Tennis rankings: Everything you need to know

While listing down sports with major global appeal, tennis, invariably, features in the top bracket.

Often headlined by the best tennis players in the world -- Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and others -- their performances on the tennis court reflects their positions in the rankings.

Rankings may be considered the ultimate representation of how good a player/doubles pair is on the court and their form at the time.

Additionally, tennis rankings determine qualification for any official tournament as well as player seedings. These in turn have a big impact on the draws for the respective events.

But how exactly are tennis rankings determined or is the process any different for men’s and women’s tennis players? Here’s an overview to answer these questions.

Though the modern version of organised tennis traces its origins to the mid-1800s, there was no formalised ranking system in place for a long time.

From the 1950s, several popular British newspapers started issuing their own rankings. Among these, legendary tennis journalist Lance Tingay’s annual list of top 10 tennis players was held as the authority.

With the formation of Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) – the world governing body for men’s tennis - in 1972, formal computerised tennis rankings were put in place for the first time in order to streamline tournament entry criteria.

The first-ever men’s singles rankings were published on August 23, 1973. Romania’s Ilie Năstase was the first official ATP men’s singles world No. 1. Almost three years later, on March 1, 1976, the first men’s doubles tennis rankings were published.

With Billie Jean King setting up the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) – the world governing body in women’s tennis – in 1973, the women’s game followed suit and adopted a similar formula.

As things stand, ATP Rankings grade men’s singles and doubles players while WTA Rankings cater to women’s singles and doubles players. There are no formalised rankings for mixed doubles.

In the initial days, the core of the ranking system was based on averaging all the players’ results. From 1990, it was changed to a ‘best of’ system, which forms the base of the ranking methodology we know today.

Both ATP and WTA follow a similar format, with minor tweaks setting them apart.