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It happens quite often that a tennis tournament is not finished on Sunday. Due to weather or other reason. A few examples (I wanted to include various leves - Grand Slam, ATP Tour, ATP Challenger Tour; I have no doubt that many other examples can be found):

Basically my question is:

How are the rankings calculated when some event has not been finished on Sunday? Will they be published as scheduled, or only after the event is finished? Are the rules different for events of different levels (Grand Slams, Masters, ATP Tour, Challengers)1?

The solutions which I could imagine could be:

  • Delaying publishing new rankings.
  • Not dropping the last year's points for the players still active in the tournament.
  • Dropping the last year's points for the players still active in the tournament, but counting the points which they already have from the current edition. (I.e., if the final is finished after publishing the new rankings, the finalist would both have points for the final, in the following edition the winner would get more points.)

1I am aware of the fact that this is a non-issue for futures, since the points for futures tournamets are counted with one week delay anyway. According to 2014 ATP Rulebook, Chapter IX. Emirates ATP Rankings: The Emirates ATP Rankings or Emirates ATP Doubles Rankings period is the immediate past 52 weeks, except for: a) Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, singles and doubles, which is dropped on the Monday following the last ATP World Tour event of the following year. b) Futures Series tournaments that are only entered into the system on the second Monday following the tournament’s week.

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When the final match is delayed for some reason, or not played until the next day (Monday) - the new rankings will be delayed also and not published until the winners of the tournament final(s) are determined.

Since the Men's US Open final has been played on Monday the past 4 years now - let's use that tournament as an example. This year (2014), the tournament started on Monday Aug 25th and the Men's final was played on Monday, Sep 8th, with Marin Cilic winning the title - which comes along with 2,000 rankings points for being the champion.

If you look at Cilic's ranking and points going into the tournament (for the week starting Aug. 25th) - he's ranked #16 with 1,845 points.

Then, if you look at the rankings that were published "after" the US Open - for the week starting September 8th - his ranking there is #9 and he has 3,845 points - up 2,000 points for his US Open title.

So, even though the Men's US Open final was played on the day representing the rankings for that week, the results were still taken into consideration for that week.

Hope that helps - let me know if you have any other questions.

EDIT: Also, just to clarify something - rankings points earned from playing the tournament the previous year drop off of every players total before the tournament begins, so no players are still carrying around any points from the previous year once the tournament has started. I.E. points earned from a players 2014 US Open result will drop off before they begin playing in the 2015 US Open.

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    With your Cilic example it is perhaps worth mentioning that he defended 0 points, since he did not play at 2013 US Open (because of a suspension).
    – Martin
    Commented Dec 18, 2014 at 6:42

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