The rankings are a rolling 52-week window, and that explains everything

A player wins a title and barely moves. Another loses in the second round and drops forty places. Both are explained by the same mechanic: the rankings are a rolling 52-week total, and points earned at a tournament last year disappear the week that tournament comes round again.

How it works

Your ranking is the sum of your best results over the previous 52 weeks. When the calendar reaches an event you played last year, the points you earned there drop off and are replaced by whatever you earn this year.

So a semi-finalist defending semi-final points who reaches the quarters loses ground, despite a perfectly respectable week.

Why “points to defend” is the number to watch

Before any big event, the relevant figure is not a player’s current rank but how many points they are defending. A player defending a title has everything to lose. A player who was injured last year and earned nothing has a free run.

This is why rankings can move sharply during a stretch where nothing surprising happens on court.

What it distorts

It rewards durability as much as peak level. A player who reaches quarter-finals every week for a year will out-rank one who wins two big titles and is absent for three months.

That is a defensible design — it is a ranking of the season, not of who would win tomorrow — but it means the top ten is not a list of the ten best players at any given moment.

Reading a draw

Check what each seed is defending. It tells you who is under pressure before a ball is struck.

Reported at ESPN and Sky Sports; analysis ours.