In cooperation with Peter Landberg, the Mr Racketlon of Sweden during the last 14 years or so, Racketlon.com today launches a new official Swedish Racketlon ranking system and a new ranking list.

There can never be a perfect ranking list. In any imaginable list chances are that you will be able to find players above your own name that you know that you beat easily. And there will probably also be players below that beat you (OK, perhaps not in your particular case, Magnus). This is especially true for the game of racketlon since the profiles of the players are so important to the outcome of any match. Nevertheless, we hope that the new system will be appreciated as a step forward due to the following advantages:

- Each player's position on the ranking list will be decided automatically through objective rules based on hard factual results in recent tournaments. This minimizes the need for subjective judgement and therefore hopefully the amount of discussions needed on the positions of individual players.
- Each player that participates in an officially registered racketlon tournament will get a defined position on the ranking list. This will hopefully work as an incentive for players that can now clearly watch their names climb the ladder long before they are able to compete for the top positions.
- The new system reacts fairly quickly to players that loose their form or do not participate in registered racketlon tournaments. No match victories means no ranking points and the player will fall down the ranking list to a lower class. This means that noone will be forced to play above his own standard.

Compared to the previous ranking list (as of January, 2002), as regards the top 10, the new list deviates mainly in the following ways:

- Daniel Brodén is new on the list. This is explained by the fact that the new system incorporates the vintage Karlskrona racketlon community. Brodén ended up second behind Magnus Eliasson in the latest Karlskrona Racket Virtuoso tournament, which is the most recent of all racketlon tournaments considered. The system is also impressed by the fact that Brodén was top ranked on the latest Karlskrona Ranking list.
- Joakim Sandberg has dropped from 4 to 8. This is explained by the fact that he has played only one tournament during the last year and although he did win 3rd prize in Racketlon Cup last January this is not enough to convince the system. 3rd prize in the Swedish Championships would have given more ranking points due to a higher prestige factor and also since it is a more recent event (as shown by Stefan Larsson's position).
- Per Vasilis and Erik Söderberg have both dropped out of the list because of few match victories during the last year. The system does not take any account of the fact that Vasilis in fact beat Peter Bittár in Racketlon Cup, however impressive this might seem to human beings. (The system would get very much more complicated and difficult to maintain if it were to consider whom each player beats - and the question is in fact whether this would bring much...)

Regarding the rest of the list the major change is the fact that a fairly large group of some 30 people have dropped out of the Elite class and are now ranked as Class 1. This is due to either inactivity or to no match victories during the last year. The same fate is due to meet an even larger group of poor performers in Class 1 that will join the Amateurs fairly soon if they do not take action.

The new system will be subject to a trial period from now until the beginning of October. Comments or questions of all kinds are deeply appreciated and should be sent by e-mail to Gothenburg_Racketlon@Hotmail.com

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