The Tour is about to start—October 4th—and there are new rules and new procedures. Here are the highlights.

Rules Update

Tiebreaker Name Change  The set tiebreaker—formerly known as the 12-point tiebreaker—is officially changed to the 7-point tiebreaker. Same scoring, new name. First to 7 by 2. 

New Men’s Tour and Challenger Draw Scoring This season, all men’s tournaments will use no-ad scoring (server’s choice) for all rounds, in main draw and all back draws.

Back Draw Mandates  Use the National Ranking Tournament Rules link below tofind out what is mandatory and optional.

Rankings Update

National Rankings are based on individual results and include the current 12-month points (at 100%) + the previous 12-month points (at 75%) for teams without 4 results in the current period. Team rankings have been retired and will no longer be listed on the website. 

Tour Update

Grand Prix Events  We’ve scheduled 5 Grand Prix events (up from 4). Grand Prix events have a minimum of 32-team draws and $30,000 in prize money, and guarantee 4.0 weighting for NRT rankings.

APTA Cup Points  In 2025-2026, a player’s top 7 results will be counted. The Cup challenge resets every season.

2026 APTA Nationals Schedule  Play this year returns to the Friday-Sunday schedule, on March 6-8 in Summit, NJ.

For complete game Rules and National Ranking Tournament Rules, please use these links.

For APTA Tour news, National Ranking and Weighting info, and more APTA Cup facts, use the Tournament menu on the website.

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