Why are ATP Points so whacky?

[James P]

For the next three weeks following the AO, possibly for the first time in the history of the ATP, 5 majors can be on your ATP points CV. I've been wondering why the Live Rankings haven't made complete sense, but here's what's going on:

All points from the ATP Cup in 2021 and 2022 are available for your ATP points CV until the 2021 rolls off on the 7th of February.
also,
All points from the AO in 2021 and 2022 are available for your ATP points CV until the 2021 rolls off on the 21st of February.

So, at the end of this tournament, you could have your results from AO 21, FO 21, WC 21, USO 21, and AO 21 on your points CV. Really weird why they'd do that. They could do a "best of" for those three weeks, which I thought they were doing, but what they're actually doing is adding both tournaments in.

 

[Lazuras_Long]

For the next three weeks following the AO, possibly for the first time in the history of the ATP, 5 majors can be on your ATP points CV. I've been wondering why the Live Rankings haven't made complete sense, but here's what's going on:

All points from the ATP Cup in 2021 and 2022 are available for your ATP points CV until the 2021 rolls off on the 7th of February.
also,
All points from the AO in 2021 and 2022 are available for your ATP points CV until the 2021 rolls off on the 21st of February.

So, at the end of this tournament, you could have your results from AO 21, FO 21, WC 21, USO 21, and AO 21 on your points CV. Really weird why they'd do that. They could do a "best of" for those three weeks, which I thought they were doing, but what they're actually doing is adding both tournaments in.

ATP points cover more than grand slams, they cover every men's tennis event including ITF 25s, Challengers 80s, ATP 250s etc.

While the big 4 events always happen every year, smaller events don't happen every year. ATP 250s in particular will often change cities and as such change dates, as happened with New York events moving to Dallas, in 2022. That event was only created in 2018 because the Memphis Open couldn't get sponsors.

ITFs and Challenger Events are even worse for being cancelled or moved dates.

So if the ATP went with a universal FIFO points model, they'd have to develop a farily complex system of tracking events that might either have changed dates, or perhaps cease to exist.

So while it seems odd because AO22 is a month earlier than AO21, its much simpler to maintain the calendar year rule.

 

[aldeayeah]

There will be a bunch of ranking anomalies until things roll back to normal this summer.
Such as, out of Fed's 2385 points, 2160 are from two years ago or older.
But yeah this one is weird.

 

[Milanez82]

AO being late last year has complicated things but in the end seeds will be right for 1st masters of the year so it doesn't really matter

 

[Bertie B]

So, at the end of this tournament, you could have your results from AO 21, FO 21, WC 21, USO 21, and AO 21 on your points CV. Really weird why they'd do that.

So some factions can claim their guy is the best of the world. Look how many weeks he spent as world #1.