The ranking is based on hard factual results in recent tournaments of the IRF Racketlon World Tour.

Fundamental to the system are the "Base Points" that are awarded based on victories in individual matches. No victories means no points. Final, semifinal and quarterfinal victories give a premium number of base points as follows:

• For a final victory: 5 base points
• Semifinal: 3
• Quarterfinal: 2
• For a victory in any other match: 1

Special rules, exceptions and clarifications:

• A victory in the first round always gives only 1 base point (even if it is e.g. a semifinal or quarterfinal that normally means bonus). By "first round" is meant a match which is the first for both players.
• If a tournament contains group play the "group final" will result in bonus points if it, so to speak, "corresponds" e.g. to a semifinal or quarterfinal. (If a group victory e.g. leads to a semifinal in a knock-out draw the group final victory will count as a quarterfinal victory.)
• A match for third prize counts as "any other match" - meaning a reward of 1 base point for the winner.
• No distinction is made between a Walk Over victory and a normal victory through actual play.
• Players that attend a tournament without winning any match are still awarded a millionth (0,000001) of a base point for their attendance. (This decides the internal order between players with no victories or players with identical results.)

The number of total base points for each tournament are then multiplied by four simple factors representing Prestige, Class, Erosion and Quality.

1) The Prestige factor varies depending on the tournament. The World Championships carry twice as much weight (prestige factor 2) than any of the other tournaments on the tour (prestige factor 1, given that the tournament attracts at least 50 participants. Fewer participants than 50 mean a proportionately smaller prestige factor so if e.g. 25 people attend the prestige factor will be 0,5.)

(Note that the prestige factor adjustments are made to the "elite" draws only and not to any lower classes. This means e.g. that a Class 1 draw in a World Championship will have prestige factor 1 and not 2. This is based on the fundamental principle of the ranking system that the base points should be multiplied with a (total) factor representing the average standard of the draw. It is furthermore assumed that the average standard of a Class 1 draw will be of average Class 1 quality even in a World Championship (and so will an amateur draw) while the elite draw will be better than a normal elite draw since all the top people will gather. Another way of looking at this is that the ranking system only recognizes the elite draws as true World Championships. (The winner of the amateur draw is not a true world champion.))

2) The Class factor makes sure that a victory in e.g. the Elite Class pays off more than a victory in the Amateurs Class. It increases with a factor 10 for each step in class as follows:

Elite Class: Class Factor=100
Class 1: Class Factor=10
Amateur Class: Class Factor=1

3) The Erosion factor makes sure that recent results carry more weight than older ones. The ranking points erode (=decrease) slowly, day by day, linearliry, until they finally - after 3 years - disappear. According to the following figure:

The erosion of ranking points over time. How 1200 points will erode over three years. (See example below)

4) To make it possible for good players who only take part in a few tournaments but perform very well to still get fairly high positions on the ranking list a quality mechanism is applied meaning that only the nine best results are counted and that the three best results are given three times as much weight. (The eroded ranking points of the remaining six tournaments are divided by the Quality Factor = 3 ).

Then, the ranking points for each individual player are summed up over all registered tournaments during the last three years to form a total that will decide that players position on the ranking list.

Plate tournaments count as normal tournaments but their Class Factor is "one step below" that of the main tournament. So, e.g. an Elite Plate counts as a normal Class 1 tournament.

Example:

A fictitious Scotsman, Phil, takes part in the World Championships in Gothenburg in November 2003. He enters the Elite Class and goes all the way to the Final, where he looses (by 40 points to an unknown Australian). Since the Elite Class was an incomplete last-32 draw Phil only had to win one match to get to the quarterfinal and in total he got 1+2+3=6 base points. In a normal Prestige Factor=1 tour event this would have meant 600 ranking points (given Elite Class Factor=100) but since this is the World Championships (Prestige Factor=2) he gets twice as much, i.e. 1200 ranking points. When the ranking list is compiled one year later two thirds of those points have eroded away to become 400 "eroded ranking points". Since this was Phil's only final during that last year those 400 points is the best result that he has. This means that they escape the quality mechanism and a division by 3. In November 2004, one year after the tournament, its contribution to his total ends up at 400 points.

It will be the ambition of the IRF to publish an updated ranking list here on Racketlon.com within one week after every tournament on the tour.

IRF Challenger Events 2006 - introduction and calendar
2006-06-11
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The Challenger Event icon, signalling "new stars" "in orbit"
around the official, and established, IRF Racketlon World Tour.

Challenger Events are not part of the official tour but "in orbit" around it. They are World Ranking Events but only about half the number of ranking points (Prestige Factor 0,5) are on offer compared to a standard World Tour Event (Prestige Factor 1). Also, the quality of each draw will influence the number of ranking points to be gained. See the attachment below for the details.

Challenger Events are also typically tournaments at the very frontiers of Racketlon growth and should therefore be particularly appealing to true Racketlon Pioneers. They are often opportunities to be involved with Racketlon history in the making as new countries are conquered - but they also mean an increased level of risk since they will not be as established as the official Tour Events. Caution is therefore recommended and players planning to take part should be adviced to carefully assess the risks for each Challenger Event individually. As is the case for any of the official Tour Events the IRF does not offer any guarantees that an event will actually take place. The life of a true Racketlon Pioneer is not always easy - but always interesting...

Challenger status are awarded to tournaments as opportunities emerge at any time during the year. The following Challenger Events have so-far been scheduled on the 2006 calendar:

• The Pacific Rim Open, Victoria, BC, Canada, 5-9 October 2006
• The Dutch Open, Rotterdam, 15-17 December 2006

For more details on these tournaments, see the EVENTS section.

For some of the ideas behind the Challenger concept, see newsitem from when they were first introduced.

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Attachment:
How many ranking points at a Challenger Event?

Challenger events count for the World Ranking - but since they are not part of the official World Tour they do not count for the World Tour Race.

The standard principles of the IRF World Ranking system apply to Challenger Events with the following amendments:

-Prestige Factor 0,5.
Half as many ranking points will be on offer in a Challenger event (for the same achievements) compared to what is on offer in a standard Tour event (Prestige Factor 1).

-Class Factor Qualification.
In addition, the quality of each individual draw is assessed in order to determine its Class Factor through a mechanism called "Class Factor Qualification" as follows;
Challenger draws are by default awarded Class Factor 1 (corresponding to Amateur=Class C Standard) unless they qualify for a higher factor in any of the following two ways:
1) If lower classes exist in the tournament the draw is qualified for a Class Factor 10 times as high as the immediately lower class.
2) An even higher Class Factor is awarded to the draw if at least one third of the players taking part in the draw belong to the corresponding class according to the world ranking.

Pre-condition:
As usual, Class Factors can only take values that are multiples of 10 and a maximum of 100. The maximum limit implies that if there are e.g. 4 classes then the lowest class will be pushed down to Class Factor 0,1.

Examples:
1) If there are two classes in Dutch Open, and the top class contains 40% Elite players it will be awarded Class Factor 100. If the second class contains only 25% Class B players then that will only be rewarded Class Factor 1 (i.e. the default).
2) If there is only one class in the Irish Open and that contains 10% Elite players and 25% Class B players it will be awarded Class factor 10 (since 35 % of the players are Class B or higher).

Ladies, Veterans, Juniors
The above description of Class Factor Qualification applies to the Men's Ranking Category. But the same principles apply for all other ranking categories. There is only one parameter that is different depending on the Ranking Category and that is the Default Class Factor, which varies as follows:
- Men's: Default Class Factor=1
- Ladies': Default Class Factor=10
- Juniors': Default Class Factor=100
- Veterans': Default Class Factor=100
(The idea behind different Default Class Factors in different Ranking Categories is simply that they should correspond to the typically lowest Class Factor at a standard Tour Event. That is what the Challenger draw gets if it does not "prove" that it deserves a higher factor.)