Rafael Nadal has proposed a radical change to tennis rankings, suggesting a two-year system could help players recover from lengthy injury absences. The 22-time Major champion, who retired at the 2024 Davis Cup Finals, has calculated that he missed 20 Grand Slam tournaments due to injuries and physical setbacks during his career.
Speaking to the Associated Press, the 40-year-old said a two-year ranking cycle can "give the players a little bit more freedom to make better decisions and at the same time, when you get injured, you have more time to recover." Currently, both the ATP and WTA Tours calculate player standings based on points accumulated over the last 52 weeks.
Nadal's long-standing proposal
This is not the first time Nadal has floated the idea. He first proposed a two-year rankings cycle back in 2017, when he and Roger Federer both returned from injury absences to share the four Major titles that season.
"It will be better to manage the schedule – to have a better schedule – to have a ranking for two years. Two-year ranking, not one-year ranking. That's going to protect the players and help the players to have periods to find windows for rest," he explained. "Having a one-year ranking, it's always that if you want to be in a good position in the ranking, you cannot rest much. If you are Federer, Novak or even myself and Andy [Murray], we are able to manage it that when we come back we have been winning lots of matches, then you can do it."
Injuries affecting young stars
Several young players have faced long injury layoffs in recent years. Former world No. 4 Holger Rune spent 11 months sidelined when he ruptured his Achilles tendon and fell out of the top 1000. Britain's Jack Draper has battled a bone bruising injury for the last 18 months and has already ended his 2026 season.
Even Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner succumbed to injuries this year. Alcaraz spent almost five months sidelined by a wrist issue, while Sinner has not played since July due to a knee problem and has since shut down his season altogether.
Criticism of 12-day Masters 1000 events
Nadal also believes the extended Masters 1000 format is a "mistake." In recent years, seven of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments have become 12-day affairs, with only the Monte-Carlo Masters and Paris Masters remaining one-week long. Nadal played few tournaments from mid-2022 until his farewell in November 2024, so he did not compete in many of the extended events.
Andy Murray, the three-time Major champion, has repeatedly voiced his own disdain for the extended Masters 1000s. "I also don't like the [12-day] Masters events. I think [the ATP] needs to change that back. The players don't like it," he recently told The Times. "I don't think it works. I don't think it's a good thing for the product that all the players are complaining about the schedule."
