After eleven months of inactivity, world No.1 Ashleigh Barty will finally show her tennis skills in competition at “A Day at the Drive”, an exhibition event scheduled for January 29 in Adelaide.
The one-day Australian exhibition line-up includes the sport’s brightest stars: Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka, Simona Halep, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem. Players quarantined in Melbourne are voicing their discontent that the big names in Adelaide have preferential conditions and better opportunity to prepare for the upcoming Australian Open which begins February 8.
Because of COVID-19 concerns and overseas travel restrictions, Australian Barty skipped all the tournaments played in Europe and America after the coronavirus hiatus, including the US Open and Roland Garros, so her last tennis match was the Qatar Total Open semifinal in February 2020. The WTA’s revised ranking system allowed Barty to keep her No.1 position.
After the Adelaide exhibition, Barty plans to play the WTA 500 event at Melbourne Park and after that the Australian Open. (source: ESPN)
The rankings weren’t actually frozen, they were spread over two years rather than one.
CLT, that’s right. In one of my articles I explained it:
“Traditionally, the WTA rankings take into account a player’s best 16 tournaments for singles and 11 for doubles in a 52-week period. When the pandemic started, the WTA decided to freeze the rankings and then came up with a revised system which also counts in a player’s best 16 results in singles and best 11 results in doubles, but based on the points earned from March 2019 through December 2020. Moreover, the revised system includes the “Better of 2019 and 2020” points earned at Tour-level and Grand Slam events.”
Cant wait to see Ash playing again
I believe the ATP and the WTA should switch to a 2 year determination of rankings permanently. This is what is done in golf (PGA & LPGA) That way you can use last years points in case you have a bad tournament one year.
Jim, that’s interesting. I didn’t know that about golf rankings. I guess it takes a bit of pressure off.