Elo Ratings &
ATP Rankings
Why the official rankings don't tell the full story — and how Elo ratings give a truer picture of who's actually the best player in the world.
Two Systems
There are two main ways to rank tennis players. They work very differently and sometimes disagree.
ATP Rankings
- Based on points earned at tournaments over a rolling 52-week period
- More points for bigger events — Grand Slams award 2,000 for a win
- Determines seedings, tournament entry, and prize money
- Punishes rest — skip a tournament and you lose points
- Doesn't consider opponent quality or margin of victory
- A first-round loss to #1 = same as a loss to #150
Elo Ratings
- Dynamic system — rating goes up when you win, down when you lose
- Win more for beating higher-rated opponents, lose more for upsets
- Measures true skill — opponent quality matters hugely
- No penalty for skipping events — your rating holds
- Surface-specific versions capture who's best on clay vs hard
- Not officially used by the ATP — no impact on seedings
ATP Rankings Explained
The official system is simple: earn points at tournaments, add up your best results over 12 months.
| Tournament Level | Winner | Finalist | SF | QF |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Slam | 2,000 | 1,200 | 720 | 360 |
| Masters 1000 | 1,000 | 600 | 360 | 180 |
| ATP 500 | 500 | 300 | 180 | 90 |
| ATP 250 | 250 | 150 | 90 | 45 |
52-Week Rolling
Points expire after exactly one year. Miss a tournament you won last year? You drop those points immediately.
The Problem
A player who beats #1 in round one gets the same R1 points as someone who beats #200. Quality of opponent is invisible.
How Elo Works
Originally created for chess in the 1960s by Arpad Elo. It's elegant, mathematical, and powerful.
The Core Formula
Beat a Higher-Rated Player
Your expected result (E) was low — so (S − E) is a big positive number. Your rating jumps significantly. Upsets are rewarded.
Lose to a Lower-Rated Player
Your expected result was high — so (S − E) is a big negative. Your rating drops a lot. Upsets are punished.
Beat Someone Equal
Expected result was ~50%. You won (S=1), so your rating goes up modestly. A fair reward for a coin-flip match.
The K-Factor
Controls volatility. Higher K means ratings move more per match. Tennis typically uses K=32 for newer players and K=24 for established ones.
Try It Yourself
See how Elo predicts win probability based on the rating gap between two players.
Clear edge for Player A
Surface Elo
A player's skill varies dramatically by surface. That's why we track separate Elo ratings for each one.
Why Surface Elo Matters
Nadal's overall Elo was always elite, but his clay Elo was otherworldly — over 2,500 at his peak. Meanwhile, his grass Elo was significantly lower. A single Elo number misses this nuance entirely. Surface Elo captures the full picture of a player's abilities and is essential for accurate match predictions.
Tennex's Blended Approach
We don't just use one number. We combine multiple Elo signals into a single prediction engine.
Overall Elo (56%)
Captures general skill level across all surfaces. Prevents overreacting to small surface-specific sample sizes. The anchor of every prediction.
Surface Elo (44%)
Adjusts for surface-specific strengths. A clay specialist gets a boost on clay, a grass expert gets one at Wimbledon. Optimized via grid search.
Why This Split?
We tested every possible combination from 100/0 to 0/100 across 12,847 historical matches. The 56/44 blend minimized Brier Score and maximized accuracy at 74.1% — outperforming pure overall Elo (71.8%), pure surface Elo (70.5%), and even the betting market closing line (72.4%).
ATP vs Elo Rankings
See how the two systems compare for today's top players — and where they disagree.
| # | Player | ATP Rank | ATP Points | Elo Rank | Elo Rating | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
What the Differences Tell Us
When a player's Elo rank is higher than their ATP rank, it means they're likely better than their official ranking suggests — possibly due to injury absences, skipped tournaments, or recent improvement. When Elo is lower, it may mean they've been coasting on old results that haven't dropped off the 52-week window yet. These gaps are where betting value lives.
See Elo In Action
Our model uses blended Elo to predict every ATP match. Check out today's predictions.