first day of each month.
Currently all the top players in the world rankings are from Asia except a few exceptions like Vladimir Samsonov (Belarus) and Timo Boll currently world number two (Germany) who are non Asians in the top 10 players. On the women's rankings all the
top players are Asians too.
The ITTF has made certain rules to rank the players. Previously the ranking was done annually then bi-annually, but now due to advancement in technology it is done on monthly basis. According to the new official draft in 2011 there is no major change
in the ITTF World Rankings' modus operandi. However, a special consideration will be given on the event's calendar and players' points.
The basic rules for the ITTF World ranking are; there are points for every match which increase or decrease according to the winning and losing of the players and also the ranking of the players. Some events are highly weighted, the ITTF has classified
the events in three different categories, for events like Olympic Games and World Championship a players gains double points, for ITTF Pro Tours the points earned by the player are multiplied by 1.5, the lowest weighted events are the Commonwealth
games and the Pan-Am Games.
There is a weighting factor of different events the basic points gained by a player in a certain event is multiplied by a certain factor. The points of different events are multiplied by a three factors 1, 1.5 and 2 the result if comes out to be in
fractions is rounded to avoid complications.
If a higher ranking player loses from a lower ranking player he/she will lose more points than the lower ranking player and average of 10 points are deducted from the loser’s points. Winning from a player who has no rating in the World Ranking gains
no points to the winner.
Bonus points do not play any key role in the Ranking events, Qualifying events and the team championships. The bonus points are valid for 12 months from the date they are gained. Bonus points are gained on four bases, final position of a player in
a knock-out singles event, where knock-out format is not applied. A maximum of 16 players can gain bonus points. Besides these, bonus points are also given to a player who stands third in an event or other important matches in an event but again it depends
on the event ranking.
For new players there are starting points which are calculated according to the events which they have played and the matches which they have won against a world ranking player. The points are re-assessed on every new world ranking, when a new player
reached a limit of five wins or defeats over a world ranking player the starting points become final points.
Players who do not participate in ITTF events for more than 12 months their names are not published in the world ranking, but if such player becomes active they regain their previous points and still can be seeded in the ranking.
The three highest ranked players of an association are considered for team ranking even if any of the player is not included in the World Ranking individual. Team rankings are important for the World Championships of Table Tennis.
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