The points you get from opponents doesn’t depend on the ranking, but on their perceived strenght (which is based mainly in stats). Winning against the top ranked won’t give you enough points if they aren’t in the “strongest” top 10.
The PvP rules say that you always face against the strongest opponent in your league, then the second… Theoretically, this should give everyone the opportunity to get 1st place (as long as they can win against the strongest 10 with full health, armor and resistance). However, in practice it does not happen for 2 main reasons:
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The 10 “strongest” players cannot fight themselves, so the max score they can get is lower than the rest of players. This is probably the issue you are experiencing in Open. I believe this should be urgently revised, not being able to get 1st place for being the strongest makes no sense.
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The out-of-league battles break the “you always get the strongest 10 opponents” rule, and make matchmaking depend on one’s perceived strength: players with higher strength can get high scoring opponents from other leagues, while lower strenght players cannot. A single out-of-league opponent with higher score than any of the top 10 within the league will then make it so that only a few will be able to battle for the top. This is the case for Champion Open League that has been reported by phantom here. Not good either, because it takes us back to the previous PvPs where only a few people had the opportunity to fight for the top.
If these 2 issues can be addressed, I have no doubt that the PvPs will keep on improving and becoming more interesting and enjoyable.