Rafael Nadal calls for major tennis rule change as he reveals ‘mistake’ the ATP made

Ewan West 10 Nov 2026 2:33 PM

Rafael Nadal during an interview

Rafael Nadal has reiterated his belief that a major change should be made to the tennis ranking system as he also commented on the expanded ATP Masters 1000 format.

Both the ATP and WTA tours use similar rolling one-year systems that calculate a player’s ranking based on the points they collected at tournaments in the previous 52 weeks.

Nadal, who called time on his remarkable career in 2024, spent 209 weeks as the ATP world No 1 — the sixth-highest total in history.

In an interview with AP, Nadal argued tennis should implement a rolling two-year ranking system instead of the current one-year structure.

The 22-time Grand Slam champion said this change would “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”

The great Spaniard also described the ATP’s much-criticised decision to extend seven of the nine Masters 1000 tournaments to 12 days as a “mistake”

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Asked if he wished that there were fewer events played on hard courts during his career, Nadal said: “It was difficult for me to fight for that when I was on the tour.

“But now I can say: I don’t see a lot of professional sports playing on that kind of surfaces. That’s the truth.

“In tennis, we’re playing most of the time in a very, let’s say, aggressive surface for the body and for the joints. And then we pay the price.”

Nadal called for ranking system change during his career

Nadal frequently pushed for a change to a two-week ranking system during his time on the ATP Tour.

In 2017, Nadal said: “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.

“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 [Roger] Federer, Novak [Djokovic], 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.”