It wouldn't make sense to determine the rankings based on who you beat. A top player can have a very bad day and lose to someone ranked outside the top 100, in a tournament. That shouldn't make that person get such a huge rise in the rankings, as the top player would have been far more consistent for the year. The current ranking system is good, it is based on consistency.

If a no.100 player beats a no.5 player it shouldn't go unacknowledged either. Fluke or not, the no.100 player should be rewarded - the tricky question is how??

Another thing I noticed which is related to my original one - Ricketts withdrew from the tour in Jan 2004 to rejoin again in Aug, but his ranking only dropped by 4 places during those 7 months of recuperation. Admittedly there's less tournaments, but the other PSA pros did play a small number of tournaments during the summer.

most of you guys have no idea what you are talking about. The system is right how it is, it's all about consistency. Anthony probably only dropped 7 spots because he did well in the 4 months that he wasn't injured, i think he won dayton last year.

There should be some recognition for beating people higher in the rankings than you, but the rankings should also reward consistency. Its a tough one, but I think it should be ammended slightly to acknowledge good effort!! I was at the British Nationals this year and Alison Waters was supposed to go out in the 1st round but she got to the final beating players that were well above her in the rankings. Surely she should get some bonus points or something??!!!

You do get bonus points -- instead of losing in an early round you move on to later rounds and get more points from the tournament.

The big problem in my opinion is that a big win will fall out of your ranking calculation after a year, which can lead to a big drop in rankings without any current activity. You can solve this by using an exponential average that considers all past results, but weights them at an ever decreasing percentage as time goes by. Many financial calculations are done this way.

Your first point is absolutely correct, although I do quite like the idea of a player getting bonus points - in addition to the tournament points - as an extra reward for beating a highly ranked player.

However, your second point sounds like a way of keeping Peter Nicol in the top 10 for the next 20 years! I can think of one current top 20 player who would probably like the sound of your suggestion, though - no names mentioned, of course!

With an exponential average depending on how you weight past results they can actually get diminished very quickly. It mostly would serve the purpose of eliminating past results more smoothly than the current system.

Just replying to one of the previous posts. The British Nationals do not award WISPA ranking points. So Alison Waters wouldn't recieve any reward for performance. Only some of the lower-ranked players take a few minimal points from the Nationals.