Introduction

I'm a huge fan of tennis. I follow it pretty much week in week out whenever I can. But as well as that I am a scientist, a mathematician, a geek. Say it how you will, I'm a sad person who likes sitting around analysing numbers. So when I first started following tennis and I saw the (not always entirely logical) points system they use for the rankings I couldn't really stop myself from investigating. I sat down and worked it all out and made tables and spreadsheets and the like to work out how it all came together.

I realised that it was maybe a bit of a waste having all of this analysis here without sharing it. I know there are people who don't get the ranking system. I know that most people aren't going to sit down and work out who needs to do what to finish where. But since I'm the kind of person who likes doing that sort of thing, I thought I'd make myself useful and share my findings.

For the most part this blog is going to be factual. I have my own journal for expressing my own opinions on tennis (of which I have many), but this is purely analytical. I've not completely decided on the exact format that it will take so it's going to be a bit of a work in progress, but here's the basic idea.

Each big tournament (by which I mean the Slams and Masters - more than that and it gets too complicated for here) I'll post an analysis of how the rankings could change for the top 10 - who's safe, who's in danger of sliding down, who could climb up. I'll try and do it once the draw has been made so I can be a bit more thorough about it, and also so I can look for any particularly decisive matches to look out for. If possible I'll do this in the weekend before the tournament starts, tho obviously if they're on consecutive weeks (as is the case this week) then it will have to wait until the final is played.

I will also do occasional extra posts analysing other things to do with the points, rankings or general stats. To be perfectly honest it's mostly self-indulgent as I get curious about these things so have to investigate, but I know there are some people who will find it interesting so I might as well share it with everyone. This could be anything, from checking who is looking like a single surface specialist, who has the most evenly spread points, who has a lot to defend and who can only go up. Also when the ATP is cocking up the points (surprisingly frequent). I am totally open to suggestions for that sort of thing.

So anyway, that's me. I hope people do find it interesting. Hopefully I will have something ready for Cincinnati on Monday