While the other Mr. Ed covers the Rogers AT&T Cup, this week's "The Line Judge" also makes the trip to Toronto. First we look at what Martina Navratilova had to say this past week about the WTA rankings and injuries. The computer rankings are always easy to question, it is the answers that are hard to come by. Finally, we look at an issue that is seriously dogging the staff at this year's tournament.

Revisiting the Rankings

Martina Navratilova is back in doubles action this week at the Rogers AT&T Cup. As our other Mr. Ed reported this past week, Navratilova has been trying to pump up interest in doubles but also spoke out against the long tennis season. The tennis legend believes the lack of an off-season is just one the reasons there are so many injuries and subsequently players pulling out of tournaments. In her career, Navratilova believed she only pulled out of six tournaments. These days it is a feat not uncommon among the top players in one year. As last week's Mr. Ed's column discussed, both Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport pulled out of this week's Tier 1 Toronto event citing injuries while in the midst of winning matches in Los Angeles. Navratilova blamed the ranking system that she thinks has the women "playing more than they want to." She went on further to add that it is "one thing for a player ranked 20th to play 20 tournaments a year, it's another thing for a player ranked #2 or #3 to do it because you are playing 80, 85 matches and that's just too much."

During her reign at the top of the game, for the most part Navratilova played on average 16 or 17 tournaments a year. Keep in mind that the WTA rankings were calculated differently during that time. It was an "average points" system where total points were divided by total number of tournaments played with a minimum tournament divisor of 14. So, in effect, every tournament appearance had some affect on one's ranking. But is the current rankings set- up of "Best of 17" system to blame? Is the ability to "bump" poor tournament results off one's computer tally, causing players to play more? Well, kind of hard to say since most of the Top 20 players with under 17 tournaments are ones who have been out with injuries this year. But interestingly enough, in the Top 10, only Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters, and Nathalie Tauziat have more than 20 tournaments under their belts in the past 52 weeks. So it appears that the top players are not playing an excessive amount of tournaments or have these players just been able to stay at the top since so many of their fellow players have also been out with injuries?

The questions regarding rankings are seemingly endless. Is it fair that Hingis's first round exit at Wimbledon does not factor into her computer ranking? Is it right that Meghann Shaughnessy, currently at a her highest ranking of her career, has 9 early round losses not counting into her computer points? Do you force Grand Slam tournaments and Tier 1 events into the rankings? Well, the ATP has not successfully coerced their top players with that method. Likewise, going back to a "every tournament counts" method could only work with the return of the slow-moving (and thus fairly unexciting) average system. Ultimately and unfortunately any discussion of ranking systems inevitably ends with the conclusion that there simply is no perfect way to judiciously balance quantity and quality.