This is what Roberto, a reader from Siracusa, in Sicily, asked me a few days ago:

“The rankings have been frozen since March 16, so how are they going to be computed for the rest of the season? What would be the most fear solution, or rather what would be the least unfair one?”

A little caveat before I answer the question: I will mainly use Italian players as references for my reasoning, but everything I’ll write holds true for everyone else too. So, this is a very relevant theme in the current tennis landscape, and a huge source of debates. I’m told that the ATP has hired a team of mathematicians and stats people to handle the situation in a fair way, and it appears that the think tank has come up with up to 17 different solutions, a pair of which is currently favoured, albeit not discussed publicly yet.

Let me be clear: according to the ATP, the rankings will be frozen until play is resumed, at which time a decision will be communicated to the public, and it’s highly unlikely that I could come up with a better solution than whichever one this brainy team will settle on.

Let’s start, anyway, by talking about the aforementioned prevalent hypotheses, whilst keeping in mind that any chosen solution (I personally prefer the second one) will damage some players more than others.

This is what happens whenever a “horizontal” decision, with hard criteria, is made – if a company decides to sack all employees over 50 years old, whoever is 50-and-a-month old is unlucky, and whoever is 49-and-11-months old is kissed by fate.

So, what happens if the US Open resorts to cancelling the qualifying event and to setting the bar at the 120th spot in the rankings? That the players whose ranking is between 104 and 120 can count their blessings (with some leeway to 130 in the event of numerous defections) in avoiding three preliminary bouts while netting a lump $50,000 cheque with a decent likelihood of doubling down with a first-round win – among these, French Open semifinalist Marco Cecchinato is 113th, while his fellow countryman Federico Gaio is 130th, same nation, different destinies.

Those with a ranking lower than 130, on the other hand, will instead be left fuming over the missed chance to qualify for the wealthiest tournament in tennis, resigning themselves to the $15,000 each that the USTA is devolving to the ATP – among these, Fabbiano is 147th, Giustino is 153rd, Marcora is 158th, and  Giannessi is 160th. These players will have to take the money and be satisfied. There’s worst things going on in the world, obviously, but it must be hard to have to watch on TV a tournament that they might have been playing in normal conditions, coupled with the frustration of not being able to earn more money and maybe to pull off an upset or two in a Major, a PR stunt that could generate more main draw appearances and sponsorships.

Moreover, there might be some ground for complaints for the allocation of the smaller fees as well. Speaking of the Italians, Viola is 222nd and Moroni is 236th, so they won’t get the $15,000 either, and they might have some good reasons to cry out. At the moment, it’s actually not clear where the cut-off line will be draw, whether at 64 spots from the 120th or at 64 starting from the ranking of the last player to enter the main draw – let’s say that the World N.131 gets in, will the cut-off still be at 184 or will it move down to 195?

It should also be added that at least three players (Andy Murray, 129th, Juan Martin Del Potro, 128th, and Kevin Anderson, 123rd) will be able to use their Protected Ranking to play at Flushing Meadows, and that would lower the cut-off bar, potentially to 117, and that might bust the chances of some others hanging around the 130th position, such as the aforementioned Gaio.

HYPOTHESIS A

As soon as a tournament takes place, the points scored the year before immediately expire. For instance, Nadal would lose his 2,000 points from the 2019 French Open as soon as the 2020 edition will be over, in October, even if it didn’t take place exactly a year after the previous one. What happens, though, to the points a player scored in 2019 in Chengdu, if Chengdu doesn’t happen in 2020? And, furthermore, would it be fair if the points from a 2020 event like Rio or Dubai were to expire before, say, the points scored in Monte Carlo in 2019? Certainly not.

Let’s put aside the fact that someone like Mager (N.79 in the ATP Rankings) would be aptly enflamed for such an injustice (and with him Garin, N.18, and Rublev, N.14), while others like Fognini (N.11) and Sonego (N.46) would benefit from their status staying frozen till April and June, respectively (Fognini won Monte Carlo while Sonego clinched his maiden title in Antalya, a tournament that will be supplanted by Mallorca by the way). These examples are actually extremisations of the issue but provide us with an explanation of the unfairness of such an arrangement – please refrain from commenting on potential biases on my part.

HYPOTHESIS B 

The current points get frozen entirely, then divided by 52 weeks, and progressively scaled out. Sticking with Mager, who has 771 points, as our reference, he would lose 13.6 points per week, although it’s unclear for how long this system would be enforced – perhaps six months, the length of the tour’s hiatus. However, it must be noted that, while 771 would have been enough for him to play the Australian Open even after losing in the first round of every other event, now it would be a lot more difficult to cling to his Rio stash. In a previous article I wrote that everyone should be entitled to defend his score over the course of a full year, meaning that everyone should be entitled to enter every main draw that one’s previous achievements push him into, protecting one’s own earnings at the same time, whereas right now someone like Mager (or many others) could rely on their points about six months, like someone like Fognini could live off his 2019 Monte Carlo run for the rest of 2020 and all the way to April 2021 – ergo, some players would be able to rely on their points for 16 months, while others for a meagre five.

Finally, Rafa Nadal has been proposing his idea for a while, e.g. that a player’s tally should last for two years. It’s an idea that has always been frowned upon because it would prevent the natural ranking turn-over, favouring those at the top by widening the gap with the rest of the competition. If we think about it, the current cut-off for the Slams allows the Top-100 players to earn and score a lot more than everyone else, and it would thus be unfair to strengthen their lead. Last year’s Majors were won by Nadal Djokovic, whose 4,000 points would turn into 8,000 in the blink of an eye, therefore shutting out the various contenders for the future N.1 spot like Thiem, Tsitsipas, Medvedev or Zverev, who would never be able to bridge that gap. It’s only right, then, that the ATP wouldn’t take the proposal into consideration, although it must always be remembered that the Covid-19 hiatus was dictated by extraordinary circumstances and might then entail extraordinary measures.

I will add another proposal that I consider quite fair: since the tour was halted for six months, the points could be scaled out based on the scores from six months prior – the first tournament will be Washington, which happens six months after Indian Wells, and so the points from the latter would expire that week. A new tournament happens, an old one expires, equally, for everybody. It would be necessary, though, to sort out a time to shut this system down, but when?

These are the choices we have, now let the readers speak.

Note: Article written in Italian and translated by Tommaso Villa