Le  FIP ranking  can produce surprising situations when it comes to determining the weight of a pair. Internationally, these are the  The points of both players are added together. Consequently, the considerable capital of a top-level player can almost single-handedly propel a very unbalanced association among the seeded players. In an extreme case,  Arturo Coello could even team up with a player without any FIP points and still remain ahead of a pair made up of two members of the world's top 10 An anomaly that raises two questions:  Should we add up the rankings rather than the points, as in France, and take poor performances into account more fully? 

Le  FIP Gold of Belgrade  has once again highlighted very unbalanced partnerships: a player well established in the world rankings can team up with a partner very far down in the hierarchy and, thanks to their single point total, allow the pair to obtain a very favorable position in a bracket.

These associations are perfectly compliant with regulations.  Therefore, it is not the players who are at fault, but the method of calculating the weight of the pairs. 

And a relatively simple solution may already exist:  to take inspiration from the French system and add up the rankings rather than the points. 

With FIP points, only one player can "wear" the pair

The problem stems from the very high concentration of points at the top of the world rankings.

Let's look at the current figures:

PlayerRankPoints
Arturo Coello120 980
Agustín Tapia120 980
Alejandro Galán317 820
Federico Chingotto317 820
Juan Lebrón58 310
Leo Augsburg67 690

Now let's imagine that Arturo Coello is playing with a player who has no FIP points. .

Dummy pairCalculation by FIP pointsWeight
Coello + player with 0 points20 + 980 20 980 
Lebrón + Augsburger8 + 310 16 000 

The result is quite spectacular:  Coello partnered with a newcomer would overtake a Lebrón/Augsburger pairing  in the order of the pairs.

In certain configurations of the table,  Coello could even be seeded No. 3 with a partner who has no points .

Mathematically, the system works. From a sporting perspective, the result raises questions.

With the French system, the result would be completely different

In France, the logic is much simpler:  we add the ranks of the two players , and not their points total.

Let's apply this principle to the same example, imagining that Coello's partner is ranked 1000th in the world:

PairAdding the ranksPair weight
Lebrón / Augsburger5 + 6 11 
Coello / No. 10001 + 1000 1001 

This time, it was impossible for the world number 1 to almost entirely compensate for his partner's ranking.

And perhaps this is where the French system seems more coherent for a sport played by two people:  Both players truly contribute to the value of the pair. 

Hybrid pairs are merely the consequence

The association  Cepero / Golestan at FIP ​​Gold in Belgrade  is a recent example of these so-called "hybrid" pairs, but the debate goes far beyond their case.

Why criticize players for using a possibility offered by the rules?

The real question is rather:  Should the ranking system allow a single player to give so much weight to an extremely unbalanced pair? 

Moving from adding up points to a  addition of rankings  This would naturally limit these situations, without prohibiting any partnerships. A top player could still play with a very low-ranked player, but the pair would be placed in the draw taking into account the ranking level of both partners.

And why not also introduce the notion of "against"?

A second development could complement this reform.

As has existed in French tennis, we could consider a form of  underperformance  Losing to players who are far behind in the rankings could have an impact, however limited, on the player's record.

This would avoid a system that essentially operates in only one direction:  Great performances are rewarded, but huge underperformances have much less direct impact. 

It would obviously be necessary to put in place safeguards for young players on the rise, those returning from injury, or players artificially under-classified.

But the two principles could work together:  Adding up the rankings to determine the true weight of a pair and better taking into account poor performances to establish the true level of a player. 

The French system is certainly not directly applicable to the international circuit. But it does raise a very simple question:  In a sport that is necessarily played in pairs, is it logical that the points total of a single player can almost determine the value of the entire pair? 

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovered padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since then, padel has been part of his life. You often see him touring France to cover major French padel events.

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