Novak Djokovic has made history with his fourth Grand Slam victory in a single tour. He won the Australian Open, the French Open, the Wimbledon and closed his chase after one more win, with the US Open against Daniil Medvedev. And he climbed back to the top position in the ATP rankings, sending Carlos Alcaraz to second place.
And while most bookmakers and UK sports betting sites were listing the great Nole as the favorite to win the US Open final, there were still some doubts that he would not be able to break the record of 24 Grand Slams or the record of being the winner of all Slams in one year! Well, he did it. Djokovic is now, once again, the No. 1 seed in the world of men’s tennis and in fact he deserves to be there, considering the incredible -and for some, quite unbelievable- game he played.
Meanwhile, in the women’s tennis final, Coco Gauff was the undisputable winner getting her first Grand Slam and climbing up three positions and becoming the world’s No. 3, despite the fact that most UK bookies listed her as the underdog in that final. Why hasn’t she also moved to the first position since she is the winner of the US Open? Why is it that Aryna Sabalenka – not even Iga Swiatek – is the number one, when she hasn’t ever won a Slam? Shouldn’t at least the Polish wonder girl be the number one with all her victories all this time?
Well, this is the brilliant thing about tennis. The number one is not made overnight and the top ranked positions are slowly built by the performance and the advancement of the tennis players. Noone, and not even the best bookmakers in the UK, can actually tell for sure who is going to be first in the live rankings. I mean that who will be number one, is more than just a ‘moment’ thing – like for example playing slots in one of the best Czech casinos. It is something that is developed through time. This is why, you don’t always see the Grand Slam winners being the top seeded players or the top players having the greatest number of titles compared to others.
Let’s see how the players get their points, because the ranking in tennis is based on a system of points.
All tournaments and competitions in tennis carry some points. Each player can generate points from a maximum of 21 events during a tennis season – that is 52 weeks. Now, you can easily understand that the more high profile and prestigious a tournament is, the greater the points it gives to the players. But it is not only the participation in a tournament that earns players points. The number of points has to do with how far they will get and of course whether they will win in the end the event.
For example, the four Slams give some base points for participation. But for every advancement, the players get extra points. So, for going to the round of 128, an athlete will earn 10 points, going to the next round 45 points and so on, up until the semi-final which will give the player 720 points. Now, the final also has two different levels of points: the winner will get 2000 points, while the runner-up will get 1200 points. And just like that, players gather points and they gradually develop as they advance. These numbers are for the men, because in the WTA the points are somehow differentiated for women (for example, the runner-up takes 1300 points).
Other tournaments have a similar structure to their points system, but they are not so ‘generous’ as the Grand Slams. Take the ATP Masters 1000 stage, for instance, where the winner takes 1000 points and the runner-up 600, while for every stage a player advances he accumulates progressively higher number of points as well. And the same holds true for the WTA 1000 stage, although we are talking about a bit of different points.
The thing is that tennis is a multidimensional sport and players are actually striving and working all year round to reach the top positions of world rankings. Stars may be made overnight, but top seeded players take hard work!
