[Volcana]

At least at the top of the tour. This is given that there IS a draw.

01 Azarenka
02 Sharapova

03 Radwanska
04 Williams

05 Kvitova
06 Kerber
07 Errani
08 Li

09 Stosur
10 Bartoli
11 Wozniacki
12 Ivanovic
13 Cibulkova
14 Kirilenko
15 Vinci
16 Kanepi

So Stosur draws a top eight opponent in the round of 16, while Li draws an opponent from 9-16. Is that wildly unfair? No. Is there anybody in 9-16 who demonstrably ought to be 1-8. No.

Kvitova gets 1-4 in the QFs, Serena gets 5-8. Unfair? No. Should anybody 5-8 be 1-4? Not demonstrably.

The only beneficiary of anything Agnieszka Radwanska, because with these seeds, she'll never play Serena until the final. But that's relatively trivial, since she'd get one of this year's other slam winners in the semis anyway. If I remember accurately, there was actually a couple weeks in the last two years where ALL the holders of slam titles were outside the four. Right now, all the slam title holders are in the top four, and all the finalists are in the top eight.

So, all in all, much as a lot of us diss the ranking system, right now it's doing it's primary job correctly. Seeding tournaments fairly.

[lenas warriors]

Come the next grand slam itll likely be Vika and Serena number one and two so for once she will be guaranteed to avoid her!

[charmedRic]

Originally Posted by Volcana

If I remember accurately, there was actually a couple weeks in the last two years where ALL the holders of slam titles were outside the four. Right now, all the slam title holders are in the top four, and all the finalists are in the top eight.

Good Point.

[stromatolite]

If people expect the rankings to reflect who are the best players there will always be inconsistencies from time to time. That isn't due to any real fault in the ranking system, but rather to odd patterns of results, for example an imbalance between performance in slams and in other tournaments, top players missing a substantial part of the season, etc.

There have been any number of "remedies" proposed by different posters on this forum, most of which comprised giving even more weight to slams than they already have. That would have been bad for the tour, because it would have put a ridiculous amount of weight on a tiny number of tournaments, which basically would make it impossible for the smaller tournaments to attract any players of note. And as we now see, it was completely unnecessary. As soon as the players who are successful in slams start pulling their weight outside the slams (or if you like, the other way around) it all balances out nicely.

[Rolling-Thunder]

Once Radwanzka is out of the top 4 and much further down the top 10, then it will better reflect reality. She is way over ranked. That should change either by the end of the year or in January.

What are the points the top 10 players are defending between now and the end of the year?

[stromatolite]

^The race pretty well matches the rankings, so we shouldn't see many changes based on players defending points. Even though she's defending a lot, Aga would need to have a pretty terrible Asian swing to drop out of the top 4. She deserves to be there atm based on her results this year.

[coolfish1103]

Kanepi should be way higher than this if she wasn't injured. She can give some of the Top 8 troubles if she played.

[miffedmax]

I suspected this would be the case. Historically, the ranking system has been pretty accurate and fair, and in general both tours have been pretty good about tweaking it as needed to reflect the changes in the game.

Remember, a lot of the chaos of recent years was caused by the sudden retirement of Justine, coupled with injuries to Martha and Serena and churn in Generation Suck to determine who among them was legit and who were the merely very good--and that's not entirely resolved yet.

[Olórin]

Originally Posted by miffedmax

I suspected this would be the case. Historically, the ranking system has been pretty accurate and fair, and in general both tours have been pretty good about tweaking it as needed to reflect the changes in the game.

Remember, a lot of the chaos of recent years was caused by the 1.sudden retirement of Justine, 2.coupled with injuries to Martha and Serena and churn in Generation Suck to determine who among them was legit and who were the merely very good--and that's not entirely resolved yet.

Agreed.
1. created the Ivanovic and Jankovic problem in 2008, along with Serena's failure to capitalise on her USO win.
2. And this accounts for a lot of Safina's and Wozniacki's weeks at number one. If Serena hadn't got injured in Miami 2009 and flamed out for the entire clay season she would have accumulated enough points to keep/take back the #1 ranking much sooner. Same in 2010, if she had been able to play after Wimbledon she probably would have held onto the ranking and been YE#1. 2011 was obviously a huge transition year.

This is no-one's fault. The injuries happened as a matter of fact, and we had the number ones we did. The ATP is "lucky" to have someone as injury free as Federer to be able to pick up the #1 ranking whenever Nadal or Djokovic drop it.

[pov]

Originally Posted by Volcana

So, all in all, much as a lot of us diss the ranking system, right now it's doing it's primary job correctly. Seeding tournaments fairly.

The ranking system is and has been fine. What people should diss is their habit of wanting things to fit with their personal opinions.

[dencod16]

I don't think Masha is much up for discussion for how the world no. 1 went, because she isn;t consistent enough in a long period to hold her ranking. I think the all-time low even though im a Serena fan was when Serena was world no. 1 when she has only played 8 tournaments in 52 weeks to Wozniacki's 24-26. And it took her not playing 3-4 months for someone to take the ranking from her.

[sweetadri06]

Originally Posted by Rolling-Thunder

Once Radwanzka is out of the top 4 and much further down the top 10, then it will better reflect reality. She is way over ranked. That should change either by the end of the year or in January.

What are the points the top 10 players are defending between now and the end of the year?

Aga should be top 4, kvitova and na aren't doing enough to pull ahead of her. Now that might change after Asian swing but for the moment everyone deserves to be where they are ranked.

[Roookie]

I don'tcare what Serena haters say. To me she is the real number 3.

Aga fans :

[Roookie]

I don'tcare what Serena haters say. To me she is the real number 3.

Aga fans

[Gangstress]

Yes they look extremely fair atm. The only small gripe I have is Serena only being number 4, but I'm sure she'll get to number 2 in no time.