Safina done at No. 1 (well, if Serena wins tomorrow, she is)

She suffers the worst loss ever by a No. 1 player, losing to somebody ranked below 200, just a week after losing to the 132nd ranked player in the world.

Maybe now they'll reconfigure the rankings so they make more sense.

 

Never should have been No.1 to begin with. Rankings system is an abomination

 

correct.

 

How do the rankings work in tennis?

 

You can pile up a lot of computer points by doing well in small tournaments. That's how Safina got to the top. When you lose, it only matters when you lose in a tournament. It doesn't matter if you get smoked 6-0, 6-0 or lose in a third-set tiebreaker. A win is a win and a loss is a loss and that's all the computer sees. It doesn't see who you played, if you were injured, if your opponent was rested or any of that. It just sees W and L and what round it occurs in.

You get points for your results and those points stay on the board for 52 weeks. So, for example, let's say you get to the final of the Bumfuck Open one year. Then the next year, you don't play or lose first round. All the points you earned for getting to the final come off and get replaced by whatever points you earned this time around.

The Grand Slams and Masters series events do carry more weight, but not as much as some feel they should.

So if you are a player like Serena Williams, who this year at the Slams was champion (AO), quarterfinal (RG), champion (W) and semifinalist (US), you get points for those results. But if you don't play many other events, you aren't getting points while other players are. That's how Safina rose to number one without ever winning a major.

 

Computer does see who you played. You get bonus points (called "quality points) for beating anyone ranked in the top 500.

Safina would have received 2 quality points for beating someone ranked in the 200s.

The woman that beat Safina received 100 quality points for beating the No. 1 player.

It's not really a computer ranking system anyway. Just simple guidelines and simple math. Nothing for a computer to analyze.

Also, the Tour only counts your 16 best tournaments (including Grand Slams and mandatory events). So if you are one of those players who plays every week --- Hi Jelena! --- then you can do badly in several tournaments without any of them counting against your ranking. Thus, if you play in 23 events, then you can throw out the worst seven (but you cannot throw out GS or mandatory events).

 

Seriously. You do know that the WTA did away with "quality points" oh.... only 3 freaking years ago. Right? Right?! Jesus.

Serena won last night and put Dinara out of her misery. Meanwhile Maria came back down 2-5 0-30 in the 3rd to beat Vika 7-5 serving 13 aces. Great match.

ETA:

How the WTA rankings work.
If you can't read this chart, it's just a cut/paste of the link above:

SINGLES and DOUBLES ROUND POINTS
Description W F SF QF R16 R32 R64 R128 QLFR Q3 Q2 Q1
Grand Slam (Singles) 2000 1400 900 500 280 160 100 5 60 50 40 2
Grand Slam (Doubles) 2000 1400 900 500 280 160 5 - 48 - - -
Premier Mandatory (96S) 1000 700 450 250 140 80 50 5 30 - 20 1
Premier Mandatory (64S) 1000 700 450 250 140 80 5 - 30 - 20 1
Premier Mandatory (28/32D) 1000 700 450 250 140 5 - - - - - -
Premier 5 (56S) 800 550 350 200 110 60 1 - 30 - 20 1
Premier 5 (28D) 800 550 350 200 110 1 - - - - - -
Premier (56S) 470 320 200 120 60 40 1 - 12 - 8 1
Premier (32S) 470 320 200 120 60 1 - - 20 12 8 1
Premier (16D) 470 320 200 120 1 - - - - - - -
International (56S) 280 200 130 70 30 15 1 - 10 - 6 1
International (32S) 280 200 130 70 30 1 - - 16 10 6 1
International (16D) 280 200 130 70 1 - - - - - - -

 

The rankings are fine. The problem was that Serena played so poorly in non slam events earlier this season (opening round 4 loses in a row). The rankings do not account and probably cannot account for a top player who decides that only slams matter. If they overweight the slams then there is no incentive for players to show up and give their all at tour events. And there would be no tour without those events. So they have to count for something.

Regardless, I'm glad Serena got it together and finally overtook Dinara. That girl is falling apart; losing all the close matches she used to win. She's too negative to ever be great and that all negative all the time coach isn't helping anymore. The pressure has gotten to her. Apparently she hid in the locker room after her loss and then skipped out on the presser.

 

Well, not so fast!

Sure enough as soon as Serena got the one win needed to get to No. 1 she turned around and lost the very next match. Nadia beat her 7-6(5) in the 3rd. Not surprisingly, after the loss Serena was as gracious as ever:

Nadia is a former top 5 player, but okay Serena.

This means that she only has a 5 point lead and Dinara could very well take the top spot back immediately depending on their respective Doha performances. Serena is defending 370 points while Dinara is defending the bare minimum 210 (3 RR losses.)

UNLESS Dinara asks for a WC to Moscow… and wins one round, then Dinara is No. 1 all over again and the bitching continues. If she really wants the YE No. 1 she will enter.

Not that the other former number 1's are doing much better:

After coming back to beat Vika in a 3 hour marathon, Maria promptly turned around the next day and gave a lifeless performance against Peng. During the last two tournaments Maria has dumped the abbreviated motions she was using since her comeback and is using a modified version of her old serve. So far the new motion seems more natural, more aces and a fraction of the DFs. We’ll see how it works out next year.

It’s seems Mauresmo has withdrawn from the rest of the season and is considering retirement.

Kim has decided to play a limited schedule and won't have an opportunity play the YEC unless they give her a WC at the expense of the 8th seed.

Justine’s first match back looks like it’s going to be Brisbane in January with Kim in the field.

Venus will probably to fall out the top 3 unless she defends her YEC title, which doesn't seem likely based on her horrible form at the moment.

So... it's no wonder Dinara is hovering around the top spot. It's not the ranking system that's the problem, it's that the 5/6 players who could credibly hold number one are not willing or able to hold the top spot for various reasons. They are all either playing horribly, playing limited schedules, returning from injury, returning from retirement or don't care about non slam tournaments.

 

You weren't that upset about the rankings system in 1927 when Helen Wills Moody took over the top spot from Suzanne Lenglen.

Hey, my first old joke about spirited.