Design your own ranking system

[jrachiever]

OK, with all the complaints out there about Nadal not being #1 and the rankings sucking, I thought it would be a fun idea to have anyone who wants to present their own superior ranking system. I've read quite a few complaints that seem to recommend changes that would put Nadal at #1 right now, but not necessarily provide a fair and accurate system for the entire field. So when you present your system, try to make it work for everyone.

I think the current system is ok, in that it is transparent and absolute, but could be better. In my perfect world, I'd keep several things the same and add a few other twists.

The jrachiever ranking system:

-Ranking pts are awarded as they are now, but we go back to a best of 13 and not best of 18 system. Don't force top players to play more and risk injury if they don't need the points.

-For each player, for their best 13 events over the previous 52 weeks, only award full ranking pts for the previous two slams and last 5 best other events. For the other 6 tournaments, cut the pts in half. Thus, the rankings better reflect who is playing well now. When the yearly suprise AO finalist craps it up for the remainder of the year, their ranking starts dipping after Wimbledon instead of remaining inflated for a full year before it finally nose dives.

-Add a component for winning % and strength of schedule. I think the current system can provide excessive points for a few deep runs in tournaments and tends to underrate consistent performers. Looking at the rankings last year, Gonzalez had a very pedestrian winning % due to all his first round losses, but it didn't seem to hurt him in the ratings. Guys like Ferrer and Youzhny were very consistent all year long, but would run into Federer or Nadal in the 3rd or 4th rd of a lot of events and couldn't climb as high as they deserved. For both winning % and strength of schedule, I'd suggest adding a sliding multiplier to the ranking pts - thus take the ranking pts and multiply by 1.3 for those with a 100% winning % and sliding down to 1 at 50%, but never go below 1. Same deal for strength of schedule. This would also be a bonus to players who are injured and haven't been able to play all the events but have done very well in those they've entered...they'd get a boost for a higher winning %.

So that's the basics. An improved ranking system for all that works faster and is more accurate.

 

[Supernatural_Serve]

Any point system introduces bias. Hopefully, the bias is in favor of making tennis a better sport for everyone: the players, fans, event promoters, marketers, not simply in the interest of the players.

Your system is contrary to the principle that we want the best players playing as much tennis as possible. This bias is why Davydenko does well. He plays non-stop, and is rewarded for doing so. We don't want to encourage or reward more no-show behavior.

 

[Max G.]

-For each player, for their best 13 events over the previous 52 weeks, only award full ranking pts for the previous two slams and last 5 best other events. For the other 6 tournaments, cut the pts in half. Thus, the rankings better reflect who is playing well now. When the yearly suprise AO finalist craps it up for the remainder of the year, their ranking starts dipping after Wimbledon instead of remaining inflated for a full year before it finally nose dives.

That would result in very skewed rankings. For example, it would result in the hard-court players ALWAYS coming in to the hard-court season (summer, USO, then AUSOpen) without the points for their hard-court results being in their rankings; thus, you'd get nonsensical rankings, with all the claycourters being ranked high during that season, with seedings that make no sense. Vice versa for the claycourt season - the claycourt specialists would come into RG with seedings too low, whereas the Roddicks and Blakes would always come in ranked even higher...

Likewise, it would result in the strange situation where, if a player plays at the exact same level all year round, his ranking goes up and down all the time because the surfaces switch around.

And, of course, it would result in the situation that being the defending champion at a tournament gives you no advantage in the seeding for that tournament. Oops.

 

[akv89]

No need to fix what ain't broke

 

[Deleted member 3771]

The fairest ranking system would include about the same # of clay and hard court(including masters series) tournaments in the schedule/ranking.

 

[akv89]

The fairest ranking system would include about the same # of clay and hard court(including masters series) tournaments in the schedule/ranking.

Why not grass and carpet and indoors as well?

 

[veroniquem]

Any point system introduces bias. Hopefully, the bias is in favor of making tennis a better sport for everyone: the players, fans, event promoters, marketers, not simply in the interest of the players.

Your system is contrary to the principle that we want the best players playing as much tennis as possible. This bias is why Davydenko does well. He plays non-stop, and is rewarded for doing so. We don't want to encourage or reward more no-show behavior.

I totally disagree. We need to encourage the players to play the most important tournaments (MS). In other words, we should choose quality over quantity. I'm not in favor of padding your points by playing a lot of small tournaments with little competition. It seems unfair to me. For the rankings I would massively favor the majors. Passing the first rounds in important tournaments should be rewarded over playing a lot and indiscriminately.

 

[jrachiever]

That would result in very skewed rankings. For example, it would result in the hard-court players ALWAYS coming in to the hard-court season (summer, USO, then AUSOpen) without the points for their hard-court results being in their rankings; thus, you'd get nonsensical rankings, with all the claycourters being ranked high during that season, with seedings that make no sense. Vice versa for the claycourt season - the claycourt specialists would come into RG with seedings too low, whereas the Roddicks and Blakes would always come in ranked even higher...

Likewise, it would result in the strange situation where, if a player plays at the exact same level all year round, his ranking goes up and down all the time because the surfaces switch around.

And, of course, it would result in the situation that being the defending champion at a tournament gives you no advantage in the seeding for that tournament. Oops.

Actually, if you look at Roddick (the typical hard/grass specialist), for the last 6th months, his ranking under my system he would count points from San Jose, Dubai, Miami, Rome, and Queens Club in addition to Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Additional points would be counted at a 50% rate for AO, US Open 07, Washington, Masters Canada, Cincinnati, and the Masters Cups. Ditto any other hard court player. They can still play additional hard court tourneys in the spring US swing if they really suck on clay to offset the points that they won't be getting at the masters events. There are enough tournaments on hard and clay throughout the year that I think the specialist effect is overestimated. If anything it would be easier for the specialists to accentuate points from their favorite surface, which might be a problem in itself.

So no one wants to try to improve the ranking system? Just criticize my half assed first attempt? Come on slackers. You can't think it's that great.

 

[Max G.]

It's not great, but I don't think it needs to be redesigned. Perhaps tweaked so that it doesn't require as many tournaments of the top players, maybe just require 13 tournaments - that would also help deal with some people's complains that consistency matters too much.

Other than that, I think it's fine.

 

[Supernatural_Serve]

Passing the first rounds in important tournaments should be rewarded over playing a lot and indiscriminately.

I respect your opinion, but this seems a little bizarre. So, a guy beats a wild card or a qualifier at a major in the first round, and he should get an extra reward for that. That doesn't make sense to me.

Those little tournaments you are referring to are important to tennis, very important for guys ranked 20-100 looking to move up the ranks by scoring some points, and for the top 20 to possibly win or at least go far and make a move up the ranks too. Some of these events may not be important to the very top players, but to everyone else who loves tennis, they are important. Providing incentives for folks not to show and earn some points, and those little tournaments will collapse, the TV coverage will disappear, the marketing money will too, and so will the fans if some top players don't show.

Santoro won the grass tournament again this year at the Tennis Hall of Fame last week. The fans love him. There was TV coverage. That's a small but important grass tournament for folks ranked 20 and over. We shouldn't give motives for people not to want to show at this kind of tournament. It also gives the grass specialists a chance to shine.