The ATP ranking was one of the aspects that has changed the most in recent months due to the pandemic. With an aim not to penalize players who chose not to stay home because of the risk of international travel, the men’s governing body decided to push the boundaries of the leaderboard and convert it to a system that lasted 22 months counts and not the best results of the tournament.
As a result, tennis players did not defend their best results from last season. Staying home didn’t mean losing points, a relief for many and a solution that limited us to dropping past the hundredth position.
Earlier this year, the ATP extended this period to the first two months of this year due to doubts and problems confirming the final 2021 calendar. None of the points collected in tournaments such as the 2020 Australian Open, Rotterdam or Dubai are lost.
For tennis players who have played the same tournament twice in the last 24 months, the one in which they achieved the best result is taken into account when calculating the points.
The new ATP decision
Now the ATP has made a new decision and changed the classification system.
With this in mind, it has expanded its limits: the ranking is starting to record the best results for 24 months precisely until March 15, 2021. As a result, the points that were collected during Indian Wells 2019, a tournament in which Dominic Thiem declared himself champion after beating Roger Federer in the final, are not lost either.
The cancellation of the American tournament prompted the ATP to make this decision, causing the ranking to stand still for another 14 days in March. Obviously, the ATP has also confirmed that even in 2021 for access to the ATP Finals in Turin, only the events played that year will be taken into account for the ranking of a player.
From 2021 tennis players can watch their 19 best tournaments. This would be a glitch for a player:
- Results in the 4 Grand Slam tournaments
- Results in the 8 compulsory Masters 1000
- The best 7 results in the remaining tournaments (ATP Cup, ATP 500, ATP 250, Challenger, ITF).
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