Yevgeney Kafelnikov recently achieved the world number 1 ranking, despite being on a 6 match losing streak. He was able to do this because of the nature of the current ATP rankings system, which required Pete Sampras to defend a certain amount of points he had gained in 1998. This situation, along with Marcelo Rios' rise to the top ranking without a grand slam
title to his name; has shown up the current rankings system as being badly inadequate.
The problem is in the nature of the rankings system. It is based on the best 14 results of a player over the past 12 months. A player needs to defend ranking points gained over the past year, otherwise his ranking will drop off. An example of this in action is Marcelo Rios' decline in the rankings this year. He was injured before the Australian Open, and
was unable to defend his finals appearance there. Because he was unable to repeat his brilliant results from the previous year, he slipped out of the top 10 rankings. On the other hand, in 1998 Andre Agassi was able to raise his ranking from outside the top 100 to a place in the top 10 rankings. He was able to achieve this extraordinary result because he had so little points to defend from a mediocre season in 1997.
The ATP rankings system has been much criticised. One problem is that some of the ATP Tour events, such as the Super Nines, are weighted nearly as highly in rankings points as the grand slams themselves. It is this that allowed Marcelo Rios to ascend to the number 1 position in 1998; after wins in the Super Nines at Indian Wells and the Lipton event. At the time many players were critical of this, Pete Sampras remarking that a
player is only truly the number 1 in the eyes of his peers if he has won a grand slam event.
Another flaw pointed out is that the system allows players to have their worst defeats (for example in the first round of a grand slam) discounted; with only their best results being used. As a result a player can have a mediocre year in the grand slams, but still gain a high ranking on the basis of results in the smaller ATP tournaments. Because players aren't penalised for poor results, there is less incentive for them to fight hard
in matches in tournaments. Many players have been suspected of tanking matches in the early rounds as a result of this.
