Yes, the rankings, traditionally, are based on handicaps

When you go into the 4th division, for instance, it goes 30/5, 30/4 30/4 etc - exactly as you explain it

The rankings serve in team tennis to determine the order you play in

And to determine which team you play for

i.e. you can't have someone in your third team who is better ranked than the lowest player in your second team

For individual tennis, and all the money tournaments, the ranking is used for doing seeding and the draw - it's important as they're nearly always progressive draws, so it you're playing an event which goes up to 2nd series, and you're -15, you'll almost certainly come directly in at SF level. Which means you can play more events, and guarantee prize money etc.

Thanks for explaining all this again CD. We had this conversation some 6 years ago and I'd completely forgotten how the rankings worked.

JonH comes home wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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Yes, the rankings, traditionally, are based on handicaps

When you go into the 4th division, for instance, it goes 30/5, 30/4 30/4 etc - exactly as you explain it

The rankings serve in team tennis to determine the order you play in

And to determine which team you play for

i.e. you can't have someone in your third team who is better ranked than the lowest player in your second team

For individual tennis, and all the money tournaments, the ranking is used for doing seeding and the draw - it's important as they're nearly always progressive draws, so it you're playing an event which goes up to 2nd series, and you're -15, you'll almost certainly come directly in at SF level. Which means you can play more events, and guarantee prize money etc.

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 Got it now, makes total sense!! Out of interest, do they use handicapping systems like this in actual action ie tournies , in France? When I played as a junior, they were quite a big thing, but that is 40 years or more ago now; I dont know if UK events like Ilkley or Frinton or others still use handicapping like this?

The issue at the level I played was getting it right - unknown players, where do you start? They asked on your entry form for some sort of background but it was very vague! Ilkley used to have a bunch of Dutch kids come over and play each year and they would enter the handicap - organisers assumed they were decent players but had no idea relatively how they stacked up!!

 

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 The ranking is used for absolutely everything. As said, for all tournaments, team and individual. 

But it's not a real handicap system - it's just a category, based on a point scoring system, that uses the old handicap based naming system. Without checking the finer details as of this year, it's something like this: 

You get 60 points for beating someone of your own ranking level, 90 points for beating someone 1 rank above you, 120 for someone 2 ranks above you. 30 points for someone one rank below, 20 for two ranks below. Your 6 best victories count. But for each group of X more matches you play, there's another victory taken into account. 

If you don't lose to anyone lower than you, you get bonus points. If you play in the county and regional championships, you get bonus points. 

And then there's a chart to work out your new ranking. But there's also an interation algorithm which re-calculates based on the new rankings of everyone you played, and goes through tons of iterations until it stabilises.

But you're capped - you can't go up to more than the ranking of the best player you beat. So you can't just stuff your result sheet, get tons of points by playing tons, and beating tons of one ranked above players and then jump up three ranks.  

thanks for the explanations, fascinating how it works - tennis is so much more integrated into their sporting and social culture over there, it is great to see this depth and breadth of activity!

Ali Collins continues to put in good performances for her French team

Playing #4, she won her singles today, over Bigot 6-1 6-2
Bigot is only ranked 2-6 which is not that impressive but all the same....

And Ali won her doubles too, and the team won 4-2

Pro A

'Poor' Ryan Peniston lost in another MTB today, to Dzumhur this time, in league tennis in France

But, again, he won his doubles. The tema drew 3-3

Jan Choinski def. Batvilas in two sets, didn't play doubles and his team also drew 3-3



In Pro B,

Arthur Féry won, 2-6 6-3 10-6, over Atmane

Stuart Parker lost easily to Skaner Mansouri

Art and Stu (or Stu-art ) won their doubles though, and yet again, the team drew 3-3



Billy Harris lost 8-10 in the MTB to young Debru who's still a junior :(

However, he won his doubles, also by 10-8, playing with Blanchet, and that was the only win the team got

Madadman wrote:

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I see from Billys Instagram that his team in Pro B have won promotion to ProA. Looks like Billy won both his singles and doubles today.

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Thanks, madadman, you've clarified it for me - from what you've put from Billy, I assume two teams go up - the winners or Pro B pool A and Pro B pool B?

I wasn't sure if they played off

But, actually, it makes sense - one from each pool go up and one from each pool above go down - hadn't really thought it through

 

But, definitely, Billy played number 2 for his team and won his singles against Lajal

And it was 2-2 after the four singles - which means the noise and tension and crowd-going-mad stuff must have been absolutely off the scale for the doubles 

And Billy's team won both doubles  

(Billy played with Ugo Blanchet)

 

Arthur Féry also played, beating Voisin, Stuart Parker lost to Bouquet, Stu & Art won their doubles, and the match was 3-3.

Their team finished 4th (out of 6) so stay up for next season