In the corridors of power at the O2 Arena—home of the approaching ATP World Tour Finals—and hotels in central London, there is chatter going on about changing the method of calculating the men's rankings, going from a one-year/12-month cycle of results to a two-year/24-month cycle.
Rafael Nadal, along with other top players, is a strong advocate of changing the rankings, while Roger Federer is not at all anxious to break with the traditional way that things are done, an impeccable source indicated.
The matter came to light during this year’s French Open when Nadal, then the world No. 1, championed the idea of expanding the results period used to determine the rankings as a way to help prolong the careers of the top players. It would tie in with the way professional golf established its rankings, which is over a two-year period, with the most recent year’s worth of results weighed more highly than the preceding year’s.
Nadal was quoted in a wire story last May as saying, “to have a longer career (the solution) is to have two years of ranking. Not only one year.” He was partly relating that to Juan Martin del Potro, who was on a comeback after missing most of 2010 with a wrist injury that required surgery, and was facing then-world No. 2 Novak Djokovic in the third round of Roland Garros. As early-round opponents go, it was an incredibly tough ask, even for the 2009 U.S. Open champ. “(With a two-year rolling ranking system) if you stop being No. 5 of the world, you’re not gonna be No. 6 when you come back, but maybe you’re gonna be No. 14, 15,” Nadal suggested. “But with the way the ranking is done today, that's not happening. If you have an injury for three months, five months, you're done.”
The ATP computer rankings were introduced in 1973. They were a total game-changing innovation—arguably greater than anything that has happened in tennis since that time. Instead of individuals, panels, or interest groups determining rankings, entry into and seeding at tournaments, there was an objective measure related solely to on-court results. They have functioned incredibly well and few changes have been made to the method behind the rankings, issued every Monday by the ATP.
It would be wrong to change to a two-year system, and here is a summary of the reasons why:
1. Tennis should be a meritocracy, where good results are rewarded and advancement is possible based on performance. By using a two-year sample size, players will stay at the top longer once they have been established, making it more difficult to other players to progress up through the ranks. With the introduction of the Masters 1000 tournaments in 2009, and points also doubled to give Grand Slam winners 2000, there was a downgrading of points for many other players, including significant reductions at the Challenger- and Futures-level tournaments.
That has already made it much more difficult to rise up the rankings, and a two-year ranking cycle would create a further obstacle.
2. Does tennis really want to be like golf, which uses a two-year cycle for its Official World Golf Ranking, after the recent case of Tiger Woods? After his personal debacle began at the end of 2009, Woods held on to his No. 1 ranking for almost the entire 2010 season, despite not playing for several months and then going winless when he did.
It seemed ludicrous that Woods was still in the top spot nearly a year after his last title, but he had back-loaded points in the 24-month cycle from what he had done the previous year. He was finally succeeded by Lee Westwood in November 2010. Incidentally, Woods is No. 50 at the moment. “He stayed No. 1 because of what he had done some time ago,” noted Canadian golf writer Lorne Rubenstein of the Globe and Mail. “He was there until what he'd done two years ago started to slip away.”
3. The argument about a two-year cycle helping prevent injuries because players don’t have to play as much to maintain their rankings ignores the fact that there is a rule in place—a protected ranking—to allow players who miss at least six months to return with special exemptions for nine tournaments or nine months.
A more proper way to day with this complaint would be to revamp the crowded yearly calendar.
4. All tennis records related to rankings—including Pete Sampras’ total of 286 weeks at No. 1—have been achieved under a one-year ranking cycle. If an additional 12 months are added to the rankings formula, then it introduces a new criterion that significantly affects the record books.
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The top players already receive benefits for the their high rankings, including being seeded, given byes and allowed certain written and unwritten privileges in matters such as when and where they play their matches at tournaments. Changing the one-year cycle to a two-year cycle would fundamentally alter the upward mobility of the lower-ranked players because the top strata would be more entrenched over a longer period.
With the notable exception of the ATP’s ill-conceived attempt to impose a year-to-date Race over the traditional Rankings, circa 2000, the rankings have been remarkably free of criticism and served the sport well as a measurement of performance. There is no need to change them. And even if a serious attempt is made to introduce a two-year cycle, it is highly unlikely it would gain the support of the mid- and lower-ranked players. Why would they support a system that basically makes things more comfortable for those at the top and harder for players further down and aspiring to move up?
With Nadal and Federer on opposite sides of this issue, it might add just a little extra intensity to their round-robin match next week at the World Tour Finals.
Tom Tebbutt is a frequent contributor to TENNIS.com.