Need Info - Qualifiers & Entry Rankings

[TenJen]

I've enjoyed tennis tremendously for many years, but lately I'm becoming obsessive and I am in need of some basic understandings.

1) How are players chosen to participate in "Qualifiers"? It is rank based, by invitation, etc?

2) For tounaments other than Slams and Masters events, how are main draw players chosen? It is rank based, by invitation, etc?

3) Can someone point me in the direction of a good website that describes how the entry rankings are calculated. I think I've got a good handle on the Indesit race, but don't fully understand the entry rankings.


Thanks so much,
TenJen

 

[Fee]

1. Qualifiers for Slams and masters series events are chosen 3 weeks in advance, based on the rankings at that time. Players have to enter to get on the list. For optional tournaments (like San Jose, and the other smaller weekly events) and Challengers, you have to show up by 9 pm on Friday night to sign in for qualies, and the top 28 players based on ranking will get in to a 32 player draw (4 wildcards). Some tournaments let the general public play a wildcard tournament a week or two in advance to earn one of the wildcard spots in the qualie draw.

2. Tournament entries for all ATP events are based on rankings for the 'direct entry' slots in the draw. Entries are due 42 days in advance of the event's first day. Challenger entries are due 21 days in advance.

3. There is an explanation of the Entry Rankings at the atp website and you can always get the technical explanation in the ATP rulebook. Players earn points for playing a match at the slams, masters, and five 'optional' tournaments, and they keep those points for up to 52 weeks.

You should check out the rankings page and the forums at steve g tennis dot com for more info on all of those topics.

 

[andreroddick155]

i read on this webpage, http://www.itftennis.com/shared/medialibrary/pdf/original/IO_5832_original.PDF
that a player may only enter a max. of 6 tournaments per week. how long does each tournament last. i thougt a tourn. last about 7 days. how can you play 6 tourn. in a week?

 

[Max G.]

No idea how you can enter multiple tournaments in each week ... makes no sense to me.

As for how the entry rank works -

effectively, it's like the Race except that instead of counting points from January to now, it counts points for the "past 52 weeeks" i.e. the past year.

In the race, a player loses the points from all of his tournaments on December 31st; in the entry ranking, a player loses the points from a tournament exactly one year after that tournament happened.

This allows Entry rankings to be valid for stuff like seeding and acceptance into tournaments all year round - whereas the Race is more of an indicator of who is how close to becoming #1 by the end of the year, and that's it.

Other differences - the Entry Ranking also includes lower-level tournaments, like futures and challenger. The Race, I think, just gives 0 points for those - the top players don't play them anyway, so it doesn't matter.

The points allocated are a bit different - as a general rule, the entry points that a player gets from a tournament is 5 times what the Race points are. (Again, this is there so that the lower-level tournaments can be accomodated.)



The full detailed technical explanation is http://www.atptennis.com/en/players/raceleaderboard/rank_definitions.asp here, but they're missing the tables where they write out exactly how many points are awarded for what results...

 

[aj_m2009]

i read on this webpage, http://www.itftennis.com/shared/medialibrary/pdf/original/IO_5832_original.PDF
that a player may only enter a max. of 6 tournaments per week. how long does each tournament last. i thougt a tourn. last about 7 days. how can you play 6 tourn. in a week?

I think it means that u can only submit an entry form for 6 tournaments that are played in the same week, not actually play the 6 tournaments.

 

[Rob_C]

I think it means that u can only submit an entry form for 6 tournaments that are played in the same week, not actually play the 6 tournaments.

Yeah, as far as Satellites & Futures, you can submit entry for more than one per week. What the ITF then does is enter you in the one where you are highest on the entry list, and removes you from the others, unless you instruct them not to.