How Are World Padel Tour Rankings Calculated?

I was watching the final of the Sao Paulo tournament in the 2019 World Padel Tour. At the start of the match, Paquito Navarro and Juan Lebron were third and fourth respectively on the World Padel Tour ranking list. They needed to win to secure the top two spots on the ranking list.

They duly won, but imagine my surprise when the ranking list was updated and Lebron had leapfrogged past his doubles partner to take top spot in the rankings. Something didn’t add up. So I took to the tour rules and regulations to find out.

How are world padel tour rankings calculated? World Padel Tour ranking points are awarded to players based on tournament performance. The ranking list is updated weekly. Doubles partners will have equal ranking if they have been together for more than a year.

The exact methodology of allocating and deducting ranking points is rather complex and needs more detailed analysis.

Starting 2020 as World Number One is Paquito Navarro

The 52 Week Ranking Cycle

Wor padel Tour rankings are calculated weekly on a 52-week cycle. That effectively means that your ranking is calculated on the ranking points that you accumulated over the 52 weeks leading up to the current ranking list.

Becue the main draw of every tournament on the World Padel Tour starts on Wednesday, the new ranking lists are released on each consecutive Tuey. That gives commentators the latest available ranking list and the ability to extrapolate how the current tournament will impact the next ranking list.

By way of example, when the ranking list at the end of week 26 of the year is published, each player loses the points that they earned in week 26 of the preceding year. That means that ranking is based on 52 weeks of tournaments.

It also means that skipping tournaments will cause players to start slipping down the rankings almost immediately.

Narrowing The Ranking Gap Between Doubles Partners

Both partners in a doubles pairing receive the points based on their performance in a tournament. Initially, this led me to believe that doubles pairs would have the same number of ranking points. But I didn’t think of one specific factor that would impact individual player rankings.

I had assumed, and some of you may have too, that doubles pairings at professional level remained constant. However, just like with any other partnership, padel playing partnerships can split or form at any time of the season for a myriad of different reasons. Two reasons that spring to mind would be when one of the players become injured, or simply due to a personality clash.

Players accumulate ranking points individually irrespective of who their partner is at each tournament they enter.

One interesting mathematical pattern emerges when a doubles partnership plays together for an extended period of time. With each week that passes they will each shed the points, they had gained in the prior year before being awarded identical points for the tournament they had played that prior week. That will gradually move their ranking closer.

Eventually, those players will reach a point that you see regularly on the ranking list. Players who have been in the same partnership for more than 52 weeks will have identical World Pade Tour rankings.

Starting 2020 as World Number One is Marta Marrero

Bonus Points For Beating Seeded Players

The world of professional padel has relatively few tournaments each year compared to some other sports. In 2019 there were 27 WPT professional tournaments, up from 15 back in 2015.

As a way to help accelerate the ranking of strong juniors moving up into the professional ranks, the WPT has devised a bonus point system for when players coming through the qualifying and pre-qualifying tournaments manage to beat some of the seeded players from that tournament.

Unseeded pairings that defeat a seeded pairing in the main draw will receive bonus points (40 points at Masters events, 25 points at Open events and 7 points at Challenger events).

These “upset” bonus points are added per seeded pairing that is defeated in each tournament. When a seeded pairing defeats another seeded pairing, they won’t receive these bonus points. Likewise, seeded pairings won’t earn bonus points for beating unseeded pairings.

In addition, pairings who make it into the main draw from both the qualifying and pre-qualifying tournaments will receive additional bonus points that will be added to whatever points they gain in the main draw of the tournament.

The following bonus points will be added for those parings who make it into the main draw: Masters, 40 points Open, 25 points Challenger, 7 points. Lucky losers won’t receive these bonus points.

Lucky losers refer to a pairing that loses a qualifying match but gets put through to the main draw on account of their opponents not being able to continue.

Qualifiers from the Pre-Qualifying draw will receive the following additional bonus points that will be added to the points they gain in the Main Draw: Masters, 8 points; Open, 4 points; Challenger, 2 points. Lucky losers won’t receive these bonus points.

Main Draw Ranking Points At Each Level Of Tournament

Master Final

Champion: 1300 points
Final Losers: 780 points
Semi-Final Losers: 470 points
Quarter-Final Losers: 235 points

Master

Champion: 1700 points
Final Losers: 1020 points
Semi-Final Losers: 610 points
Quarter-Final Losers: 310 points
Round of 8: Losers: 150 points
Round of 16 Losers: 70 points

Open

Champion: 1000 points
Final Losers: 600 points
Semi-Final Losers: 360 points
Quarter-Final Losers: 180 points
Round of 8: Losers: 90 points
Round of 16 Losers: 40 points

Challenger

Champion: 120 points
Final Losers: 75 points
Semi-Final Losers: 50 points
Quarter-Final Losers: 35 points
Round of 8: Losers: 25 points
Round of 16 Losers: 12 points

Qualifier Tournament Ranking Points At Each Level

Master – Men

Quarter-Final Losers: 38 points
Round of 8: Losers: 20 points
Round of 16 Losers: 16 points

Master – Women

Quarter-Final Losers: 35 points
Round of 8: Losers: 18 points

Open – Men

Quarter-Final Losers: 22 points
Round of 8: Losers: 12 points
Round of 16 Losers: 10 points

Open – Women

Quarter-Final Losers: 20 points
Round of 8: Losers: 10 points

Challenger – Men

Quarter-Final Losers: 6 points
Round of 8: Losers: 6 points
Round of 16 Losers: 5 points

Challenger – Women

Quarter-Final Losers: 8 points
Round of 8: Losers: 5 points

Pre-Qualifier Tournament Ranking Points At Each Level