Robert1 said:
Samn, I heard about this thing with points being halved. On one hand it makes senses, giving more importance to a players current form, but then again, at the end of the year, the French Open counts have as much as the US Open, doesn't make sense.
We once had a discussion about the pros and cons of the diminishing return ranking system on rst, and it seemed clear that the top players were the ones really affected by this system. For instance, a lower ranked player could replace her Tier IV event points from January by playing another Tier IV event in October, whereas a Navratilova/Evert who won the Australian Open in January would have her points halved in the second half of the year, and would have no chance to regain those points after the US Open.
Here's an interesting article on that ranking system from the April 1986 issue of TENNIS -- someone once posted it on rst, and I find it a good read. I find the situation with Tracy Austin particularly hilarious
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"How the Pros Play the Computer Ranking Game"
by Alexander McNab and Mark Preston
On Sunday, August 11, 1985, John McEnroe, the world's No. 1 player
according to the weekly Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) computer
rankings, defeated No. 2-ranked Ivan Lendl in the final of the Volvo
International in Stratton, VT. Seven days later, McEnroe again defeated
Lendl, in the final of the Canadian Open in Toronto.
Yet when the new ATP/Hewlett-Packard computer ranking printout was
released the next day, Lendl - despite his back-to-back losses - had moved
in front of McEnroe into the No. 1 spot. One week after that, McEnroe was
back on top, although neither he nor Lendl had played during the intervening
seven days. The strange fluctuation left tennis fans around the globe
scratching their heads in confusion.
On Monday September 30, 1985 in Ft. Lauderdale FL, Gigi Fernandez
dropped her first-round match at the Lynda Carter/Maybelline Classic to
Niurka Sodupe. It was Fernandez' sixth first round loss in a row. But
disappointment and frustration became confused amazement for Fernandez the next day. When she scanned the newly updated bi-weekly Women's Tennis Association (WTA)/Hewlett Packard computer rankings , she found she climbed five spots, from No. 36 to No. 31, despite her succession of first round defeats.
Yes, the pro computer rankings can be confusing, both to the public
and to the players.But they undeniably are the central nervous system of the
pro tennis circuits, the determining force in how a player shapes his or her
career choices and goals. Says the ATP's Ron Bookman about a player's
computer ranking: "It is the single most imnportant thing determining what a
pro does with his professional career."
Why is a player's computer ranking so important? It governs where he
or she can play. Both the men's and women's computer rankings are first and
foremost a method of establishing a player's eligibility for entering a
tournament. Player entries are decided on merit - where a player stands in
the rankings. If you are ranked No. 39, and the cutoff to fill a 32-player
draw is No. 48, you don't work that week.
An equitable data-based tournament entry system is an improvement on
the haphazard procedures that existed before the modern professional era
began. Mike Davies, the ATP's executive director and a competitor on the old
amatuer circuit of the 1950's and early 1960's, says, "In my day, a lot of
players got into events on how well they wrote thank-you letters and how
well they entertained the tournament director."
The computer rankings also determine whether a player gets seeded.
Brad Gilbert was ranked No. 19 on the men's computer going into the 1985
U.S. Open. In the third round, he faced No. 11 seed Stefan Edberg and lost.
"I would have been the next to be seeded, " he says, "If you're not seeded,
anything can happen. You can get bad draws."
Beyond that, the pros pay a lot of attention to how the rankings
rate them against their peers. "You live and die by your ranking," says Kim
Shaefer, who was ranked No. 59 on the WTA computer at the end of 1985. "When people meet you, the first thing out of them is 'What's your ranking?' Not, 'Hi, how are you?'... When I was 24 in the world, that was great. Once I dropped past 50, I was embarrassed. When I was around 90, I
wouldn't dare tell anybody."
In particular, players put a lot of stock in where they finish the
computer standings at year's end. "It's really the yardstick by which the
players measure themselves," says ATP president Matt Doyle, who finished
1985 ranked No. 231.
Lendl, the man who finished No. 1 in 1985, agrees: "I've been No. 1
in the rankings before for a certain time, but to be No. 1 at the end of the
year, I've never had that until now. That, to me, is important."
Other players aren't as caught up in the numbers game. Take No.
4-ranked Jimmy Connors, for instance: "Ranked No. 4 on the computer - big
deal. If I've won eight tournaments, and Wimbledon or the U.S. Open happened to be one of them, you can rank me 28 on the computer and I don't care."
In fact, great matches or great tournaments may live with a player
long after he's crested on the computer. Trey Waltke was once ranked in the
Top 40 in the world. But he says, "A big victory overshadows the computer,
because that's what we all live for, those types of performances where you
can say for the rest of your life 'I beat McEnroe, I beat Connors.'" And
Waltke can say just that. He beat McEnroe twice, and Connors once, before
retiring from the tour in 1984.
Yet Waltke doesn't underestimate the importance of the computer
rankings to an active player: "The ultimate goal for each player is to
achieve the highest ranking possible because it helps everything - it helps
you get into tournaments, it helps your confidence, and it helps you get
endorsements."
Indeed a player's computer ranking can control his commercial
opportunities in much the same way it controls his competitive
opportunities. With a high ranking come high dollars in racquet, shoe,
clothing and other endorsement contracts, not to mention in exhibition fees
and in the underground sector of the tennis economy - illegal appearance
guarantees. It's no wonder then, that many players on both the men's and
women's tours study the rankings with great zeal. "Much like Pete Rose knows
his batting average, guys know their point average and where they stand in
the rankings," Doyle says.
Because of the formulas used to determine the rankings, players can
manipulate their rankings advantageously. Although they are reluctant to
admit it, many pros play the computer game as aggressively as they play the
game on court. But to do that, they must first understand how the computer
rankings work.
Both the men's and women's rankings operate on a running 12-month
cycle during which players amass points according to their performances at
each of the year's events. They earn two types of points: round (or
tournament) points, which increase with each round they advance in the draw, and bonus points, which are determined by the rankings of the players they defeat.
The ATP and WTA categorize tournaments in order to distinguish
between winning a round at Wimbledon and winning a round at Walla Walla.
The ATP weighs an event's worth with a star system, which reflects
both the amount of prize money and the size of the draw. Simply put, the
more stars, the more points offered at the event. At present, the system
ranges from small one-star events (which give the winner 20 round points),
to 28-star blockbusters, such as the U.S. Open, with it's 128-player draw
and $1,250,000 in prize money (from which Lendl, last years champion, came
away with a cool 290-round points plus 89 bonus points).
An important aspect of the ATP system is that only results from
events with minimum draws of 32 players and minimum prize money amounts of $25,000 are included. Thus, performances in the Grand Prix Masters, the WCT Finals, the Davis Cup, and the World Cup all are not refllected in a
player's computer ranking. Despite many attempts to alter the formula to
include those events, ATP leaders say it cannot be done without compromising the fairness of the basic rules and the entry-by-meit philosophy of the computer ranking system.
The WTA divides tournaments into 10 categories, but considers the
type of event more heavily than the prize money offered. Category 1 events
are $10,000 satellite tournaments at which the winner earns one point.At the
high end of the scale are the Grand Slam events - category 10 tournaments -
which award 300 round points to the winner. All the Grand Slams carry the
same amount of points for the women, whether they offer $5000,000 or
$5,000,000 in prize money.
"Our point structure is designed to reflect the strength of a
tournament more," says James Broder, the WTA's director of Management
Information Systems. "Our primary events, like the 'Virginia Slims Of'
tournaments, get the strongest fields since the WTA is committed to produce
a number of top players for these events. What we want to do is create a
distinction between primary and nonprimary events. So a $250,000 nonprimary
event like the Queens Grand Prix, for instance, has the same point structure
as a $150,000 primary event like the Virgina Slims of Dallas."
In addition to round points, a win over any of the top 150 men or
top 300 women gives the victor various amounts of bonus points.Approximately 30% of a player's total points are bonus points, which makes for added incentive when facing a highly ranked opponent.
There's a price, so to speak, on everybody's head. Says Ricky Meyer,
a former pro who ranked No. 80 on the computer a few years ago: "(You know) what the points are for each player. The top guys are just walking bonus points."
Robin White echoes those sentiments on the women's side: "The bonus
points are where ou really can pick up a lot. Everybody is going to get the
same (round points) for making the second round. But say you beat Martina
(Navratilova) in the first round; that's worth 50 points. You can win some
of the smaller tournaments and not get that much."
A player's ranking, which is expressed in terms of a point average,
is obtained by adding the total number of round points and bonus points
earned during the previous 52-week period, and dividing that total by the
number of tournaments he's played. The minimum divisor is 12. The result is
a moving average; that is, as the most current results are added on, the
oldest results drop off. A player's most recent 52 weeks of results are
always the data base for his ranking.
The men update their rankings weekly, not every two weeks as the
women do, because of the greater number of events they have going on around the globe in any given week. In addition, both the men and women issue doubles rankings at their respective weekly and bi-weekly intervals.
Because points stay on the computer for a year, a player is
constantly put in the position of having to defend his points of 12 months
earlier by equalling or surpassing his performance in any event. A young
player can come out on the tour, amass a lot of points by playing well, and
end up with a high ranking. The test of his or her staying power comes
during the second year when he must do as well to defend those points. Aaron Krickstein, for example, reached No. 7 on the men's computer in 1984, his first full year on the tour. But he did not defend many of those points in
1985. The result: he ended 1985 ranked No. 30.
The worst kind of result for a player is a first-match loss (in the
first round, or after a first-round bye). The player wins only one computer
point, but has another tournament added to his divisor. When a player has a
notorious "one-pointer" on his record, it can profoundly affect what he
decides to do a year later when the same tournament rolls around again.
Lendl's decision to defend his one-pointer at last year's Canadian
Open proved instrumental in his overtaking McEnroe for the top spot on the
computer. Here's why.
McEnroe had won the event in 1984, while Lendl had lost his first
match that year to Francisco Gonzalez, earning one point. Going into the
1985 event, McEnroe was No. 1 with a 150.36 average and 15 tournaments
played., while Lendl had 147.92 average and 14 tournaments played. So
McEnroe could really gain nothing at Toronto since the best he could do was
win again and only equal what he'd done the year before. But Lendl had
nothing to lose because, even if he won only one match, he'd have bettered
his 1984 showing.
McEnroe did indeed win again, but Lendl's runner-up showing was
worth 90 round points, quite a bit better than the single point he'd earned
in 1984. Those 90 points, plus the bonus points he earned en route to the
final, fattened Lendl's average to 158.54, good enough to take over the top
spot.
"Players view one-pointers as a chance to come back and do really
well," says Meyer. "They figure, 'If I win a round, I'm going to move up.'"
True. Still, some players opt not to return to improve on a
one-pointer, which is what happened the week following last year's Canadian
Open.
Neither McEnroe or Lendl played that week's event, the ATP
Championships in Cincinnati. Lendl's point average remained at 158.54 with
14 tournaments. But McEnroe, who had lost in the first round there in 1984
to Vijay Amritraj, helped his point average by choosing not to play. He
dropped not only the previous year's one-pointer, but one tournament divisor
as well. Now his point total was being divided by 14 rather than 15 and, as
a result, his average climbed to 161.85 - which put him back at No. 1. Of
course after the US Open two weeks later, Lendl - who defeated McEnroe in
the final - took over No. 1 for the rest of the year.
A dropped tournament divisor was also the reason behind Fernandez'
puzzling five-spot jump last September, although it was not something she'd
planned. Due to a scheduling change, the Maybelline event was held a week
later in 1985 than it had been the previous year. Fernandez, who had played
both the Virginia Slims of New Orleans and Maybelline in the two-week
ranking period the year before, could only replace the New Orleans event
during the parallel ranking period in 1985. Hence, her divisor was reduced
from 19 to 18, and her average rose to 17.375, moving her up to No. 31.
To play or not to play, that is the question. "There are some guys,"
Gilbert observes, " who, if they have three one-pointers in a row from last
year, and they 've had good success recently, will just let them drop off
and let their rankings move up. They won't play."
In order to encourage players to play more than the minimum 12
events, and to compete in the smaller prize money events that are always
calling out for support from the bigger stars, the ATP has a helpful divisor
rule. When a player has competed in a minimum of 14 tournaments, and at
least one of them is a smaller event, his divisor is reduced one tournament,
to 13. At 19 tournaments, the divisor is reduced by 2 to 17, if two of the
tournaments are small. At 23, the divisor drops to 20, and at 27, to 23,
again with the proviso that the decrease in the divisor reflects the number
of smaller tournaments the man has played.
The WTA encourages it's top two drawing cards, Navratilova and Chris
Evert Lloyd, to play in lesser-money events with a rule that stipulates they
are guaranteed their averages upon winning since there is the possibility
that the total points they'd receive in a $150,000 event would not equal
their high averages.
"The WTA figures they won't want to play these events if they have
to take a lower amount of points," explains Mike Estep, perhaps best known
as Navratilova's coach, but also an architect of the ATP's computer system.
"That's a valid point but it's not a way to answer the problem because
somebody else who wins the tournament won't even get close to Martina's
average." Navratilova agrees: "Although it protects me, I don't think it's
right. If the top players are guaranteed their averages, how can the other
players gain any ground?"
The WTA may have a problem this year getting it's members to play
more than the minimum divisor of 12 tournaments because of the elimination
of the "diminishing return" ranking system. That system discounted a
player's points by 50% six months after they'd come on the computer. It
encouraged a player to go out and play to keep her average high. But the
system was scrapped because many of the top players, spearheaded by
Navratilova, felt it was especially injurious to them.
"What the diminishing return was doing was just penalizing those
players who played well," says Navratilova. "It didn't penalize you if you'd
done poorly. If you lose in the first round and get one point, and six
months later it's cut to half a point, that's not going to drastically
change your average. "But if you're winning tournaments, getting 200 points,
and in six months it's cut to 100, that makes a big difference. It's not
right for your average to go down because the value of a tournament you won got cut in half."
But is that the concensus of most women players? Broder thinks not:
"We had taken a poll prior to the meeting at which the decision was made to
elinminate the diminshing return and the poll revealed that more than half
the players liked the diminshing return as it was. And of those who didn't,
half still liked the idea of the system in theory. But the women's game is
much more under the influence of the top players than the men's game and, in
this case, they pretty much overruled or just didn't take into account what
the others had to say.
"The top players didn't like the diminshing return because it gave
more people a chance, and by giving more people a chance, it put the necks
of the top players on the line.
"The system (without diminshing returns) becomes stagnant because
players can protect their rankings by not playing. It can be embarrassing.
In the previous system with no diminshing return, 10 months after she quit
playing, Tracy Austin was still at No. 4."
Adds White: "All you really have to do now is win - or at least do
well in - one or two events, preferably Grand Slams, and you'll stay up
there all year."
Perhaps because of the seeming division in the ranks, the women seem
both less happy and more apathetic toward their system than the men. Shaefer offers two possible reasons: "I think one of the major problems among the women is the gap in age. A lot of 17-year-olds think 'If I'm (ranked) 20 today and 25 tomorrow, that's fine.' It's not that big a deal with them. Also, in our business people tend to treat you by your ranking. Maybe you protect yourself by being lackadasical about it."
Still the majority of players on both tours do care a lot about
their rankings. And because of the 12-month basis of the computer ranking
systems, pros can play games with the computer to maximize their ranking
potential. The way they do it, obviously, is by carefully selecting which
tournaments they enter. And the first criterion most players use to make
that decision is the court surface.
For example, Kevin Curren finished 1985 ranked No. 10 after climbing
to a high of No. 5 during the season. He played in only 14 events and all of
them were on fast courts - grass, indoor, or hard.
"I think (playing the computer) limits you as a player, that's for
sure," says Mats Wilander. "I do it myself a little bit. I love to play on
clay, so I try to play all the clay court events. I know it's good for my
ranking, but also it's just that I enjoy it more."
Taking advantage of the divisor system is another way of playing the
computer. Fernandez says that's what Lloyd does: "Chris plays mostly high
money events, which have more points, and she plays fewer events, which
keeps her divisor low." The result: a ranking that virtually never drops
below No. 2. Of course, that high ranking also indicates a remarkable record
of quality performances in those big-money events.
Kim Steinmetz, No. 198 on the WTA computer at 1985's end, says the
divisor can make things especially tough for lower-ranked players, even if
they have one exceptionally good tournament: "Players who have more than 20 tournaments (on the computer) who are struggling, are going to find it hard to move up because their divisor is so high. It's like getting grades in
school. If all along you've got a C average, and suddenly you get an A, it's
not going to do much for the C average. It's nice to get the A, but it
doesn't make you an A student."
If a really active player begins to do well week after week on the
men's tour, though, he can use the divisor rule to assist him in moving up
the ladder. Gilbert is one of the busiest players on the men's tour. By
playing in enough smaller-money tournaments, he takes full advantage of the
divisor rule. Nevertheless, Gilbert's ranking could be even higher than it
is if he performed better in big-money tournaments, as Lloyd does.
In Spetember 1985, Gilbert won more points (71) in one $100,000
tournament in Stuttgart, West Germany, than he did in all four of the 1985
Grand Slams plus the lucrative Lipton International Players Championships
(56). That's because he had one-point first-round losses at both Wimbledon
and the French Open, and didn't go beyond the third round in any of the big
five. But at Stuttgart he reached the final and earned a healthy 26 bonus
points along the way. For Gilbert to improve his ranking in 1986, he has to
not only defend all the points he accrued last season, but also "do well in
the majors," he says. He seems on the right track after winning the U.S.
Indoor title in February.
Moving up in the rankings becomes increasingly difficult the higher
a player goes in the standings. "If you're ranked in the 100s and you win a
round in the main draw of an event like (the $150,000 Maybelline
tournament), you can move up 20 to 25 spots," says White, whose ranking was No. 41 during that event last autumn. "If I win one round, I may move up two or three spots. The higher you get the harder it is to get higher."
Paul Annacone got a rude demonstration of that last September. "I
won Los Angeles, and I went from 27 to 20," he recalls. "I wasn't really
paying attention, and I thought 'That can't be right. I've got to be 17 or
15 or something like that.'"
The hardest place to move up, of course, is at the top. Navratilova
and Lloyd form an untouchable twosome atop the women's rankings. To catch
and surpass them, says Fernandez, "You'd have to win every tournament, and
you'd have to beat them consistently in every tournament. You couldn't just
go out and win every tournament they're not playing. You won't get the bonus points that you need. You have to beat them especially in the Grand Slams."
The more matches a player wins, the higher his ranking climbs, the
gretaer his prize money total grows, and the more money he stands to make
off the court. Almost all endorsement contracts for racquets, shoes, and
clothing contain bonuses that are tied into the player's computer ranking.
So it's not surprising that several equipment companies pay the ATP $600 a
year for a subscription to the weekly computer ranking printouts, just so
they can keep track of their male players.
As any smart career person does, the players want to make the most
of their opportunities. Doyle advises players who earn a high ranking "to
take advantage of it by playing in a lot of big-money tournaments and by
signing some contracts, hopefully three-year deals."
When a commercially successful player's computer ranking starts to fall,
the endorsement opportuniteis quickly disappear. That can have a profound
effect on a player's psyche. "I've seen it happen to some good friends,"
says Shaefer. "They reach the top 20, then they slide to the 50s or 60s and
once that happens it's like the plague.Suddently the managers stop calling
them. The endorsements stop. It's a tough thing to get through. I've seen
young girls who have gotten dropped from a client list and they're
devastated. Some recover, others can't."
That's why some players resort to the sort of devices that one
highly ranked pro reportedly did. He had a slew of poor tournament results
from the end of the preceding year on his 12-month record as the final
months of the current year approached. He also had a contract coming up for
renewal at the end of the year. If his ranking stayed above a certain point,
he'd keep the contract. So rather than going out and playing, and trying to
improve on his lousy performances of a year earlier, he didn't play at all.
The base points dropped off his computer record, his ranking stayed up, and
his contract was renewed.
When told the story, Waltke said: "Morally, the guy probably should
have played those months. But he's trying to make a living so I can't fault
him for that." Adds pro Bob Green: "If a guy is ranked 11th, and he has some
one-pointers coming up, it's going to be excpected (that he won't play). It
could trigger a $25,000 bonus for making the top 10."
And that's the ultimate dilemma posed for a pro by the computer
ranking system.. Should he play lots of tournaments on all the different
surfaces to become as well-rounded a player as possible? Or should he play
in only carefully selected tournaments on specific surfaces, and sit on the
sidelines when it's advantageous, in order to achieve as high a ranking as
possible for the sake of status and commercial gain?
It's strictly a matter of personal choice, to be sure. But the
sport's greatest competitor, Connors, sees the issue as a clear-cut one. To
him, it's the game on the court that matters, not the one in the computer.
"Letting the computer dictate what you do and where you play - that's bad...
The object of the game is to play... Not playing defeats the purpose. If you
don't play just to say you're No. 10 on the computer, then go do something
else."
