2009 ATP Tennis Rankings

The year 2009 was a landmark year for some tennis players on the ATP tour. Beginning with Roger Federer's tears after failing to capture the Australian Open and his 14th Grand Slam, and culminating with a Davis Cup whitewash of the Czech Republic by Spain, the year saw a lot of achievements by players and some of the best tennis ever. In between the Federer anguish and Spain's celebration, there was also Soderling's famous victory over Rafael Nadal in the French Open, and Juan Martin del Potro's first Grand Slam title at the US Open. And not forgetting Nikolay Davyedenko, who won the ATP World Tour Finals in November. All in all, an unforgettable year, with unforgettable tennis, especially the Wimbledon final between Roger Federer and Andy Roddick, which is definitely the best match of the year by far.

Besides all this, there was plenty of action on the ATP circuit, with players fighting tooth and nail for titles and ranking points. Gone are the days when there was just a Pete Sampras or a Roger Federer dominating the sport. Today, all the top ten players are competitive enough to give anyone a run for their money. The perfect example is, of course, Robin Soderling, who at number 9 in the world, defeated the World Number 2 Rafael Nadal, and the world number 3, Novak Djokovic, in the year ending Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals. He unfortunately didn't win the tournament, but finished the year ranked number 8 in the ATP rankings.

Keeping in the mind the competitiveness on the ATP circuit, and the fight for ATP ranking points, it makes sense to see how the top players fared at the various tournaments over the course of the year. But before we move on to the tournaments, let's take a brief look at the various tournaments, the ranking procedures, and the calendar year for men's tennis.

Index

1. How Do ATP Tennis Rankings Work

2. ATP Tennis Tournaments 2009

• ATP World Tour 250
• ATP World Tour 500
• ATP World Tour 1000
• Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals
• Grand Slam Tournaments

3. ATP Tennis 2009 Results

• ATP World Tour 250 Tournaments
• ATP World Tour 500 Tournaments
• ATP World Tour 1000 Tournaments
• Grand Slams or Majors
• Year End ATP World Tour Finals

4. 2009 ATP Tennis Rankings

How Do ATP Tennis Rankings Work?

The ATP ranking system in men's tennis is a bit confusing to explain properly. The way it works is that a player gets points for the tournaments he plays in. Of course, the points for any particular tournament keeps increasing with the level the player reaches in that particular tournament. For example, consider a tournament which has four rounds, a quarter final, a semi-final, and then the final. Players will receive more points the further they advance in the tournament. That is to say, a first round loser might get 5 points, while a semi-final loser might get 200 points. The winner, of course, gets the most number of points. The points are called ATP Ranking Points and are used to determine players ATP rankings for the year.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple though. There are two or three more twists to this ranking system that can boggle the mind at first. The first twist is that there are different tournaments that offer different points. For example, Grand Slams offer 2000 ATP Ranking points to the winner, while ATP World Tour 250 Events offer just 250 points to the winner. Of course, there are just the four Grand Slams in the year, while there are about 40 ATP World Tour 250 Events in the year, so it works out. So, there are different tournaments across the year - Grand Slams, ATP Tour 1000 Events, ATP Tour 500 Events, ATP Tour 250 Events, and Challenger and Futures Series, that all give different points to the players, again, depending on how far they advance in the tournament.

The second twist that makes this ranking more difficult to understand is the concept of the 'rolling point system', along with the amount of titles one can play in a year. The rolling concept is something where the points that a player earns from tournaments are kept till the next time those tournaments occur, i.e. one year, When he competes in that tournament again, his performance in that tournament will determine his points. Confusing? Let me explain with an example. Let's say a player wins the 2009 US Open title. For that he gets 2000 ranking points. These 2000 ranking points stay with him till the 2010 US Open, where his performance in the 2010 US Open will determine the ranking points he gets. If he wins the title again, then he 'retains' or 'defends' his 2000 points. However, if he loses in the semi-final, he gets just 1000 points, thus effectively losing 1000 points of his previous year's 2000 points. If he cannot play in the tournament, he is unable to defend his points and loses them all. This system is calculated for all tournaments, based on a 52 week ATP calendar.

The third twist is the number of tournaments that are taken into account for the ranking. The ATP has fixed a number of tournaments from which the ranking points are taken and counted towards the year end ranking. The four major grand slams, 8 ATP World Tour Masters 1000, and the year ending Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals are the mandatory events that count towards the players ranking. In addition to these 12+1 [you have to qualify for the Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals] tournaments, a player's 4 best results from the ATP World Tour 500 series and 2 best results from the ATP World Tour 250 series [including Challenger and Future Series] are included in the ranking. So, there are a total of 18+1 tournaments that the ATP looks at while determining a players ranking. More on the types of the tournaments later.

Based on all these factors, the ATP ranking system is determined, and players are ranked for the year. With the current 52 week rolling policy in place, it had become more difficult for players to earn points. They have to be consistently winning tournaments to be highly ranked, as the ranking does not have any start and end dates.

The ATP ranking system is fairly confusing, but once the concepts are understood, it will be easy to follow.

ATP Tennis Tournaments 2009

The ATP calendar is divided into different types of tournaments with different ranking points awarded for each of them. The major of the tournaments are as follows:

• ATP World Tour 250
• ATP World Tour 500
• ATP World Tour 1000
• Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals
• Grand Slam Tournaments

ATP World Tour 250
These are tournaments that give 250 ranking points for the winner of the tournament. This is also the lowest tournament of the ATP calendar, ranking points wise. The draw consists of 32 players for singles and 16 players or teams for doubles. There are 40 such tournaments over the course of the year.

ATP World Tour 250 Tournaments
Tournaments: 40

ATP World Tour 250 Tournament Venues
Brisbane	Chennai	Doha	Sydney
Auckland	Johannesburg	Zagreb	Vina del Mar
San Jose	Costa Do Sauipe	Buenos Aires	Marseille
Delray Beach	Casablanca	Houston	Munich
Belgrade	Estoril	Kitzbuhel	London
Halle	Den Bosch	Eastbourne	Newport
Bastad	Stuttgart	Indianapolis	Gstaad
Los Angeles	Umag	New Haven	Bucharest
Metz	Bangkok	Kuala Lumpur	Stockholm
Moscow	St. Petersburg	Vienna	Lyon

Of the above 40 tournaments, the best 2 results of a player are counted towards his year end ranking.

ATP World Tour 500
These are tournaments that give 500 ranking points for the winner of the tournament. This is the third highest level of ATP tournaments. The draw consists of 56, 48, or 32 players for singles and 24 or 16 players or teams for doubles, depending on the tournament. There are 11 such tournaments over the course of the year.

ATP World Tour 500 Tournaments
Tournaments: 11

ATP World Tour 500 Tournament Venues
Rotterdam	Memphis	Dubai	Acapulco
Barcelona	Hamburg	Washington	Beijing
Tokyo	Valencia	Basel

Of the above 11 tournaments, the best 4 results of a player are counted towards his year end ranking.

ATP World Tour 1000
These are tournaments that give 1000 ranking points for the winner of the tournament. This is the second highest level of ATP tournaments. The draw consists of 56, 48, or 32 players for singles and 24 or 16 players or teams for doubles, depending on the tournament. There are 9 such tournaments over the course of the year.

ATP World Tour 1000 Tournaments
Tournaments: 9

ATP World Tour 1000 Tournament Venues
Indian Wells	Miami	Monte Carlo
Rome	Madrid	Montreal
Cincinnati	Shanghai	Paris

Of the above 9 tournaments, the best 8 results of a player are counted towards his year end ranking and 8 of the 9 tournaments are mandatory.

Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals
This is a year ending tournament that gives 1500 ranking points for the winner of the tournament. This is the highest level of ATP tournaments after the Grand Slams. The top eight players of the year qualify for this tournament, which is played on a round robin basis. This is a very important tournament for the top 8 due to the high number of ranking points available here. This is also an additional tournament from where the ranking points of the players who qualify for this tournament are counted towards their year end ranking.

Barclay's ATP World Tour Final Tournament
Tournament: 1
Venue: London

The ATP World Tour Finals was played at the O2 Arena in London this year. Previously held at Shanghai and called the Masters, the ATP World Tour Finals is the largest indoor tennis tournament in the world. The top 8 players in the world compete here, making it one of the most prestigious tournaments on the tour.

Grand Slam Tournaments
These are the most important of all tennis tournaments, in terms of ranking points, prize money and statistics. There are 4 grand slams throughout the year and winners of grand slams are awarded 2000 ranking points. The draw consists of 128 players for singles and 64 players or teams for doubles.

Grand Slams or Majors
Tournaments: 4

Australian Open
French Open
Wimbledon
US Open

Of the above 4 tournaments, all 4 results of a player are counted towards his year end ranking and these tournaments are mandatory.

The above are the five most important tournaments that players compete in, to earn ranking points. In all, there are 64 tournaments throughout the year, of which only 18 are counted towards ranking points. Thus, players have to concentrate on the bigger tournaments to rank higher. Also, players can't just play the grand slams only, they have to work their way up the ladder to earn enough points to qualify to play in bigger tournaments. Top players have to work harder at the Grand Slams to qualify for the year end tournament, which allows them one extra tournament to earn ranking points.

Now that we have covered the more exhausting part of all the different rules and scenarios of players' ATP rankings as well as the different types of tournaments on the ATP tour, let's now see how the players fared in 2009.

ATP Tennis 2009 Results

ATP World Tour 250 Tournaments
Tournaments: 40

Tournament	Winner	Runner Up
Brisbane	Radek Stepanek	Fernando Verdasco
Chennai	Marin Cilic	Somdev Devvarman
Doha	Andy Murray	Andy Roddick
Sydney	David Nalbandian	Jarkko Nieminen
Auckland	Juan Martin del Potro	Sam Querrey
Johannesburg	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	Jeremy Chardy
Zagreb	Marin Cilic	Mario Ancic
Vina del Mar	Fernando Gonzalez	Jose Acasuso
San Jose	Radek Stepanek	Mardy Fish
Costa Do Sauipe	Tommy Robredo	Thomaz Bellucci
Buenos Aires	Tommy Robredo	Juan Monaco
Marseille	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	Michael Llodra
Delray Beach	Mardy Fish	Evgeny Korolev
Casablanca	Juan Carlos Ferrero	Florent Serra
Houston	Lleyton Hewitt	Wayne Odesnik
Munich	Tomas Berdych	Mikhail Youzhny
Belgrade	Novak Djokovic	Łukasz Kubot
Estoril	Albert Montanes	James Blake
Kitzbuhel	Guillermo Garcia-Lopez	Julien Benneteau
London	Andy Murray	James Blake
Halle	Tommy Hass	Novak Djokovic
Den Bosch	Benjamin Becker	Raemon Sluiter
Eastbourne	Dmitry Tursunov	Frank Dancevic
Newport	Rajeev Ram	Sam Querrey
Bastad	Robin Soderling	Juan Monaco
Stuttgart	Jeremy Chardy	Victor Hanescu
Indianapolis	Robby Ginepri	Sam Querrey
Gstaad	Thomaz Bellucci	Andreas Beck
Los Angeles	Sam Querrey	Carsten Ball
Umag	Nikolay Davyedenko	Juan Carlos Ferrero
New Haven	Fernando Verdasco	Sam Querrey
Bucharest	Albert Montanes	Juan Monaco
Metz	Gael Monfils	Philipp Kohlschreiber
Bangkok	Gilles Simon	Viktor Troicki
Kuala Lumpur	Nikolay Davyedenko	Fernando Verdasco
Stockholm	Marcos Baghdatis	Olivier Rochus
Moscow	Mikhail Youzhny	Janko Tipsarevic
St Petersburg	Sergiy Stakhovsky	Horacio Zeballos
Vienna	Jurgen Melzer	Marin Cilic
Lyon	Ivan Lubicic	Michael Llodra

ATP World Tour 500 Tournaments
Tournaments: 11

Tournament	Winner	Runner Up
Rotterdam	Andy Murray	Rafael Nadal
Memphis	Andy Roddick	Radek Stepanek
Acapulco	Nicolas Almagro	Gael Monfils
Dubai	Novak Djokovic	David Ferrer
Barcelona	Rafael Nadal	David Ferrer
Hamburg	Nikolay Davyedenko	Paul-Henri Mathieu
Washington	Juan Martin del Potro	Andy Roddick
Beijing	Serbia Novak Djokovic	Marin Cilic
Tokyo	Jo-Wilfried Tsonga	Mikhail Youzhny
Basel	Novak Djokovic	Roger Federer
Valencia	Andy Murray	Mikhail Youzhny

ATP World Tour 1000 Tournaments
Tournaments: 9

Tournament	Winner	Runner Up
Indian Wells	Rafael Nadal	Andy Murray
Miami	Andy Murray	Novak Djokovic
Monte Carlo	Rafael Nadal	Novak Djokovic
Rome	Rafael Nadal	Novak Djokovic
Madrid	Roger Federer	Rafael Nadal
Montreal	Andy Murray	Juan Martin del Potro
Cincinnati	Roger Federer	Novak Djokovic
Shanghai	Nikolay Davyedenko	Rafael Nadal
Paris	Novak Djokovic	Gael Monfils

Grand Slams or Majors
Tournaments: 4

Tournament	Winner	Runner Up
Australian Open	Rafael Nadal	Roger Federer
French Open	Roger Federer	Robin Soderling
Wimbledon	Roger Federer	Andy Roddick
US Open	Juan Martin del Potro	Roger Federer

Year End ATP World Tour Finals
Tournament: 1

The year ending tournament was won by Nikolay Davyedenko, who defeated Juan Martin del Potro in the final. The top four seeds in the world - Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, and Murray, all failed to reach the semi-final. Davyedenko, seeded 6th in the world took the title with a straight sets win on the number 5 seed, Juan Martin Del Potro.

These were the results of the tournaments that were played on the ATP tour in 2009. Based on these tournaments the year end ranking are determined. Let's take a look at the year end ranking for the year 2009.

2009 ATP Tennis Rankings

The following are the top ten rankings for the year.

1. Roger Federer
2. Rafael Nadal
3. Novak Djokovic
4. Andy Murray
5. Juan Martin del Potro
6. Nikolay Davyedenko
7. Andy Roddick
8. Robin Soderling
9. Fernando Verdasco
10. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Thus, it can be seen that Roger Federer's appearance in all the Grand Slam finals, plus the two Grand Slam titles he won, and the additional titles he secured over the course of the year, ensured that he regained the top spot from Rafael Nadal. Nadal, on the other hand, could not match up to his performance of 2008, losing the French Open and not winning a single title after May. Other notable performers include Swede Robin Soderling, who with a dream run in the ATP World Tour Finals, climbed a spot and finished on number 8, pushing Fernando Verdasco to the number 9 spot. Andy Roddick, who could not compete in the World Tour Finals, moved down to number 7 in the 2009 ATP tennis rankings, allowing Nikolay Davyedenko to clinch the number 6 spot. The others [Djokovic, Murray, del Potro, and Tsonga] stayed where they were, at number 3, 4, 5 and 10 respectively.

With all these new policies in place, and all the top ten players being fiercely competitive and capable of reaching the number one spot, tennis has taken on a whole new dimension. The 2009 ATP tennis ranking and results show that the number 1 spot will be fiercely contested in the 2010 season. Nadal, Djokovic and Murray will all be trying to oust Roger Federer from the top spot and claim it for themselves. With action starting from the first week of January 2010 itself, all tennis fans are in for a cracker of a season.