|
EXTRA |
|
SPONSORS S
|
tempor. Vivamus scelerisque lorem a elit. Sed id mauris. |
|
Here are a few things to know about doubles, going from past champions to the new rules
2) Doubles Rankings : how does it work?
3) Explanation of the new rules
- a) The “No Ad” rule
- b) The “Match Tie Break” or “Super Tie Break”
1) History of Rankings
A doubles ranking was created for the first time in 1984, based on the points received for each doubles team in each tournament. Here is a list of all past number one players, ranked following the number of weeks they’ve spent in total at the top (as of January 5th 2009):
Rank |
Name |
Number of weeks |
First time |
1 |
Martina Navratilova |
237 |
10 September 1984 |
2 |
Natasha Zvereva |
124 |
7 October 1991 |
3 |
Lisa Raymond* |
117 |
12 June 2000 |
4 |
Arantxa Sanchez Vicario |
111 |
19 October 1992 |
5 |
Cara Black* |
97 |
17 October 2005 |
6 |
Paola Suarez |
87 |
9 September 2002 |
7 |
Gigi Fernandez |
80 |
4 March 1991
|
8 |
Helena Sukova |
68 |
5 February 1990 |
9 |
Jana Novotna |
67 |
27 August 1990 |
10 |
Virginia Ruano Pascual* |
65 |
8 September 2003 |
11 |
Liezel Huber* |
61 |
12 November 2007 |
11 |
Samantha Stosur* |
61 |
8 February 2006 |
13 |
Pam Shriver |
48 |
18 March 1985 |
14 |
Ai Sugiyama* |
45 |
23 October 2000 |
15 |
Martina Hingis |
35 |
8 June 1998 |
16 |
Lindsay Davenport* |
32 |
20 October 1997 |
17 |
Julie Halard-Decugis |
14 |
11 September 2000 |
18 |
Anna Kournikova |
10 |
22 November 1999 |
19 |
Corina Morariu |
7 |
3 April 2000 |
20 |
Kim Clijsters |
4 |
4 August 2003 |
20 |
Larisa Neiland |
4 |
27 January 1992 |
22 |
Rennae Stubbs* |
3 |
21 August 2000 |
* active players
2) Doubles Rankings : how does it work?
-
There are two kinds of rankings for the women doubles:
- - The rankings, running from week x of year y to week x of year (y+1), that determine the best player of the year in doubles.
- - The standings for the Race for the current year, which allows to determine the four best teams that will compete at the Masters in November.
a) The rankings
During each tournament, a certain amount of points are attributed to each player of a team. Over one year (52 weeks, from week x of year y to week x of year y+1), only the 11 tournaments with the highest amounts of points are taken into account to establish the rankings. The player with the highest amount of points is declared World number 1.
For instance, in 2008, Cara and Liezel have played 24 tournaments. Among these 24 tournaments, only the 11 tournaments bringing the maximum of points count.
The following tables show all the tournaments and points for Cara and Liezel for this period:
| Tournaments |
Number of points won |
Gold Coast 2008 |
130 |
Sydney 2008 |
140 |
Australian Open 2008 |
500 |
Paris GDF 2008 |
2 |
Antwerp 2008 |
550 |
Doha 2008 |
650 |
Dubai 2008 |
600 |
Miami 2008 |
700 |
Amelia Island 2008 |
2 |
Charleston 2008 |
390 |
Berlin 2008 |
860 |
Rome 2008 |
220 |
Roland Garros 2008 |
900 |
Birmingham 2008 |
280 |
Eastbourne 2008 |
550 |
Wimbledon 2008 |
900 |
Stanford 2008 |
550 |
Montréal 2008 |
860 |
New Haven 2008 |
2 |
US Open 2008 |
2000 |
Moscow 2008 |
600 |
Zurich 2008 |
550 |
Linz 2008 |
390 |
Masters Doha 2008 |
1500 |
Total |
10120 |
Figure 1: points won in 2008 for both Cara and Liezel
In blue the tournaments taken into account as the 11 with the more points won.
Here are the first 10 players : WTA Ranking
NB: In 2009, the ranking points given for each tournament change. Roughly, the points are doubled. Hence, in order to start the year with no big differences, the 2008 tournament points are simply doubled for the January 5th 2009 rankings.
b) the standings for the Race
Unlike the rankings, these Race standings work for teams. Each time a team plays a tournament, that team receives a certain amount of points (the same as for the ranking). These points are added for all the tournaments of the current year the team has played together, and at the end of the season, the best four teams are selected to play the Sony Ericsson Championships (this year in Doha). For instance, in 2007, Cara and Liezel have played 24 tournaments, so the points allocated for the 24 tournaments were added, for a total of 7400 points. They finished the year as the best doubles team, with more than twice the amount of points won by the second team (Raymond/Stosur with 3628 points). In 2008, Cara and Liezel finished number 1 in the Race with over 3000 points more than their opponents.
Here are the standings for the race in 2008: WTA Ranking
3) Explanation of the new rules
This year, in some of the WTA tournaments, the following new rules have been put into practice to make doubles matches more attractive to audiences.
Here is a rough explanation of these rules: the “No Ad” rule and the “Match Tie Break” rule.
a) The “No Ad” rule
Regular matches are played with points counted this way: 0 / 15 / 30 / 40 and game. If two teams are tied at 40 (deuce), one of the team needs to win the next two points to win the game. With the “No Ad” rule, there’s only one point needed after deuce. The receiving team has to choose which of its player will receive the serve. And then whoever scores wins the game.
b) The “Match Tie Break” or “Super Tie Break”
With the “Match Tie Break” rule, if two teams are tied one set all, instead of usual third set, these teams have to play a “Super Tie Break”. This is a sort of Tie Break, but going to 10 instead of 7, still with a 2 points difference.
4) Winning teams of the year
Here is the list of the teams who have won WTA tournaments in 2008:
Team |
Victories |
Tournaments won |
Black/Huber |
10 |
Grand Slam: US Open |
YEC: Doha |
||
Tier I: Berlin, Montréal |
||
Tier II: Antwerp, Dubai , Eastbourne , Stanford, Zurich |
||
Tier III: Birmingham |
||
Medina Garrigues/Ruano Pascual |
3 |
Grand Slam : Roland Garros |
Tier III: Hobart |
||
Tier IV: Portoroz |
||
Srebotnik/Sugiyama |
3 |
Tier I: Miami, Charleston |
Tier II: Linz |
||
Chan/Chuang |
3 |
Tier I: Rome |
Tier II: Los Angeles |
||
Tier IV: Pattaya |
||
S Williams/V Williams |
2 |
Grand Slam: Wimbledon |
Beijing Olympic Games |
||
A Bondarenko/K Bondarenko |
2 |
Grand Slam : Australian Open |
Tier II: Paris Indoors |
||
Hlavackova/Hradecka |
2 |
Tier IV: Prague, Bad Gastein |
Peschke/Stubbs |
1 |
Tier I: Doha |
Safina/Vesnina |
1 |
Tier I: Indian Wells |
King/Petrova |
1 |
Tier I: Tokyo Pan Pacific |
Petrova/Srebotnik |
1 |
Tier I: Moscow |
Yan/Zheng |
1 |
Tier II: Sydney |
Peng/Sun |
1 |
Tier II: Bangalore |
Mattek/Uhlirova |
1 |
Tier II: Amelia Island |
Peschke/Raymond |
1 |
Tier II: New Haven |
Medina Garrigues/Wozniacki |
1 |
Tier II: Beijing |
Groenefeld/Schnyder |
1 |
Tier II: Stuttgart |
Safina/Szavay |
1 |
Tier III: Gold Coast |
Dekmeijere/Rosolska |
1 |
Tier III: Vina Del Mar |
Benesova/Mattek |
1 |
Tier III: Bogota |
Davenport/Raymond |
1 |
Tier III: Memphis |
Llagostera Vives/Martinez Sanchez |
1 |
Tier III: Acapulco |
Perebiynis/Yan |
1 |
Tier III: Strasbourg |
Craybas/Govortsova |
1 |
Tier III: Istanbul |
Erakovic/Krajicek |
1 |
Tier III: S'Hertogenbosch |
Cornet/Husarova |
1 |
Tier III: Budapest |
Kirilenko/Petrova |
1 |
Tier III: Cincinnati |
Hsieh/Peng |
1 |
Tier III: Bali |
Koryttseva/Poutchek |
1 |
Tier III: Guangzhou |
Craybas/Erakovic |
1 |
Tier III: Tokyo II |
Groenefeld/King |
1 |
Tier III: Québec City |
Koryttseva/Osterloh |
1 |
Tier IV: Auckland |
Kirilenko/Pennetta |
1 |
Tier IV: Estoril |
Cirstea/Pavlyuchenkova |
1 |
Tier IV: Fes |
Parra Santonja/Dominguez Lino |
1 |
Tier IV: Barcelona |
Errani/Llagostera Vives |
1 |
Tier IV: Palermo |
Benesova/Zahlavova Strycova |
1 |
Tier IV: Stockholm |
Chuang/Hsieh |
1 |
Tier IV: Seoul |
Olaru/Savchuk |
1 |
Tier IV: Tashkent |
