ATP & WTA rankings

[oliver0001]

Ruud Continues Hunt For No. 1 With Comeback Win
https://www.atptour.com/en/news/ruud-co ... at-us-open

[ashkor87]

The pathetic performance of high seeds like Kontaveit, Sakkari, Badosa should really make the WTA think about shaking up their ranking algorithm...the older system of weighting points by recency is something that should be considered . ..for instance, points from week 52 ago could be weighted lowest, last week's results highest...it would need the WTA to update the calculation every week, but they already do that..may be worth seeing what such a system would yield as rankings..I haven't the data to do it, but it would make a big difference, I expect. Right now the cutoff of 52 weeks is anyway arbitrary...

[ponchi101]

There is no algorithm. Points are just added. In the past, it was an average, and we know what happened then: Martina had such a high average that if she were to play a smaller tournament, AND WIN, her average would drop. There was a reason why that was scrapped.
Remind me when was it that there was a weighting points system. I really can't recall that.
The 52 weeks is not arbitrary. It is the number of weeks in a year. A simple, technical thing.

And a quick example of what would happen if weighted points are used. The points from last year USO would be worth the lowest by now; Emma and Leylah would basically not have been seeded, because their points would have been erased. So, a good USO showing from last year would, by now, mean nothing. I wonder how would players feel about that.
And if you think Kontaveit's loss to Serena was pathetic, well, many people would disagree. In the same way Alize drawing Emma was a very fortunate draw, Anett drawing Serena was the worst possible.

[meganfernandez]

The pathetic performance of high seeds like Kontaveit, Sakkari, Badosa should really make the WTA think about shaking up their ranking algorithm...the older system of weighting points by recency is something that should be considered . ..for instance, points from week 52 ago could be weighted lowest, last week's results highest...it would need the WTA to update the calculation every week, but they already do that..may be worth seeing what such a system would yield as rankings..I haven't the data to do it, but it would make a big difference, I expect. Right now the cutoff of 52 weeks is anyway arbitrary...

What would your current Top 10 look like and why? What period would it reflect?

[Deuce]

The pathetic performance of high seeds like Kontaveit, Sakkari, Badosa should really make the WTA think about shaking up their ranking algorithm...the older system of weighting points by recency is something that should be considered . ..for instance, points from week 52 ago could be weighted lowest, last week's results highest...it would need the WTA to update the calculation every week, but they already do that..may be worth seeing what such a system would yield as rankings..I haven't the data to do it, but it would make a big difference, I expect. Right now the cutoff of 52 weeks is anyway arbitrary...

Yes... and while we're at it, let's completely modify the standings in baseball, football, hockey, soccer, and basketball, too.
Oh... and golf, of course...

Because in those sports, teams can get out to huge leads by winning many more games than other teams over the first, say, 2 months of the season, and then play worse than other teams, but still win their division because of their earlier success, etc.

[ponchi101]

Ok, Ashkor, I did it for you. Here is a proposed weighted ranking:

Screenshot 2022-09-02 181133.jpg

The first column is the current rankings. Then, I was not going to go month by month, I did it by quarter. Points from the last three months retain all their value, from the previous quarter retain 0.75, then 0.5 and then 0.25.
The first table is sorted by the current ranking, the second by the proposed one.
So.
Iga remains #1. That was easy.
Ons moves to #2. Ok, that could be true.
Then, you would get KASATKINA, 1st round loser, at #3. For a player that lost in 1R of the last two MS1000.
Pegula moves to #4. Feels a bit odd, but nothing crazy.
Halep moves to #5. Another first round loser, and Cincy 2R loser. And a player that has done nothing at slams this year.
Sabalenka remains at 6.
Then you get the same order of Kontaveit, Sakkari and Badosa.
Muguruza would be out of the top 10, and certainly of the top 30.
Coco would most certainly be in the top 10, both due to Muguruza's drop and her RG final points. Emma and Leylah would have not been seeded. HaddadMaia would be about to enter the top 10.

If this was the rankings, would you agree to that order? Because there is no way that Kasatkina is the world #3. Or Halep #5.

[meganfernandez]

Ok, Ashkor, I did it for you. Here is a proposed weighted ranking:
Screenshot 2022-09-02 181133.jpg

The first column is the current rankings. Then, I was not going to go month by month, I did it by quarter. Points from the last three months retain all their value, from the previous quarter retain 0.75, then 0.5 and then 0.25.
The first table is sorted by the current ranking, the second by the proposed one.
So.
Iga remains #1. That was easy.
Ons moves to #2. Ok, that could be true.
Then, you would get KASATKINA, 1st round loser, at #3. For a player that lost in 1R of the last two MS1000.
Pegula moves to #4. Feels a bit odd, but nothing crazy.
Halep moves to #5. Another first round loser, and Cincy 2R loser. And a player that has done nothing at slams this year.
Sabalenka remains at 6.
Then you get the same order of Kontaveit, Sakkari and Badosa.
Muguruza would be out of the top 10, and certainly of the top 30.
Coco would most certainly be in the top 10, both due to Muguruza's drop and her RG final points. Emma and Leylah would have not been seeded. HaddadMaia would be about to enter the top 10.

If this was the rankings, would you agree to that order? Because there is no way that Kasatkina is the world #3. Or Halep #5.

These also don't reflect Wimbledon.

[ponchi101]

Yes, but we understand that. This is, again, another strange year for the rankings because of Wimbledon points not being awarded.
But by now we would be talking about not a parallel universe; we would be talking about a parallel, reversed, inside out Universe, in which Maureen Connelly never went for that fateful horse ride, Monica Seles never got stabbed, Richard Williams decided to put down a basketball court in his backyard and Martina Navratilova went back to Prague to say goodbye to her mom, never to be seen or heard of again.
These are the points they all have. Wimbledon points would make this thing too complicated.

[meganfernandez]

Ok, Ashkor, I did it for you. Here is a proposed weighted ranking:
Screenshot 2022-09-02 181133.jpg

The first column is the current rankings. Then, I was not going to go month by month, I did it by quarter. Points from the last three months retain all their value, from the previous quarter retain 0.75, then 0.5 and then 0.25.
The first table is sorted by the current ranking, the second by the proposed one.
So.
Iga remains #1. That was easy.
Ons moves to #2. Ok, that could be true.
Then, you would get KASATKINA, 1st round loser, at #3. For a player that lost in 1R of the last two MS1000.
Pegula moves to #4. Feels a bit odd, but nothing crazy.
Halep moves to #5. Another first round loser, and Cincy 2R loser. And a player that has done nothing at slams this year.
Sabalenka remains at 6.
Then you get the same order of Kontaveit, Sakkari and Badosa.
Muguruza would be out of the top 10, and certainly of the top 30.
Coco would most certainly be in the top 10, both due to Muguruza's drop and her RG final points. Emma and Leylah would have not been seeded. HaddadMaia would be about to enter the top 10.

If this was the rankings, would you agree to that order? Because there is no way that Kasatkina is the world #3. Or Halep #5.

I added Wimbledon points for the Top 10. Not much changes, but Jabeur and Halep are more solidly #2 and #3, and Rybakina would enter the top 10.

Iga - 5720
Jabeur 3974
Halep - 2961
Sabalenka - 2272 (I added her 2021 SF points, for the sake of experiment)
Kasatkina - 2511 (I added her 2021 R2 points)
Pegula - 2431
(Rybakina would be at least here)
Badosa - 1944
Sakkari - 1870
Kontaveit - 1866
Muguruza - 672

Players who might have moved into the bottom of the Top 10 w/Wimbledon points: Ostapenko, Garcia, Anisimova

[ponchi101]

Ok. There you go. Thanks for that part.
So it is clear that Muguruza would be long gone from the top 10, but Halep at #3 would be as odd as right now we say about Badosa or Sakkari. Kontaveit at 9? She will be there soon enough, so in that case, the rankings are telling us what WILL happen; that is pretty valuable.
Rybakina is looking like Emma2; huge win out of nowhere, nothing going since. But sure, she just won the most important tournament of her life, and of most people's life. If she were at #6, that would sound right.

[ashkor87]

Wow!! That is a lot of work! Thank you folks!

[Suliso]

It changes things, but not as much as one might imagine.

[ashkor87]

Actually I couldn't care less about the rankings..I just need something to ignore! But great research here..good to know.

[ashkor87]

Halep is a Wimbledon semifinalist and Toronto champion! What is odd about her being #3?

As for Rybakina, she had great results in the past couple years, enough for some of us to place her on a 'future champions' list .

Btw, apropos nothing, my current future champions list is Samsonova, Alexandrova and Q Zheng plus Coco of course

[ponchi101]

Actually I couldn't care less about the rankings..I just need something to ignore! But great research here..good to know.

You are becoming a bit of a puzzle. You are the one that has repeatedly brought up the unfair rankings, yet you now claim you could not care less. Ok, no problems, but you are spinning a bit too fast.

As for your Halep question. There would be nothing wrong with Halep as #3. Which is our point. There is NOTHING wrong with Kontaveit at #2, Sakkari #3 and Badosa #4. It is the system that says so, yet you said it was unfair. Our point (or my point) was that a weighted ranking system would not change the rankings much.
Maybe I will work out a bit some players further down the ranking. What would you tell a player in the 50's, whose bulk of points could come from one good tournament last fall, if she would fall off the top 96 (usual Slam cut off) because those points would vanish before she could even defend?