Due to the current global situation with Covid-19 resulting in no tournaments, the FIR have decided to freeze the world rankings for all categories from April 1st, 2020. The players that would be soon to lose points currently don’t have an opportunity to defend those points and so freezing the rankings is the only solution.
We do not know how long we will be without tournaments and so it is not possible to say at this stage how we will unfreeze the rankings, but there is likely to be a period of time once play does resume in which players can gain points that they would have lost if we did not freeze.
For example, if the first tournament is in August 2020, we may decide that 6 months would be enough time for players to regain their lost points and the rankings would then be live again from February 1st, 2021. These would include any tournament from Feb 2019 up until the freezing this month, and any subsequent tournaments played after the freeze. If the first tournament is later than August, we may give players 9 or even 12 months to regain points. Once we know more, a further update will be issued.
The World Rankings are available here.
Duncan Stahl / FIR President