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Race for year-ending no. 1 becoming exciting

Roger Federer (Photo by TPN/Getty Images)
Roar Guru
21st September, 2018
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Just a couple of weeks back, it looked as if the world no. 1 position in tennis was securely with the great Rafael Nadal for some time to come.

Rafa was in imperious form, and was way ahead of his great rival Roger Federer who was at no. 2. Novak Djokovic was at no. 6 and, in regards to points, much further behind as well.

The 2018 US Open provided a glimpse of the past, which was a rampaging Novak Djokovic winning comprehensively. Roger Federer bowed out in the fourth round, while Nadal could not finish his semi-final versus Juan Martin Del Potro, retiring after two sets. Novak on the other hand won the tournament. It was his second Grand Slam in a row and his 14th overall.

Pertinently, Novak had no points to defend, and winning the US Open gave him a cool 2000 points. Suddenly, from no. 6, he was no. 3. Nadal at 1, Federer at 2 and Djokovic at 3, this was the position in 2008 – and this is the position once again in 2018.

Rafa, after retiring from the US Open semi-final, also missed the Davis Cup semi-finals as well. The next two important tournaments coming up are the Beijing Open, which he had won in 2017, and the Shanghai Open, where he had lost to Roger Federer in the finals last year.

These two tournaments form the main part of the Asian leg of the ATP tour but Nadal announced that, to allow his knee to recover, he would not participate in either tournament.

Rafael Nadal hits at Wimbledon.

Nadal needs time to recover from a knee injury. (Photo by Glyn KIRK / AFP).

While tennis fans will look forward to a rejuvenated Nadal coming back strongly, his non-participation means that he will be dropping as much as 1100 points, and suddenly his impregnable lead over his rivals will now be at touching distance.

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Currently, Nadal is at 8760 points, 1860 ahead of Roger Federer and 2315 ahead of Novak. However with Rafa not playing these two tournaments and dropping 1100 points means that both Federer and Novak could be within 500 points of the world no. 1. 

Which other top tournaments are left apart from Beijing and Shanghai? They are Tokyo, Vienna and Basel (all 3 being ATP 500 tournaments) and Paris Masters, which is an ATP 1000 tournament.

Now let us see how many points the big three are defending.

Nadal is defending just 180 points from Paris Masters, where he had withdrawn in the quarter-finals last year. He has no points to defend from the ATP Finals, where he lost a match to David Goffin and then withdrew. Federer is defending 1100 points, 500 from Basel, where he defeated Del Potro and 600 from the ATP Finals where he won all his three round robin matches.

Djokovic, on the other hand, is defending no points at all since he skipped the entire last six months of 2017. He therefore is at a huge advantageous position, especially considering his strong form.

To sum up, an exciting two months of tennis is ahead. End of the year number one is one of the goals of players, and it is a terrific situation where all the three top players have a chance to finish the year at the top.

It is possible that we may actually go to the ATP Finals to decide who the end of the year world no. 1 will be. Last year it was Nadal, and by doing so he became the oldest end of the year number one in tennis history.

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This year he will break his own record or his great rivals Federer or Djokovic will claim the record as their own.

Who will it be? We will know soon.

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