What is Wrong with the Women's Tennis Ranking System?

Serena Williams just took her sister Venus out in straight sets, to win the Wimbledon Championship. She now holds 3 of the last 4 majors (US Open, Australian & Wimbledon), yet come Monday morning, Russia's Dinara Safina will still be in the #1 spot. This is the same Dinara Safina that Venus Williams demolished in the semis in straight sets, only letting Safina win 1 game! World #1 player only wins 1 game in a match, and she stays #1? On top of that, she has yet to win a Grand Slam championship. Is anyone else as confused as I am?

Tennis rankings for both men & women are a rolling system for the last 12 months. If you do better in a tournament than you did the year before, you'll gain extra points. If you do the same, you simply "defend" your points. If you do worse, you lose points. I'm not even going to get into how many points are awarded at each stage of each tournament, but if during those 12 months, one woman wins 3 of the 4 Grand Slams (and makes it to the QF of the other slam, losing to the eventual champion 6-7, 7-5, 5-7), something is very wrong with that system!

This is not to say that Safina has not had a good year; she has done well. She's made it further in slams, and won a few titles, including Rome & Madrid, but no one following tennis could look at that right now and say that she deserves to be #1. Just check out the transcript from Serena's post-match press conference for her thoughts about this: http://bit.ly/Zkmxh (scroll toward the end). She had the room laughing at the absurdity of it all.

The problem is that Serena and Venus don't play some of the other smaller tournaments throughout the year, as they have other interests & hobbies, which may be why they are still playing after so many women's players have burned out before hitting 25 years of age, but that is a subject for another time. However, there is no way you can convince me that the point system is weighted correctly when Serena Williams will not be #1 after winning 3 of the last 4 majors and getting to the quarterfinals of the 4th...there is no rationale or explanation that will satisfy me! The system is broken, just like Safina's serve was against Venus on Thursday, and it needs to be repaired.