says The sticky bit is stuck.
says The sticky bit is stuck.
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[…] we cannot organize event that every player meets every other to see who is the best.

Even if we could do that, it would still not be fair. But I guess that's your point, and I subscribe to it. There's an element of randomness, unavoidably, with the tournament schemes tourning out lucky — or not. Anybody that's ever known the true meaning of having an ‘angst gegner’ will testify to the luck of that feared opponent being taken out in another branch of the scheme — or the misery of meeting that opponent in the qualification rounds.
 
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I think zoomtt's article has very good points. A generic ranking system shall predict the match results correctly (higher-ranked player wins over lower-ranked player) more than 2/3 of the time. The current ITTF ranking system is better than the new ranking system announced in March. The new ranking system announced in March meets the criteria marginally and we do not have statistical test yet about the new ranking system modified in October.
For tennis ATP rankings, runner-up gets 0.6 times of the points of winner; semifinalist gets 0.6 times of the points of runner-up. In ITTF new ranking system, runner-up gets 0.9 times of the points of winner; semifinalist gets 0.9 times of the points of runner-up. Participation is more important than to win the champion.
 
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Ma Long is ranked No.1 once again in Nov Issue of ITTF World Rankings. Being No.1 for 63 months in total and 33 months in a row - the record seems unbreakable by anyone but Ma Long himself.
The current World Ranking points consists two parts, rating points which reflects the opponents against whom a player have played and bonus points/penalty points which indicates the positions that a player has reached in tournaments within a year. For example, Ma Long's current 3323 ranking points are made of 3036 rating points, 312 bonus points for tournaments he attended within a year and 25 penalty points for China Open withdrawal. Depending on the difference in rating points between him and his opponents, Ma Long gained very little even none rating points winning over most players and lost huge rating points upon defeat. For example, in 2017 World Cup, Ma Long gained 2 rating points after beating Omar Assar, Koki Niwa and Simon Gauzy, respectively while lost 32 rating points after losing to Timo Boll. You can tell how difficult it is for Ma Long to keep such high rating points (3036), even higher than the total points of the current No.3 Dimitrij Ovtcharov (3011 ranking points =2676 rating points + 335 bonus points).
However, Ma Long will no longer be ranked No.1 next Jan when a new ITTF ranking system will be in effect. The new ranking system adds up the best 8 results within a year (World Championships events within 2 years). Ma Long will have only 7 valid results next Jan and very likely drop out of top 5 in ITTF World Rankings (he has been within top 5 since Dec 2007).


This is a great summary, thanks. It's great to see the new system is easy to understand for all audiences. There should be plenty of discussion about this coming up in the coming days and weeks. You're quite right, Ma Long won't be no.1 in January.
 
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