Too high or too low? Part III of our rankings analysis

In early March, we ran a story asking the question – which players are not ranked where they should be?

Basing our investigation on the rankings released on Monday 29 February, our panel – comprising doubles legend Todd Woodbridge, Australian Tennis Magazine editor Vivienne Christie, tennismash editor Paul Moore and staff writers Matt Trollope and Leigh Rogers – debated the players they felt were ranked too low, and conversely, too high.

Several months have elapsed since we published that story – and Part II in April – and plenty has transpired on the tennis tours in the time.

We checked in on the players’ progress once before (according to the rankings released 11 April) and are doing so again today (based on the rankings released 18 July).

Let see where those players stand today …

The men we feel are ranked “too low”:

This group was something of a mixed bag. Ernests Gulbis and Pierre-Hugues Herbert supported our panel’s belief that they should be ranked higher than what they were when we first sat down; the Frenchman in particular was a significant mover, mostly thanks to his third-round finish at Wimbledon. Yet for Grigor Dimitrov and Jerzy Janowicz it was the opposite story. Janowicz has been inactive since the Australian Open due to a knee injury while Dimitrov has suffered a perplexing loss of form.

> FEATURE: What has happened to Grigor Dimitrov?

The women we feel are ranked “too low”:

Russians Pavlyuchenkova and Vesnina enjoyed spectacular Wimbledons that helped pushed their rankings up closer to where our panel felt they belonged. Vesnina has been a triumphant story in 2016; at every stage we’ve checked on on her ranking, she’s continued to climb. Her latest move came thanks to a semifinal finish at SW19, her best ever Grand Slam result. Pavlyuchenkova, meanwhile, reached her first slam quarterfinal in five years at Wimbledon. Osaka also enjoyed a steady climb – her most notable recent result was a run to the third round at Roland Garros. Former top 30 player Mattek-Sands has not won a WTA main-draw match since April and Radwanska since February – hence their slide in the rankings.

The men we feel are ranked “too high”:

This section was largely a triumph for our panel. Barring Cuevas – the Uruguayan cracked the top 20 for the first time this week after reaching the final in Hamburg and earlier his first grasscourt final in Nottingham – all players our panel identified have fallen significantly in the rankings, none more than Gabashvili; the Russian lost 11 of 15 tour-level matches since Miami to plummet outside the top 100. Simon is at his lowest ranking since September 2014 and Bellucci, after verging on a top 30 ranking at the start of the season, is barely clinging to a place in the top 50.

The women we feel are ranked “too high”:

It was a similar story for our nominated women. Most went the way of our panel’s predictions; Safarova has endured an especially big slump, hurt most by her failure to defend her runner-up points from Roland Garros in 2015. Former world No.1 Jankovic continues her gradual slide south while Suarez Navarro endured a sharp dip – falling as low at 15th shortly after the French Open – only to recover some ground thanks to a semifinal finish in Birmingham and an appearance in the second week at Wimbledon.