Part 1
The pyramid of tours
Click on a level to see who plays there, how many points it awards and whether Proofset follows it.
The men’s (ATP) and women’s (WTA) tours have the same structure. The Grand Slams are shared by both.
Professional tennis is a pyramid. At the top are the Grand Slam tournaments and the main ATP and WTA tours. Below them are the tours where players earn the points that allow them to move up. Knowing where a match is played means knowing what level and what data you are dealing with.
Click on a level to see who plays there, how many points it awards and whether Proofset follows it.
The men’s (ATP) and women’s (WTA) tours have the same structure. The Grand Slams are shared by both.
Each tournament category awards a fixed number of points to the winner. This is what moves a player up the rankings (lesson 1.2). The scale below is the ATP’s for 2026.
| Category | Points |
|---|
ATP 2026 scale (official media guide). The WTA scale follows the same levels: 2 000 at a Grand Slam, 1 000, 500, 250, 125, then 100 to 15 for ITF tournaments.
Key point: winning a Grand Slam tournament earns as many points as winning eight ATP 250 tournaments. A player can therefore climb very quickly thanks to a single big result.
Four families of organisers share professional tennis. They do not set the same rules and do not publish the same rankings. That is why the same player can hold ATP points, play the Davis Cup for his country and compete in a Grand Slam that belongs to no tour.
The association of professional male players. It organises the Masters 1000, the ATP 500 and 250 events, the Challengers and the ATP Finals at the end of the season. It publishes the ATP rankings every Monday.
The association of professional female players, founded around Billie Jean King. It organises the WTA 1000, 500, 250 and 125 events, and the WTA Finals. It publishes the WTA rankings.
Each tournament belongs to its national federation or its club: Australian Open, Roland-Garros, Wimbledon, US Open. They count towards the ATP and WTA rankings but set their own rules, such as best-of-five sets for the men.
It writes the rules of the game and organises the ITF tournaments (the first level of the professional game), the Davis Cup (men) and the Billie Jean King Cup (women), two competitions between national teams.
Key point: when you see “ATP” or “WTA” next to a tournament, you know who sets the format, the schedule and the points. For a Grand Slam, you need to look at its own rules.
The season starts in Australia in early January and ends with the Finals in November. It follows the surfaces: hard court at the start, clay in spring, grass in summer, then back to hard court until the end. Click on a month, or let the season play through.
The exact dates change slightly every year. The official calendar is published by the ATP and the WTA. The share of each surface month by month, measured in the Proofset database, is in lesson 1.4.
On a match sheet, the tournament is often written in abbreviated form. Click on a label to decode it.
The number in the name is almost always the number of points for the winner. An “M25” gives 25 ATP points to the winner, a “W75” 75 WTA points to the winner. The smaller the number, the lower you are in the pyramid, and the less data there is on the players.
Proofset publishes match sheets for the ATP, the WTA, the Grand Slams, the Challengers and the WTA 125 events. It does not include ITF tournaments, doubles or exhibitions.
7 776 matches, 2025-2026
8 749 matches, 2025-2026
Why not the ITF? In these tournaments, many players have almost no history, and their match statistics are scarce. Proofset tested adding ITF and entry-level Challenger matches to the ELO calculation: the rate of correct favourites fell from 62,2 % to 59,0 %. Adding poorly documented matches damages the measurement.
Proofset measurements: “ELO versus the market, ATP and WTA” report of 13/10/2026 (database without duplicates) and ELO benchmark of 12/10/2026.
8 questions. You need 7 correct answers to pass the lesson.
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