Tennis Rankings for the men and the women tennis players are done by the ATP or the Association of Tennis Professionals and the WTA or the Women's Tennis Association respectively on the basis of the points earned by them in several tournaments. The players are given the points according to the standard of the tournaments. For example, a win in a Grand Slam gives a player more points than the other ATP or the WTA tournaments. Usually all the Grand Slams- Wimbledon, French Open, Australian Open and US Open - awards 1000 points to the champion while the points offered by the other tournaments vary between 175 and 500. The players also get some points on winning the matches in the lower rounds of the tournaments.
The tennis rankings were started by ATP in the early 70s and were first issued by them on 23 rd of August 1973 for the singles and the 1 st of March, 1976 for the doubles. These are used by nearly all the tournament officials to decide which players are to be allowed to enter the competition. These also help to seed the players in the competitions. However, the most common use of the tennis rankings are in determining the best players of the world as these rank the players according to their performances throughout the year. The latest tennis rankings published by the ATP has Roger Federer in the number one spot with 7015 points followed by Rafael Nadal at 4875 points and Nikolay Davydenko at 2955 points. Justine Henin leads the women's tennis rankings published by the WTA with 4119 points and Maria Sharapova with 3388 points comes next followed by Svetlana Kuznetsova with 2867 points.
The Tennis Rankings help the spectators to easily decide who the great players of the time are. Apart from just the monetary profits, it also gives the players a cause to fight for in the court.
