Sorry if I Sound Stupid, but.........

What is up with this "points to defend" thing? So if you do well an event one year you're expected to do well the next year too or suffer a drop in the rankings? Seems unfair to me. :confused:
 
D

Deleted member 22147

Guest
Why is it unfair?

Explain to me, an easier, more adequate way the rankings could work, then, please?
 

tacou

G.O.A.T.
ahhh why is there so much confusion over how the rankings work? I think it's perfect.

basically look at it like one year is = to one season. when a new "season" starts your seeding in tournaments is reflected by how you did last season, but if you don't perform as well you will gradually receive less favorable seedings.

makes sense, no?
 

austro

Professional
I sympathise with the view that it doesn't make sense. It essentially defines you against your performance 12 months ago rather than against your current performance relative to other players.

It makes more sense to just gain points when yo win rather than losing some when you don't win as much as a year ago. The latter should be pretty irrelevant especially when you consider what a No 1 ranking is supposed to express.

If I win Wimbledon, I should get x points, regardless of whether I won it the year before or not. I don't think it is like that in any sport, is it?
 

Mr. Blond

Professional
What is up with this "points to defend" thing? So if you do well an event one year you're expected to do well the next year too or suffer a drop in the rankings? Seems unfair to me. :confused:

Did you ever play king of the hill as a child? The rankings work basically the same way....you have to work to stay on top. It is worth mentioning though that once on top you do get perks......like seeding and match time selection at most tourneys. In the old days some tournaments only made the previous year's winner play the final, how is that for a perk?

I think the point system works great.....if they did not have to defend points, they would make it to number one and lay off and ride out the spot while everyone else on the tour scrapped for their spot.

You wanna be the big dog, you have to defend your porch!!
 

raiden031

Legend
I agree the term "defend points" is very misleading. But think of it this way. Every time you win points, they expire after 12 months because your ranking is based on your last 12 months of play.

So lets say a big tournament like Wimbledon is approaching and you have the #1 and #2 guys with almost the same point count. Whichever player did better at Wimbledon last year is in a worse position than the other guy because his expired points will lower his point count more than the other guy and so he needs to do alot better in the tournament than the other guy to retain his ranking. The reason the second guy is in a better position is because he won more of his points in more recent events whereas the first guy won alot of his points from Wimbledon 12 months ago.
 
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luckyboy1300

Hall of Fame
What is up with this "points to defend" thing? So if you do well an event one year you're expected to do well the next year too or suffer a drop in the rankings? Seems unfair to me. :confused:

seems pretty fair for me. getting on top doesn't give you the license to slack off and still not fear losing the top spot. you know what took you to reach the top. work as hard then you remain there.
 
D

Deleted member 22147

Guest
I sympathise with the view that it doesn't make sense. It essentially defines you against your performance 12 months ago rather than against your current performance relative to other players.

It makes more sense to just gain points when yo win rather than losing some when you don't win as much as a year ago. The latter should be pretty irrelevant especially when you consider what a No 1 ranking is supposed to express.

If I win Wimbledon, I should get x points, regardless of whether I won it the year before or not. I don't think it is like that in any sport, is it?

The thing is, you do get the desired amount of points, it just replaces the previous year, what's the problem?
 
D

Deleted member 22147

Guest
seems pretty fair for me. getting on top doesn't give you the license to slack off and still not fear losing the top spot. you know what took you to reach the top. work as hard then you remain there.

Great signature. :)
 

k_liu

Rookie
There is not a perfect system out there. The current one is the best. You have to earn your keep as a top player.
 

Blue Drop

Rookie
He's just sore b/c he's a Djoko fan "4 life," and his guy is stuck in third despite winning more titles in calendar year 2008. But this is exactly the wisdom of the system -- it averages your performance over a full-year season rather than rewarding someone who has a hot streak.

(Unnecessary dig: When Djoko's hot streak runs out, he'll revert back to his old tactics of ball bouncing and questionable injury timeouts.)
 

PROTENNIS63

Hall of Fame
It is very fair. I think it works great the system. Players who perform well are expected to continue to perform just about as well.
 

Fee

Legend
I sympathise with the view that it doesn't make sense. It essentially defines you against your performance 12 months ago rather than against your current performance relative to other players.

It makes more sense to just gain points when yo win rather than losing some when you don't win as much as a year ago. The latter should be pretty irrelevant especially when you consider what a No 1 ranking is supposed to express.

If I win Wimbledon, I should get x points, regardless of whether I won it the year before or not. I don't think it is like that in any sport, is it?

That's exactly how it works. When you win Wimbledon, you get x points, and the points from Wimbledon the year before are no longer counted on your ranking.

'Defending points' is just a phrase used to say that a player has a lot to lose this week. The rankings points that a player earns in a given week are good for 52 weeks from the date they are earned. You don't have to 'defend' anything, your points come off your ranking every Sunday night no matter what, just as you add new points every Sunday night (if you are doing it right). This isnt really that hard to understand. A player's ranking each week reflects his performance over the last 12 months, and all players are measured the same way.

If this system is so bad, how would you do it?
 
A pretty good system, I think. It rates the relative standing of player based on their performance over a reasonable period of time, one year. It could as easily be set up to rate players over a longer period, say two years. But then you would not be catching the players who have been doing particularly well during the previous year. I like it.
 

flyer

Hall of Fame
What is up with this "points to defend" thing? So if you do well an event one year you're expected to do well the next year too or suffer a drop in the rankings? Seems unfair to me. :confused:

What do you want your results over your whole career to be counted into your ranking....you have to cut them off somewhere and say this result has nothing to do with how good they are now, the ATP choose 1 year
 

Dave M

Hall of Fame
What do you want your results over your whole career to be counted into your ranking....you have to cut them off somewhere and say this result has nothing to do with how good they are now, the ATP choose 1 year

Spot on, otherwise a young player could never be top because those who had been on tour longest would have most points.
There is a calender year ranking too though, isn't it called the "champions race"?
 

pow

Hall of Fame
Makes perfect sense to defend because if they don't account for the various tournaments throughout the season, then who would be the number one player? The player to last win a tournament? or the player who has won the most matches from being on tour the longest?
 

akv89

Hall of Fame
There is absolutely nothing wrong with the "defending points" system, mainly because the players aren't defending any points in the first place. The points that a player has from one year before are going to come off regardless of what the player does since those points are too far in the past to really count towards a player's ability. However, the player has the opportunity to gain points once those points are removed.
I can understand the misunderstanding that some people have when they say that a player shouldn't have to outdo the things he did from last year to gain points, such as Nadal having to have a nearly perfect clay season to stay where he is. However, you have to understand that the reason why he is in 2nd place or why Federer is no.1 is because of the results they achieved last year. If they can't reciprocate them, it makes perfect sense that the number of points they have is dropped.
 
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