ITF announce major changes from 2019

JonH · All-time great

ITF announce major changes from 2019

paulisi · Tennis legend

Exactky

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I cant see it will make much difference assuming the rules for entering qualifying for 25Ks dont change in terms of who it restricts entering and the number remains the same. It is just a question of how and where you accumulate those first 25 points. If you are good enough and you enter qualifying you will as JFH has shown start qualifying and winning points pretty quickly. Its player that hang around in Sharm for 4 or 5 years will no longer be able to call themselves professional tennis players. Some may earn a few dollars in money tournaments and they will be semi professionals.

I presume a whole new equivalent set of metrics will evolve which will should allow greater discrimination between the 1200 odd players presently with between 1 and 24 points. At the top end of the scale you have about 10-15 players with same no points low end its more than 100, the lower you go the closer to pointless the system becomes! It needed reforming.

JonH · All-time great

It's a good point. A couple of years back there was a player called Willem boe-wiegaard or similar. Went whole seasons and never won a match in qualies let alone main draw. One season though he managed to get into main draw, a wild card Or two, played in some far flung places and managed to haul together 3 or 4 points. I think he reached around 1400 in the ranks. No way was he 1400th best in the world. But the ranking system couldn't discern that and of course once he got to that level he sustained a years worth of entries into weak futures main draws, many of them in antalya or similar.

EddietheEagle · County player

I don't see it making the slightest difference as to whether a player is regarded, or regards him/herself as professional or not. They'll still play tournaments.

And why is Boe-Wiegaard any less deserving of his place than, for example, Ed Corrie? Both are arguably going nowhere, just that Ed Corrie's going nowhere higher up.