It's All About the Points

Aug. 25th 2008

ATP Rankings

1 Rafael Nadal 6700
2 Roger Federer 5930
3 Novak Djokovic 5105
4 David Ferrer 2865
5 Nikolay Davydenko 2700
6 Andy Murray 2415
7 David Nalbandian 1975
8 Andy Roddick 1845
9 James Blake 1725
10 Stanislas Wawrinka 1670

WTA Rankings
1 Ana Ivanovic 3612
2 Jelena Jankovic 3515
3 Serena Williams 3341
4 Svetlana Kuznetsova 3181
5 Maria Sharapova 3131
6 Elena Dementieva 3070
7 Dinara Safina 3047
8 Venus Williams 2586
9 Anna Chakvetadze 2230
10 Vera Zvonareva 2117

In Professional Tennis, the term "But what have you done lately" truly applies to their life on the Tour. Points are not carried over in Pro-Tennis. Even if you won the Grand Slam like Steffi Graf did in 1988, you start off January 1st with zero points and your battle begins once again. The point system for the ATP & WTA is nothing less than confusing for even those who put it together. I've always found it amusing to listen to one person try to explain the system and then mid-way you can see them stop for a moment trying to make sure they have it right.

You can't make a blanket statement like, the winner of the US Open gets 1,000 points and feel you finally understand but there is one concept that will make understanding the point system a little easier.

You may read at times that the Defending Champion winning a Slam event gets no points and that's not accurate. What they are trying to illustrate is, if you won the US Open last year, you received basically 1,000 points for that win but as of Jan 1st, those points are removed. So you don't slide into the next year with a comfortable 1,000 points in your pocket. But if you defend that win you will still get your 1,000 pts.

Determining who ends the year at #1 has much to do with what you've done all year. Roger Federer started 2008 as the #1 Player in the World however this is the 1st year thus far he hasn't won a Slam Title. By him losing to Nadal in the French & Wimbledon allowed Nadal the chance of over-taking him in the rankings. By Nadal winning one of the US Open Series events previous to the US Open and by Federer losing early in that series, is what gave Nadal the lead. Now it's obvious if Nadal wins the US Open, he is solidly the #1 Player for this year. But if Nadal should lose prior to the Qtrs and Federer should go on to win the event once again, would that put Federer back on top again ?

You tell me ...