Why Injury Is Punished Twice
An injured player stops adding results, which is the obvious cost. The less obvious cost is that the window does not pause. Old results keep expiring exactly on schedule while nothing arrives to replace them, so the ranking decays steadily during an absence without a single match being lost. Time alone does the damage.
The decay is also steepest for the players who were highest, because they had the most to defend. A player whose ranking rested on deep runs at big events loses those results in large blocks, while a player whose ranking rested on modest, evenly spread results loses it more gently. Then comes the compounding effect on return. A low ranking means qualifying draws or main draws without protection, which means harder opponents in the opening rounds against a player short of match sharpness, which slows the accumulation of new results. Both tours provide partial relief through a protected or special ranking, letting a returning player use their pre-injury position to gain entry to a limited number of events. That relief grants access, generally not seeding, so the returning player enters strong fields unseeded.
