{"id":905,"date":"2012-10-15T14:55:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T18:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heavytopspin.com\/?p=905"},"modified":"2012-10-15T14:55:34","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T18:55:34","slug":"the-case-for-the-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2012\/10\/15\/the-case-for-the-race\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case for the Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, Peter Bodo argued<\/a> in favor of giving the ATP year-to-date “Race to London” more weight over the traditional rolling 52-week ranking. \u00a0It’s a relevant point right now, when Roger Federer<\/a> leads in the 52-week tally, but Novak Djokovic<\/a> dominates in the year-to-date numbers.<\/p>\n

In other words, Fed is racking up more records at #1 while Djokovic will almost certainly go in the books as the top player of 2012. \u00a0Bodo doesn’t go far enough: The old-fashioned rankings are weird, confusing, and–why stop there?–bad for tennis.<\/p>\n

In most of the world’s most popular sports, everybody starts the year with a clean slate. \u00a0Imagine if a baseball team opened their schedule having to “defend” their previous year’s April winning streak. \u00a0Or if your favorite football team started the season seventh in their division. \u00a0This is essentially what happens when the ATP heads to Australia in January, altering rankings only when players do something different than what they accomplished last year.<\/p>\n

Not only does this make it hard too root for underdogs in tennis, it makes it hard for the underdogs themselves. \u00a0You may not pity Bernard Tomic<\/a>, but he surely spoke for many mid-pack players when he spoke<\/a> about the mental challenge of defending points, not just beating world-class tennis players. \u00a0In other sports, hope springs eternal. \u00a0In tennis, it’s an immense struggle to crack the top 20 for a single week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The greatest advantage of the Race is that it is so easy to understand. \u00a0Tomas Berdych<\/a> reached the semifinals last week, so he gets 360 points. \u00a0Simple as that. \u00a0No comparison to last year’s totals, no concern about whether points are going on or coming off at a stagger from last year because of the Olympics, and–blessedly–nary a mention of zero-pointers<\/a>. \u00a0Tennis rankings will always be more than simply incrementing the win column, but this is pretty close.<\/p>\n

Bodo cites the unpredictability of the turn-of-the-century Australian Open as a reason why the Race didn’t catch on. \u00a0It doesn’t make sense to have Petr Korda<\/a> atop much of anything, right? \u00a0In fact, that’s the beauty of it. \u00a0The 52-week rankings simply entrench the Big Four in our minds, while an emphasis on the race would make us think twice the next time a Korda, or a Marcos Baghdatis<\/a>, or a Marin Cilic<\/a>, makes a January splash. \u00a0Fans are smart enough to realize that leading the rankings early<\/a> in the season isn’t the same as finishing at the top.<\/p>\n

Some version of the 52-week ranking system will never go away, and that’s how it should be. \u00a0It’s purpose is to\u00a0rate<\/em> players–for seeding, and even more importantly, for tournament entry. \u00a0As I’ve written at length, it’s not a very good system for that purpose<\/a>. \u00a0If we focused on the Race instead, the tournament entry methodology could become much more sophisticated and do a better job of putting the best players on court every week.<\/p>\n

With its increasing focus on qualification for the Tour Finals, the ATP has taken some big steps toward presenting tennis as a high-stakes, year-long season, not merely a disjointed mishmash of events competing for attention. \u00a0Highlighting the Race rankings would make for much more spectator enjoyment. \u00a0It might even open the door to more important discussions of the chaotic tour schedule, eventually offering fans a coherent tennis season to follow every week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Peter Bodo argued in favor of giving the ATP year-to-date “Race to London” more weight over the traditional rolling 52-week ranking. \u00a0It’s a relevant point right now, when Roger Federer leads in the 52-week tally, but Novak Djokovic dominates in the year-to-date numbers. In other words, Fed is racking up more records at … Continue reading The Case for the Race<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rankings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}