*Note: when I talk about rankings, I mean the live rankings when I wrote this article
Earlier this week, I wrote an article blasting Inigo Cervantes for gaming the system and somehow getting a Top 60 ranking on the strength of a bunch of ATP Challenger tournaments on clay, along with offering the ATP solutions to solve the problem. Well, today I want to turn my attention to a similar problem in the WTA. But, I don't want to totally blame Teliana Pereira for her ranking, as at least she is playing WTA Tour-level tournaments, but I want to turn the attention to the mechanisms behind Pereira's ranking and how the WTA enables players to do what has done.
Teliana Pereira, from Brazil, is currently number 50 in the world and she had what, on the surface, seems like a very successful 2015 season. She won two international-level titles last season, in Bogota and Florianapolis, and shot up the rankings, even getting as high 43 in the world in the second half of last year. Pereira seems to a WTA success story, finally breaking through in her mid to later 20's after struggling in her initial days on the WTA Tour. So, what's the problem? Let's dive into the two tournaments she won, for starters.
Let's start by examining her tournament win in Bogota. Pereira started the tournament off by playing the four seed, Francesca Schiavone. Despite being a former French Open champion, Schiavone has really fallen off over the past few years, seemingly playing for a love of the game more than anything else. Schiavone's current ranking is inflated by Florianapolis, but she is currently number 100 in the world, certainly not a world-beater at the moment. Pereira went on to beat qualifier Mandy Minella, currently number 168 in the world, and just like that, she was into the Quarterfinals without having to beat a player currently ranked in the 90s.
Teliana's Quarterfinals match once again showed the weak nature of this tournament, as she took on the present 116 in the world, Lordes Dominguez Lino. Finally in the Semifinals she took on a player with a current ranking in the double digits when she played Elina Svitolina. And while Svitolina is presently number 16 in the world, it is important to note that all of Svitolina's titles have been at the international level and that her best surface is on hard court, not clay (Pereira's best surface is clay). So, while it was a nice win for Teliana, the match was much closer than it originally seemed. And finally, in the Final, remember, this is the Final of a WTA-level tournament, Teliana took on WTA current number 71 Yaroslava Shvedova, winning that match, and the title. This meant that she won the title playing one match against someone currently in the Top 70 and two matches against a player who's live rankings is in the double digits.
Now, let's turn our attention to Florianapolis, because a similar story unfolded there. Teliana played her first match in that tournament (a tight three-setter) against Maria Irigoyen. Irigoyen is number 225 in the live rankings, and mind you that she didn't even have to qualify for this tournament, that is how weak this field is. Pereria then took on Risa Ozaki, the current number 125 in the world to reach the Quarterfinals. Yes, Teliana Pereira got to the Quarterfinals of a tournament without having to beat a player who's live ranking is better than 125 in the world. This is making the Bogota tournament look like Premier Mandatory event! (Not really, but you get the point.)
In the Quarterfinals, Teliana took on the seven seed, Laura Siegemund, presently number 79. Then, in the semis, Pereira played world number 92 (in live rankings), Anastasija Sevastova, meaning that Pereira reached the Final without taking on a player in the Top 75, this unbelievably occurring in a WTA Tour-level tournament. In the Final, Pereira finally played a Top 50 player when she battled current world number 41 Annika Beck. But this meant that Pereira, somehow, some way, won a WTA Title without ever beating someone in the Top 40 and only playing a single Top 75 player. If that isn't a farce, then I don't know what is.
But, if Teliana Pereira was doing great in the majors, then perhaps we can look back that a lot of her points were coming from tournaments with such poor fields and perhaps she deserves her Top 50 ranking, after all. But, this is VERY far from the case. In fact, at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open, she has never even made the Second Round! This shows an extreme one-dimensional nature to her game, much like Cervantes, and is really a huge discredit to her.
But, her best surface is clay, so she must have made a run to the second week of the French Open at some point, right? Wrong. Teliana has only reached the Second Round at Roland Garros, a pathetic mark for someone who has two WTA-level titles on the dirt. And since winning Florianapolis, Pereira has won a combined nine games in straight set losses to Ekaterina Makarova at the US Open (2015) and Monica Niculescu at the Australian Open this year. While both players are higher ranked than Teliana, just how far she was from winning was disturbing.
So, now that we have established that Pereira's ranking is ridiculous, let's take a look at how the WTA schedules (look specifically at 2015, when Teliana won these titles) allows such "glitch" (as we'll call it) occurs. In regards to Bogota, it's just out of the way when looking at the geographic flow of the WTA calendar. The week before Bogota was a WTA Premier event in Charleston (United States) and an International event, indoor hard court, in Katowice, Poland. Bogota is then the only event in the next week, as many of the top players move from the United States to Europe for the following week's Premier event in Stuttgart and the rest of the clay season following (Madrid is only a couple weeks after Stuttgart). Therefore, if we look at things from a "flow" perception, players are moving east to Europe and Northern Africa (for Marrakech) following Charleston, if they're not already in Europe for Katowice or to practice for the clay court events across the Atlantic. Going south to Bogota just seems out of the way and certainly not a popular option for WTA players.
Florianapolis is also poorly scheduled by the WTA, at least last year (for more info: http://www.tennisforum.com/12-general-messages/907769-wta-florianopolis-goes-deluxe-moves-5*-resort-beach-clay.html) when it was on clay instead of hard. The problem was that, while everyone was making the transition from the western hemisphere, the vast majority of the tour was also moving from clay courts to hard courts as players started preparations for the US Open. In fact, this was the last WTA-level event on clay for the rest of the season. And guess what the last clay event in the western hemisphere was on the WTA Tour? If you guessed Bogota, you would be correct. Clearly this was against the flow of the WTA calendar, as the tour was clearly moving to hard courts.
The WTA, therefore, needs to really look at rescheduling these events (at least last year for Florianapolis) in order to get better fields and better go with the flow of the calendar. There is no reason why Bogota should be where it is on the schedule, as it is just asking for a weak field and "point stealing" as I'm going to call it. I would suggest perhaps moving Bogota to the week before the clay event in Rio De Janeiro to provide at least some continuity in the fact that both events are clay and in South America. As for Florianapolis, as long as it is on a hard court, I believe it's position on the WTA schedule is fine, but they should have really rescheduled it for, perhaps, the week following Rio last year in order to again, provide the continuity that seems to be not present in the scheduling for the WTA.
But, beyond all of this, I am left wondering why a player, like Teliana Pereira, would choose to go against and play in these events? And I am, unfortunately, left with one answer. Players like Pereira know that they can't compete in matches against most of the Top 50 (or even the Top 100, for that matter), so they decide that they would rather play ITF-level fields while picking up WTA-level points.
And, I give a player like Pereira credit. She played this situation perfectly. She got a couple WTA-level titles and got WTA-level points without playing, for the most part, WTA-level competition. Kudos to her. But, this situation is beyond a "point thief" like Teliana Pereira. This is a problem with the WTA schedule.
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