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Tours and rankings

Why do players travel to a different country every week? Understand the season, tournament tiers, ranking points and the draw.

Published by TENNIS ONLINE

A year on the professional tour

Professional tennis is a traveling tour rather than one domestic league. ATP and WTA events run across countries through much of the year.

January to March: hard courts, the Australian Open and the Indian Wells–Miami “Sunshine Double.”
April to early June: European clay, including Monte Carlo, Madrid and Rome, leading to Roland-Garros.
June and July: the short grass season centered on Wimbledon.
July to September: North American hard courts and the US Open.
Autumn: Asian and European events and the season-ending Finals.

Players choose schedules around eligibility, form and physical condition; resting and entering are both strategic decisions.

The tournament pyramid

Grand Slams: the four majors, with 2,000 points for a singles title.
ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000: major tour stops such as Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and Rome.
500 events: an intermediate tour tier.
250 events: the entry tier of the main tours, where first titles and comebacks often happen.
Challenger-level competition: a route toward main-tour entry and a key setting for developing players.
ITF World Tennis Tour: an early professional step where players earn initial ranking points.

Category names indicate the scale of points and competition. Exact entry obligations and counting rules depend on tour and season.

How rankings work

Rankings generally use a rolling 52-week window: new results enter while older results expire. Only a defined set of results counts, with mandatory-event rules and exceptions; consult the ATP or WTA rules for the relevant season rather than treating a single event-count formula as permanent.

Rankings are generally published weekly. “Defending points” means replacing an expiring result: if a player won an event last year but exits early this year, the replacement earns fewer points and the total may fall.

What rankings determine

Direct acceptance: higher-ranked players enter a main draw directly; others may need qualifying or a wild card. Even qualifying has entry cutoffs.
Seeding: separates leading players in the draw so they do not meet immediately. Being seeded can substantially change an early-round assignment.
Finals qualification: season results determine entry to the limited year-end field under the tour's rules.

Regional recreational events use similar seeding ideas, even if their ranking systems are different.

Formats and the evolution of tiebreaks

Most tour singles matches use best-of-three sets; men's Grand Slam singles uses best-of-five. Team competitions have their own formats, which can change.

Historically, final sets at some majors continued until a two-game margin. John Isner and Nicolas Mahut's 2010 Wimbledon match lasted eleven hours and five minutes, ending 70–68 in the fifth. The 2019 Wimbledon final used a deciding tiebreak at 12–12.

In 2022, the majors aligned on a ten-point deciding-set tiebreak at 6–6, requiring a two-point margin. Check each event's current regulations for the format being played.