The WTF has announced a grading system for events sanctioned by them for the 2009 year.  They are:

Grade 7: World championship level

Grade 6: not categorized yet

Grade 5: World Cup level

Grade 4: not categorized yet

Grade 3: Summer Universiade level

Grade 2: Large International Opens, eg US Open

Grade 1: International Opens

The grading allocation above is used to determine the total points to be earned by players in accordance with their placings, eg

1^st: 10 points

2^nd: 6 points

3^rd – 4^th : 3.6 points

5^th – 8^th:  2.16 points

9^th – 16^th : 1.51 points

17^th – 32^nd : 1.06 points

33^rd – 64^th : 0.74 points

65^th upwards: 0.52 points  

Players gather points when they compete in the above events.  Eg a player who gets placed 1^st in the world championships will earn 10 x 7 = 70 points; or a player who gets 5^th in the US Open gets 2.16 x 2 = 4.32 points.  So at the end of the year the player who accumulates the highest points is determined to the top ranked player for his weight division, and progressively each player can be ranked accordingly to the total points they earned.  This is very similar to the points system being used by many sports to rank their players or teams, eg such sports as tennis, motor racing, countries (as in team football), etc etc.

Australia had been using a very similar format since 2005 to allocate points to its referees to determine level of experience ranking, in particular to select international referees for events.  This same format was used in ranking experience of the Commonwealth IR’s as well.  And the similar methodology had been used for selecting award winners for associations in Western Australia since the 1990’s.