From print outs on gigantic paper sheets and late-night cellphone calls chasing outcomes to right this moment’s real-time system, straight off a Chair Umpire’s digital scorecard, the Pepperstone ATP Rankings have been an indispensable barometer connecting each degree {of professional} tennis since its debut on 23 August 1973.
Simply as tennis skilled a wide-spread know-how revolution, in how racquets and balls are manufactured, and courtroom surfaces are ready, 50 years in the past right this moment, the Pepperstone ATP Rankings supplied an mental revolution that rapidly earned legitimacy and credibility amongst gamers, tournaments and followers. Extremely, to-date, solely 28 legendary performers have reached the common purpose of any tennis participant; what children dream of, and execs battle tooth and nail for: to turn out to be the No. 1 on the earth. And fewer nonetheless, simply 18, have completed the season as year-end No. 1.
With out the foresight of ATP founding fathers, the rankings panorama could look totally totally different. From the daybreak of Open Period tennis in April 1968, rankings had been largely a subjective calculation, generated by nationwide tennis associations, circuits and quite a few eminent tennis journalists who compiled their very own lists.
“Tingay’s was actually the one one which counted,” remembers former ATP European Director and acclaimed tennis author Richard Evans, referring to the rankings produced by The Every day Telegraph’s Lance Tingay. “Nationwide Associations produced their very own rankings, which meant that event committees tried to safe the No. 1 participant from every nation,” remembers John Barrett, a former participant and ATP Board member. “The key championships permitted associations to appoint 4 gamers from their nation.”
Jack Kramer (left) and Cliff Drysdale. Photograph Credit score: PA Pictures by way of Getty Pictures
But instantly, event entries decided by discretion had been consigned to historical past. Earlier than the appearance of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, it was all low tech and with no actual goal, as tournaments invited gamers on the idea of their popularity as Stan Smith, the World No. 1 in 1971-72, highlights. “The historical past main as much as the rating system included a ‘star system’ so far as entries into the tournaments. Some gamers could be on a listing as gamers that might assist promote tickets for the occasion and they might have precedence over others in acceptance into tournaments. This triggered nice concern for those who didn’t have a giant title and had been borderline entering into occasions. There have been undoubtedly some battles with tournaments over this ‘star system’.
“I keep in mind taking part in in Philadelphia and [Pancho] Gonzales was bringing extra folks into the occasion, so he was the highest seed. The gamers that introduced extra spectators to the event had been seeded, so the event had probably the most well-known gamers and never essentially the most effective gamers.” Bob Kramer provides, “Match attracts usually featured eight gamers primarily based on home nationwide rankings, eight gamers primarily based on a world rating and a handful of different gamers worthy of acceptance.”
By August 1972, it grew to become clear that the newly created Affiliation of Tennis Professionals wanted to ascertain a rating system free of private opinion and prejudice. “Jack Kramer, the primary Government Director of the ATP, wished prize cash solely tournaments and never occasions that supplied ensures to gamers – as had occurred within the ‘shamateur’ period of the previous decade, whenever you had been invited on popularity,” provides Barrett. Smith remembers, “The rating system was a sizzling level for the gamers and it continued to be crucial. The ATP felt that it wished to regulate the rating program and never let the ITF or anybody else management it.”
Arthur Ashe (left) and Donald Dell. Photograph Credit score: Herbert Capwell/The Boston Globe by way of Getty Pictures
Chris Lewis remembers, “I might write letters to Match Administrators informing them of my outcomes to-date and people Match Administrators could be weighing up and measuring these outcomes in opposition to different gamers who’d written in. On the finish of the day, Match Administrators would make an arbitrary determination over which gamers had been in and people who had been out. When the ATP Rankings had been launched, they had been universally accepted because the ‘best factor ever’. Now that the subjectivity was moved and instead was complete objectivity. The rankings system was goal and in sport you possibly can’t argue with outcomes: somebody wins, and somebody loses.”
Working with the primary ATP President, Cliff Drysdale, Jack Kramer sought assist from the ATP Board together with Arthur Ashe, Jim McManus and Charlie Pasarell, and obtained particular enter from Owen Davidson, Mike Estep, Fred McNair, Sherwood Stewart and others to plan a sensible laptop rating that supplied a good evaluation of a participant’s efficiency in addition to an goal means to find out entries into event. “We didn’t need the pc for use as a technique to incentivise a participant to enter any specific event,” says Drysdale. “In different phrases, to purely be a technique to rank gamers in line with potential. Nothing extra. In these early days we additionally gave factors weighted in line with the rating of gamers he beat. So for those who beat a seed, you bought extra factors.”
Twelve months after the ATP was based, Ilie Nastase grew to become the primary No. 1. He was amongst 186 gamers to be listed within the first ‘ATP Worldwide Participant Rankings’ of Monday, 23 August 1973, produced and printed out on gigantic laptop paper by TRW Inc., a significant aerospace firm, in El Segundo on Santa Monica Bay. Bob Kramer would take drawsheets from all over the world, create a listing of the gamers and meticulously calculate their factors earned from his West Pico Boulevard workplace in Los Angeles. Dennis Spencer, who changed Bob Kramer on Pepperstone ATP Rankings obligation in December 1975, says, “Bob made an settlement with a man from TRW to course of the rankings. Most journalists thought that made sense as a result of of their minds the ATP Rankings would possibly as nicely have been from outer house!”
Ilie Nastase was the primary World No. 1 within the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. Photograph Credit score: AFP/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Bob Kramer remembers, “I struck a cope with Simon Ramo of TRW to offer a useful resource primarily based on a factors system to ascertain the rankings, which was one of many key rules behind the founding of the ATP in 1972. Ramo was a famend physicist, engineer, and LA enterprise chief/founder and the ‘R’ in aerospace manufacturing legend, TRW. As tennis fanatic, neighbour and a buddy of Jack Kramer’s, he ‘loaned’ us the pc time and initially considered one of his laptop engineers, Bob Kurle, to assist ATP run the rankings knowledge every month and finally, weekly.
“Administered by a panel of individuals, tournaments had been initially divided into classes – A, B, C, and so on. – which enabled occasion organisers to pick the gamers in line with their ATP Rating and decide seedings. I supplied the event outcomes and associated info to Bob Kurle.” Kurle then imputed the information right into a server the dimensions of the primary ground of the ATP Americas workplace in Ponte Vedra Seashore [2,020 square metres]. “Inside three days, Simon and Bob returned the rankings on enormous perforated sheets. I keep in mind placing ATP Rankings sheets from ground to ceiling, week after week on the partitions of our LA workplace. I might double verify outcomes, circle inaccuracies and, if required, returned the sheets to TRW for a re-run. As a result of the ATP produced the rankings as soon as a month within the first few years, we had the time for the handbook course of, not like right this moment.”
Spencer confirms Bob Kramer’s recollections, however insists that, “There have been many weeks when for no matter motive the ‘laptop’ didn’t work so I did the rankings by hand. I might print the earlier rankings out on the massive laptop paper, lay it out on my lounge ground, get on my fingers and knees to mark out the week(s) that had been dropping off, add the brand new outcomes and calculate the brand new rankings.”
Stan Smith. Photograph Credit score: Roger Jackson/Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Pictures
In 1973 and till the launch of the Worldwide Tennis Weekly, with the version of 9-15 January 1976 – after ATP headquarters had moved to Dallas following the departure of Government Director Jack Kramer – the newest rankings had been distributed internally and posted on press and locker room partitions – after the ATP obtained permission from the tournaments!
Ending because the year-end No. 1 within the Pepperstone ATP Rankings had status and there was immediate recognition amongst gamers, who used to attend hours, typically days to see their rating. “Previous to the Weekly, every so often, for those who had been at house, gamers would place a phone name to an ATP workplace, or we’d obtain a slip of paper within the publish informing us of our rating,” remembers Smith. If Jim McManus or one other member of the ATP Board arrived with an Worldwide Tennis Weekly, he would get besieged by different gamers. “Any participant studying an ITW would get mobbed, as on the time it was usually the one technique to discover out your rating and different pertinent event info,” says Dennis Spencer, an ATP Tour Supervisor and Publicity Director from 1975-79.
In future years, after 11 points in 1973, the Pepperstone ATP Rankings began to be printed with better frequency – 1974 (11), 1975 (13), 1976 (23), 1977 (34), 1978 (40) – till 1979, after they had been produced on a weekly foundation, 43 occasions that season. Then, simply as now for two,053 gamers, there was actual satisfaction in being on the 52-week rolling skilled tennis ladder. The ATP ranked doubles gamers for the primary time on 1 March 1976.
With the creation of the Pepperstone ATP Dwell Rankings — launched in Might 2022 — a dynamic function enabling followers, gamers and media to trace the real-time rankings and influence of match outcomes day-to-day, the system continues to function a real measure of excellence. It was probably the most vital addition to the ATP’s Rankings properties for the reason that 2000 introduction of the calendar-year Race, serving to observe gamers’ journeys to qualify for the season-ending Nitto ATP Finals.
Pete Sampras first grew to become World No. 1 in 1993. Photograph Credit score: Doug Collier/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
For years, the ATP Supervisor’s laptop was up to date by means of reside scoring and on the finish of every week, the ATP Supervisor gives the ATP Rankings Coordinator with knowledge from their respective tournaments. The knowledge continues to be verified Sunday night time (ET) in a database, from which all the pieces from the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, Lexus ATP Head2Head information and match statistics are generated and made out there by way of ATPTour.com on Sunday night time or within the early hours of Monday, relying on when the final event of the week finishes.
It’s a far cry from the times when early Pepperstone ATP Rankings crunchers, Bob Kramer and Spencer, used to spend their Sundays pouring over the enormous print outs provided by rocket people at TRW, and calling round tournaments desperately looking for outcomes and even attracts. “Initially, we might obtain outcomes and draw sheets by postal mail,” says Bob Kramer. “Generally we must phone to confirm {that a} event had even taken place!” Spencer remembers, “Typically, I might name and name till somebody at a event picked up the cellphone to inform me who gained. Generally the rankings weren’t finalised till after Monday night time tennis in the US. “Then we despatched the ITW off to the printers,” provides Spencer. “We had a Western Union telex within the Dallas workplace, so a number of occasions every week I might sort out a telex tape with the rankings, attracts, outcomes, and so on and transmit it all over the world.” Every Friday, the ITW could be distributed at tournaments.
Weller Evans, former Tour Supervisor and ATP Government Director, Participant Relations, mentioned: “Each participant who earned a prize cash cheque prior to now 50 years ought to respect the importance and have fun the creation of the ATP World Rankings with gratitude. Starting in 1973, not was his employment standing for the week primarily based upon the discretion of event administrators. As an alternative, a very goal system of benefit decided whether or not he performed or not, with out regard for some other elements besides his efficiency on the courts. The place in different sports activities, a coach determines your taking part in time – and finally your livelihood – because of the ATP World Rankings, tennis is usually cruelly however all the time coldly goal.”
The ATP Worldwide Participant Rankings [now named Pepperstone ATP Rankings] of 23 August 1973 had been initially a median system, with the factors accrued over a 52-week interval divided by the variety of tournaments performed (minimal divisor of 12, the variety of tournaments participant management at the moment felt certified a participant as a ‘full-time’ skilled). Tournaments had been awarded factors primarily based on prize cash (minimal of $25,000), draw dimension and power of area. The merit-based system was backed by the gamers, and the common system underwent additional tweaks in 1986.
Bonus factors, an concept devised by former ATP European Director Richard Evans, Fred McNair, Sherwood Stewart, Owen Davidson and Raymond Moore in a St. Petersburg, Florida, resort room, had been awarded for beating seeded gamers. This was amended in 1983, when the bonus factors had been primarily based on the rating of the participant defeated – first the Prime 75, then expanded to Prime 150. “Gamers bought factors for beating prime ranked gamers, it doesn’t matter what the spherical,” remembers Richard Evans. The bonus factors system ran from 1973 till the top of the 1999 ATP Tour season.
The Worldwide Tennis Federation had performed discussions a few rankings system of its personal early within the Open Period. “The ITF did realise the ability of ATP factors and there was speak of a competing rating,” says Cliff Drysdale, the primary ATP President. “However I do not suppose it lasted lengthy and the ATP Rankings had been fairly rapidly accepted by the sport and the gamers. There was loads of dialogue concerning the particulars of the system, however not the overall want for it.”
Spencer, the ATP’s first full-time paid worker on 1 June 1975, admits, “Some tournaments had been delighted to have a reliable technique to decide their acceptances whereas others beloved the previous the place they may resolve unilaterally what gamers had been taking part in of their tournaments. Most gamers accepted the ATP Rankings, however there was controversy initially about what they had been for. Had been they to recognise the most effective participant of the 12 months? Or was it for the most effective participant of the week, fortnight or twelve months a 12 months?”
Novak Djokovic has been year-end World No. 1 a file seven occasions. Credit score: Clive Brunskill
Stan Smith, a number one participant all through the Nineteen Seventies, gives a participant’s perspective. “The principle concern of those who helped to form the rating system was that or not it’s a good reflection of the outcomes. There was an excessive amount of dialog and tweaking through the early life as to the load of the assorted tournaments and even the load of the rounds within the tournaments. The prize cash per spherical was additionally debated together with the rating factors. However all of the gamers had been on the identical web page as to the significance of it for the sport. It was maybe crucial asset of the ATP as we established our union and helped a wholesome development of the sport.”
The ATP recognised that the ‘common system’ had two flaws. First, a participant might keep at house and never play; let his poor outcomes from the earlier 12 months drop off and watch his rating rise with out hitting a ball. A prime participant might additionally play a small occasion (maybe as a result of he wanted the extra match play or it was good preparation for upcoming bigger occasions), win the event and really see his rating go down if he had a excessive sufficient common. Typically, it definitely didn’t encourage taking part in on something aside from your favorite floor.
To deal with these issues, the brand new ATP Tour in 1990 launched the ‘Better of 14’ rating system, the place a participant’s greatest 14 outcomes from the earlier 52 weeks counted in direction of his rating. The emphasis was due to this fact positioned squarely on successful and the adverse impact of an early loss in a event was much less speedy and impactful. Weller Evans says, “I consider the genesis of this method could have come from the Swiss participant Heinz Gunthardt and his familiarity with downhill snowboarding, the place solely a sure variety of greatest runs ‘counted’.” As well as, now factors had been awarded to classes of tournaments: Grand Slams, Championship Collection [now ATP Masters 1000 and ATP 500s], World Collection [now ATP 250s] and Challengers, with prize cash ranges inside every.
In 2000, to additional encourage participation on the Grand Slams and the ATP’s premier sequence of 9 tournaments [now known as ATP Masters 1000s], the rating system started to depend 18 occasions for many gamers. All 13 outcomes on the majors and ATP Masters 1000s would depend, as would a participant’s greatest 5 performances on the 5 Worldwide Collection occasions [now ATP 250s and 500s].
This method, for probably the most half in impact right this moment, discovered a center floor the place year-long participation is inspired whereas sustaining the integrity of the competitors at tennis’ best occasions. As Charlie Pasarell, who so {many professional} tennis gamers must thank, insists, “The ATP Rankings modified all the pieces.
“In August 1973, probably the most deserving, certified gamers that entered occasions no matter their nationality had been assured participation. This was the largest influence of the ATP Rankings to the worldwide tour. Now, the general public had been watching the most effective gamers that wished to play in tournaments; an important ingredient to the credibility of the game’s competitions. Likewise, for seeding gamers, which would offer honest attracts primarily based on efficiency. Lastly, it gave the game a system to pick our No. 1 participant, our No. 2 participant and so forth. All the above had been the motivations and the explanation why the ATP created the rating system. All the gamers within the early Nineteen Seventies contributed to the method and in consequence backed it 100 per cent.”
Immediately because the ATP celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Pepperstone ATP Rankings, media and followers can’t solely watch and observe their favorite gamers’ outcomes and their fluctuations in type, but in addition their world rating in real-time. Says Pasarell, “A great way to analyse the numerous influence of the ATP Rankings, is to verify how tournaments decided their entries into their attracts 50 years in the past and evaluate that to now.” In establishing an goal merit-based rating system on 23 August 1973, the ATP’s founding fathers, and their grand imaginative and prescient helped lay the foundations for the game’s development that we all know right this moment.
Carlos Alcaraz with the ATP Yr-Finish No. 1 introduced by Pepperstone trophy in 2022. Photograph Credit score: Corinne Dubreuil/ATP Tour
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