I want to study in the United States through a sports scholarship: Click here
Table of Contents
Writing by: Andrés Rodríguez
For decades, professional tennis was organized chaos. Each tournament had their own system to decide who was number oneand the most talented players could spend months winning matches without it being reflected in any kind of overall ranking. There was no official list, nor a unified criterion.. However, everything changed on August 23, 1973, when The ATP published the first world ranking.
A before and after
Until then, The media and federations were the ones who “named” the best players in the world. It was common for different countries to have their own lists and, In the same year, three different players were considered number one by different magazines or federations. The system generated confusion and controversy, in addition to making it difficult to follow the professional circuit.
The change came thanks to a group of players led by Jack Kramer, Donald Dell y Cliff Drysdale, who They founded the ATP in 1972 with the aim of defend the rights of tennis players and give them a voice in the organization of the circuit. Barely a year later, they presented the ranking ATPand results and points based system that revolutionized the way of measuring success in tennis.
The first number one
The first official leader of the ranking was Ilie Năstasethe charismatic Romanian who marked the 70s with his talent and explosive personality. Behind him were names like Rod Laver, Stan Smith y Arthur Ashelegends from a time when tennis was beginning to truly become professional.
The initial ranking was based on the results obtained in the tournaments of the previous 52 weeksa format that—with adjustments and modernizations—continues to be the basis of the current system.
A system that changed everything
With the arrival of the ranking, tennis gained transparency, structure and narrative. For the first time, fans could follow week by week who was going up and who was going downplayers could plan their schedule based on points, and tournaments began to define their draws according to the world classificationl.
Besides, The ranking helped consolidate the modern era of tennisallowing historic rivalries between the best in the world. Since then, Only 28 players have managed to finish a season as number oneincluding Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and, more recently, Carlos Alcaraz.
From the 70s to the algorithm
Today, more than 50 years later, the system continues to evolve. With current technology, Rankings are updated in real time and they cover not only the ATP circuit, but also the WTA, Challengers and ITF tournaments. However, the essence remains: the pure meritocracy of tenniss.
Besides, New classification methods have been emergingwhich aim to be able to organize tennis players according to their level in a more reliable and efficient way. El ranking UTRexternal to ATP, e.g. gives a number from 1 to 14 according to the level of the tennis player. 1 corresponds to a totally inexperienced player and From 11 up are the professional players.
This ranking is based on the Elo system designed for chess and takes into account not only the result of the match – as the ATP does – but also how many games, points and sets were distributed during the match. So, lose against a higher ranked playerbut having taken the match to a third setcan potentially increase the UTR ranking.
The ITF has designed a similar system as an alternative measure to the ATP ranking, to be able to classify more accurately to those players who have not yet reached their first professional ranking point. Is called World Tennis Number or WTN, acronym for world tennis number, and gives the tennis player a number from 1 to 40with 1 being a professional and 40 being a beginner.
