The ATP wants us tennis fans to FEEL IT in 2009 with the unveiling of a renewed ad campaign to promote significant changes in the ATP Tour starting next year. From January, its name will change to ATP World Tour to reflect the global aspect of men’s tennis. Ads will position world-class players like Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer as tennis giants, playing tennis that is "out of this world".
In an effort to make the tour more fan-friendly, the tournament categories will be renamed to indicate the number of ranking points the tournament winner will receive, while ranking points will be roughly doubled from last year. In addition to the Grand Slams (where the champion will earn 2000 ranking points), there will be three tournament categories:
- ATP World Tour Masters 1000 (formerly ATP Masters Series)
- ATP World Tour 500
- ATP World Tour 250
The season finale will be renamed from Tennis Masters Cup (previously held in Shanghai from 2005- 2008) to Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which will be held in London from 2009-2012. Appropriately, the year-end number one player will be called ATP World Tour Champion.
The Davis Cup will also award ranking points for the first time in 2009.
With these changes, how is the transition going to happen from the previous rankings system to the new one? To make it simple, players' ranking points will be doubled at the end of the year. It's not a perfect solution - for instance, winners of this year's 300-level International Series Gold events who defend their titles next year will lose out on this proposition because they will only get 500 points in place of 600 points (300 x 2).
Here is the breakdown of points for the different tournament categories from the winner down to the quarterfinalists:
Grand Slam: 2000 (W), 1200 (F), 720 (SF), 360 (QF)
ATP World Tour Masters 1000: 1000 (W), 600 (F) 360 (SF), 180 (QF)
ATP World Tour 500: 500 (W), 300 (F), 180 (SF), 90 (QF)
ATP World Tour 250: 250 (W), 150 (F), 90 (SF), 45 (QF)
The transition to the new rankings system is going to be fun!
