Those of you who caught me confusing an ATP player’s ranking with his standing in the “Race to London,” which determines the qualifiers for the World Tour Finals in a few weeks’ time, probably already know how I could make such an obvious error. These days, clicking on the ATP’s rankings tab takes you to the Race table, not the official, rolling, 12-month rankings.
The noteworthy aspect of the ATP’s clever if somewhat confusing decision to suddenly make the Race the default rankings module is that it makes a whole lot of sense. For if you look at the 12-month rankings, you see that Roger Federer enjoys a very comfortable lead of nearly 1,000 points over his closest pursuer, Novak Djokovic (11,805 to 10,970).
But if you look at the Race table, which computes points earned <em>this year</em>, you’ll see that Djokovic has a lead of about 1,600 points (10,410 to 8,895). The disparity exists because that official ranking is still carrying the points Federer earned from October through November of last year. Those points will disappear, of course, as each successive week passes, replaced by whatever he earned in the week in question this year.
The situation illustrates that when it comes to the prestigious year-end ranking, the Race table is a far better measure than the rankings of where the players stand and what their immediate prospects are. And as a bonus, when the year finally ends, the Race and rankings will converge (because of the rollover nature of the rankings). Additionally, the very concept of a “race” is always exciting.
Given the way Djokovic has been playing, his lead in the Race this year looks nearly insurmountable. That means the ideal scenario—in which the year-end championships decide the final ranking for 2012—probably will not come to pass.
The situation reminds me of the battle the ATP lost some years ago, when it sought to emphasize and accord a higher priority to the Race than the rankings on a permanent, year-round basis. I was one of the many pundits and insiders consulted on the subject and I wholeheartedly endorsed the idea that the Race ought to be the centerpiece.
I’ve felt all along that the rankings are really a measure of consistency—a rating, rather than a ranking. They must be maintained in any event, for seeding purposes. So I was disappointed when the ATP’s effort to implement just that reversal of emphasis was an enormous flop, and the rankings once again became the go-to indicator of a player’s status.
That experiment was doomed because the Race can be extremely unreliable until a fairly advanced portion of the year. It wasn’t so long ago (and it was during the period when this issue was on a front burner) that the Australian Open champion was likely to be a Thomas Johansson, or a Petr Korda. That would give a relatively obscure player a lead that would be hard to overcome, with the next major almost a full five months away. It’s a little bit like a marathon foot race. Where the players rank in the first few miles can be meaningless by the middle of the race.
We’re living in different times, though, although these too are sure to pass. It’s been a decade now since Johansson was the last Aussie Open champion whose success would be called surprising. And considering the strength of the Top 4, it’s unlikely that another Johansson will pop up in the near future.
That means a race would be less likely to feature a puzzling or confusing list of names near the top until the mid-point of the year. If you look at the roll of tournament winners in 2012 starting in January, the top men are appropriately represented, and there are are just enough surprising names (Kevin Anderson, Jurgen Melzer, Nicolas Almagro) to make the race approach interesting, instead of chaotic.
And there’s no doubt that a proper race would be more dramatic, especially in times like these. Everyone loves a race, right? Perhaps it was a mistake to demote the Race in favor of the rankings after so brief a trial. Djokovic, the “true” No. 1 thus far in 2012, might agree.