I dont have a problem with disorder or chaos, i have a problem with players regularly being beaten by those outside the top 80 and maintaining their position because they did really well in ONE tournament which lets them stay in the top 20 or 30 for a whole year.
Make THAT make sense.
Ruud's match record for the year is 29-12 (70% win rate). He's won an MS event, putting him among only six men to have won a title at that level or higher (Alcaraz, Sinner, Draper, Mensik, Ruud, and Shelton). Only 11 players have even made the final of an event of that caliber (the five to lose a final are Zverev, Rune, Djokovic, Musetti, and Khachanov). And it's just not true that Ruud's other form would put him outside the top 30. He was runner-up in Dallas, quarter-finalist in Rome, and lost in the R16 of Miami and Monte Carlo. Of course someone who repeatedly makes the last 16 of major events will rank well inside the top 30. Only 16 people make the last 16 of an event. To maintain a top 30 ranking, you only need to be averaging making the last 32. Players who really are about the 30th best usually have win percentages of more like 55-60% than 70%. (It can be higher if they play lots of low-level events). If you actually look at the recent records of people in the 25-35 range, you'll see that they are significantly worse than Ruud's. For example, the world #31 (Brandon Nakashima) has a 26-22 match record (54% win rate). He hasn't made a final all year. He did make R3 of Wimbledon but lost in R1 or R2 at the other slams. He's made the last 16 of three MS events, and the semis of Acapulco and Houston. He's done fine. Not as well as Ruud, but about as well as you can expect someone who really is about the 30th best player in the world to do. Or take the world #30 (Tallon Griekspoor). His match record is 26-18 (59%). He won a 250 (Mallorca) and lost another 250 final (Marrakech). He made round 4 of Roland Garros but lost in round 1 at all the other three slams. He was a quarter-finalist at Indian Wells but he didn't make the last 32 of any other MS event yet this year.
The ability of the tour can usually be mapped onto a bell-shaped curve. Other than the very top players, there's not that much difference between the players. Thus, it's very common for the #11 to lose to the #81. Often, the #11 will only have about a 70-75% chance of beating the #81. Thus, given how many matches players play, you'll be able to find numerous instances of the #81 beating the #11 - though more instances of the #81 losing to the #11. This has been true for almost all the 38 years that I've watched tennis. At some points (such as 1998 or 1999), it was
much more true than it is now. I promise you that you would not be able to develop a ranking system in which it won't frequently be the case that almost all players in the 11-20 range and even more so the 21-30 range have lost several times against much lower-ranked players during the season.
This is not to say that I think the ranking system is perfect - it's not. Far from it. But the evidence you're using to show that it's broken is not the right evidence.
