Justin Gimelstob spent 12 years on the pro tour before retiring last year – his career-high singles ranking was No. 63 in 1999.
Always a colourful character,he got in hot water (and eventually had to apologize) earlier this year when he used the b-word to described fellow World Team Tennis competitor Anna Kournikova in a radio interview, adding, “I think she falls into the Marcelo Rios scumbag category.”
But Gimelstob also has a background of doing a lot of good works, including his efforts on behalf of the Justin Gimelstob Children's Fund Charity in New Jersey, which assists children with cancer and blood diseases.
He has written for si.com and does television commentary for the Tennis Channel.
In June, Gimelsob, 31, was elected as one of three player representatives on the ATP Board of Directors.
He passed along to Match Tough his response to our post earlier this week about the revamped ATP ranking points system for 2009.
Tom, I appreciate your desire to gain understanding of the new points system. I see the points you emphasized in your article but this was our thinking in implementing the new system.
1. Our main goal was to simplify the points system so people could understand it better; the old system had too many layers that few but tennis insiders could comprehend. The new system has a clear differentiation between tournament categories, obviously each lower category has half of its higher category.
2. We wanted to put a premium on winning tournaments and reward the winner more significantly. Therefore the finalist went from getting 70% of the winner's points to 60%.
3. After that we went to work to try and find similar values in point distribution. Obviously it wasn't possible to accomplish that exactly but we did the best we could. Thus getting to the finals of a 500 is equivalent to getting to the semis of a 1000 (similar to what we have right now). Same is true with other rounds.
4. There is no doubt that players that win events at any level will be rewarded generously and have a chance to make significant gains in the rankings but that could be offset by high-ranked players being required to use four 500-level events in their ranking and thus needed to maintain a ratio of success/accomplishment to prevent adversely effecting their ranking.
I see your points, I hope you can see our logic and intention as well. As I am sure you know making changes in a tradition-based sport is always challenging, but our intent was to help fans relate and follow our sport while rewarding players that win tournaments, the ultimate goal of any player."
Regards, Justin
I thank Justin for giving the ATP side of the story but question whether too much of a priority was given to changing a well-established and accepted system ‘so people could understand it better'.
I worry that by arbitrarily making sure the Grand Slams, Masters 1000s, ATP 500s and 250s are proportionately exactly half (top-to-bottom) of each other, the proper balance of the rankings has been sacrificed.
The main priority of the ranking system, which is basically the currency of the sport, is to be fair and just to all the players. The revisions for 2009, by awarding (relatively) a lot fewer points to the Challenger and Futures levels, clearly work against players on the way up. They significantly inhibit the free flow from bottom to top (and vice versa) that has always been the essence of the rankings system.
A final point, as a casual golf fan I know there are rankings for the players but don't understand every nuance of them, and don't feel I really have to. I simply trust that the system in place has been well designed and is accepted by the people it most affects – the players – as a fair and accurate measure of their performance on the course.
Bottom line about the ATP rankings system– if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
