The latest APTA Men’s Ranking revealed to be quite controversial. So controversial that one member of the Rankings Committee resigned. This fact has not been made public yet.
For the ones who don’t know how the rankings work, let me try to explain. I will attempt to be as concise and clear as possible.
– Teams are ranked based on the results of their three best tournaments during a period that includes the immediate past 52 weeks.
– The rating of the tournaments is based on the opinion of the Rankings Committee members.
– The Rankings Committee decides what the rating of all tournaments is after the tournaments are played.
– The higher the rating of a tournaments, the more points awarded to a team.
So far, so good? Great. Why is the latest Ranking so controversial then? Because the Rankings Committee decided that the rating for the Lehigh Valley Classic was a 2.375 while the Indianapolis Open was a 2.625. Among other factors the Ranking Committee takes into account, they look at the strength of the field and then decide what the correct rating should be. Here is what the problem lies: The Lehigh Valley Classic had five top 10 players in the country (#2 AND National Champion Mike Stulac, #5 Juan Arraya, #7 Lennart Jonason, #9 David Caldwell, #9 Blake Cordish). On the other hand, the Indianapolis Open had ONLY one top 10 player (#5 Alex Bancila).
How can the Committee rate Indy higher than Lehigh then? I know their reasoning but it is not my place to explain it. The controversy lies on the fact that teams that played in Indianapolis, a tournaments that “should” have been rated lower, were benefited with a higher seeding in Nationals this upcoming weekend. In other words, the latest APTA Men’s Ranking had a huge impact on the draws of the 2012 APTA Men’s Nationals. Not many players know about this. The truth is that not many players understand how the rankings work.
To learn more about how the APTA Men’s Rankings work click here.
