How the FIP padel ranking works and why it changes every week

The FIP ranking is the official individual classification of professional padel. It adds up each player’s 22 best results from the last twelve months on the Premier Padel and CUPRA FIP Tour circuits, and it is recalculated every week: the latest tournament’s points come in and anything that turns a year old drops out.

That expiry rule explains almost everything that puzzles a new follower of the tour: a player sliding down without losing a match, two partners sharing the number 1 spot, a title that leaves the table untouched.

Here is the mechanism: which tournaments score, what each round is worth on the official 2026 table, how the 52-week window works and what separates the Ranking from the Race.

FIP and Premier Padel: who does what

The International Padel Federation (FIP) governs the sport and owns the ranking. Premier Padel is the elite professional circuit, launched by the FIP itself in 2022 with backing from Qatar Sports Investments. Below it sits the CUPRA FIP Tour, the development circuit: tournaments all over the world, worth fewer points, feeding the same ranking.

Until 2023 Premier Padel ran alongside World Padel Tour, which kept its own ranking. In August of that year QSI bought WPT, and from the 2024 season there has been a single global tour under the FIP. That is why only one classification matters today, and why rankings from before 2024 cannot be compared with current ones.

Which tournaments score, and how much

Every tournament has a category, and the category fixes how many points each round pays. Premier Padel has four: Major, P1, P2 and the season-ending Finals. The FIP Tour has another four (Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze) plus its own FIP Finals. The FIP World Cup for pairs pays the same as a Major.

This is the FIP’s official 2026 table for the main-draw rounds:

Category	Winner	Final	SF	QF	R16	R32
Major	2000	1200	720	360	180	90
P1	1000	600	360	180	90	45
P2	600	360	180	90	45	22
FIP Platinum	300	180	90	50	25	14
FIP Gold	150	90	50	25	14	8
FIP Silver	80	45	25	14	8	5
FIP Bronze	40	22	14	8	5	3

The Premier Padel Finals sit outside that table because they are a closed event with a third-place match: 1500 points for the winning pair, 900 for the runners-up, 600 and 400 for third and fourth, and 270 for reaching the quarter-finals. The FIP Finals on the development circuit pay 225 to the champions.

Qualifying scores too: coming through it earns a small bonus (15 points at a Major, 10 at a P1, 5 at a P2) on top of whatever the pair then wins in the main draw, and losing in the last qualifying round still leaves 30, 18 and 15 respectively. Majors also have a round of 64, worth 35 points.

Look at the proportions: a Major quarter-final (360) is worth more than a Platinum title (300), and one P2 title equals two Platinums. The system rewards going deep at the big events; the FIP Tour is how you get into them, not how you compete with the players who win them.

The 22-best-results rule

The ranking does not add up everything you play. Of the tournaments in the last twelve months only the 22 best count, and a new result enters by replacing the weakest one already counting. If that weakest result is worth more than the new one, the table does not move.

For an elite player who plays almost the whole Premier Padel calendar, a FIP Tour title barely changes anything: their 22 results already come from big events. For someone ranked between 60 and 150, the FIP Tour is exactly what fills those slots and opens the door to P2 and P1 draws.

The ranking is individual, even though padel is played in pairs. Each player collects their own points and keeps them when they change partners. Two players who have played together all season have the same results and therefore the same points, which is why it is normal to see two people tied at number 1 and the next player listed at 3.

The 52-week window, or why players drop without playing

Every result is valid for 52 weeks. Once the year is up, the points leave the calculation automatically and are replaced by whatever the player has done in that same week of the current year. If they have not played, they are replaced by zero.

Here is the trap: expiry runs on the date, not on the tournament. If a P1 was played in late February 2025 and the 2026 edition falls a week later, those points are gone before the player has any chance to defend them, and for a few days their ranking drops with nothing having happened on court.

Majors and Finals are the exception. Because of their weight, the FIP publishes every year the week in which the previous edition’s points are defended, so a calendar move penalises nobody.

With that you can read any odd movement. A player drops without losing when points from a good result the previous year expire, or when a direct rival scores more that week. And a player climbs without playing when what expires is a rival’s poor result.

Ranking and Race are not the same thing

Alongside the ranking, the FIP publishes the Race: the 22 best results obtained within the calendar year only, carrying nothing over from the previous one. On 1 January everyone starts from zero. It tells you who is having the best season; in spring the two tables can look very different, and by December they nearly match.

What padelguess knows about each player

The challenges on this site run on a circuit data API. For each player it publishes ranking position, points, nationality, date of birth and age, height, dominant hand, court side (forehand or backhand) and birthplace, plus its own ELO figure, which is not part of the official ranking.

Positions are published with ties: when two players have the same points they share a position and the next number is skipped. The data is refreshed periodically and the challenge uses a snapshot of the men’s top 100 and the women’s top 50, so a recent move may take a few days to show.

Frequently asked questions

How often is the FIP ranking updated?

Every week, once the weekend’s tournament is over, with the new points added and the expired ones already removed.

Do World Padel Tour tournaments count?

No. World Padel Tour ceased to exist after the 2023 season and its ranking was not merged into the current one. Since 2024 only Premier Padel, the CUPRA FIP Tour and the FIP World Cup score.

Why do two players hold the same position?

Because they have played together all year and have the same results. The ranking is individual, but if the pair does not change the points are identical.

What happens to an injured player’s ranking?

Their results expire like anyone else’s: week by week they lose what they earned the previous year. If any protection exists for long-term injury, it is a tournament entry rule of the circuit, not part of the ranking calculation.

If you now understand why the table moves, test yourself against it. In the classic challenge you have to guess a top-100 player by comparing ranking, country, age, hand and court side with your guesses, and knowing who sits near whom in the classification is half the game. Play the men’s classic challenge or the women’s classic challenge, and if you prefer a visual test, try the photo challenge or the pairs challenge.