2026 has arrived and the professional circuit returns to the ringa few weeks before the start of the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the year (it will take place from Monday, January 12, until February 1). However, before the action begins, the ATP confirmed important changes.
The latter, related to the world ranking. What is it about? There will be modifications in the scoring system that regulates it, a priori, the results of the last 52 weeks governed, which means that the points from the last edition of the tournament being played are defended.
In 2026, this will no longer be the case: Only the 18 best results will award points, as opposed to the 19 that were taken into account until the end of 2025. The four Grand Slam tournaments, the eight mandatory Masters 1000 and four ATP 500 tournaments will be the competitions that the players located in the Top 30 will have to play.
It should be remembered that the only Masters 1000 that is not mandatory is Monte-Carlo. In summary, From this year only the 18 best results of each player will count, and until 2025 there were 19. If a tennis player plays 25 tournaments a year, seven will not count towards the world ranking, even if he has won matches. The ATP ranking does not reward the number of tournaments, but rather the regularity and level in the largest events.
The change came into effect on December 29, just when the ranking was updated, so many players were eliminated from the worst of those events that previously counted. This caused several tennis players to see their total score reduced, including Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Alex de Miñaur and Taylor Fritz.as one of the results that previously added was left out of the calculation. Although the change did not generate changes in positions, it was a key adjustment to take into account for the rest of the season.
