Who Will Be Year End Number One?

Federer has just re-gained the number one spot in the rankings but who will be the year end number one? Looking at race points (ie ranking points accumulated since the the beginning of the year) can be a clearer way of seeing where players stand. They show it's very tight at the top. Federer has 7095 race points and both Djokovic and Nadal have 6840 race points. All three have now qualified for the end of year finals (WTF). They qualify because of their race points but also because they each now hold a slam. Djokovic on hard, Nadal on clay and Federer on grass.

http://live-tennis.eu/race

With this in mind who do you think will end the year at number one?

Wth clay gone and indoors to come I rule Rafa out.

Probably Djokovic, though Federer might do it if Nole continues to look vulnerable. Would it be unreasonably greedy to hope for Fed?

I think if Fed wins either Canada or Cinci he probably will get the No.1 spot because I'm pretty sure that even if he doesn't win the WTF, he will certainly go deep (maybe he'll win a 7th just to make us Fed fans happy? ) so winning one of them will compensate for potentially losing Paris.

I'd probably vote for Fed right now.

It's between Djoko and Fed in my view.

Fed can, but it would be an astonishing achievement for him to finish 2012 as strongly as he finished 2010 and 2011; he's got a lot more matches under his belt at this stage than in those years and his main rival has played less and has more motivation to keep going strong than he did in 2011. Djoko is also very good on indoor and outdoor hard and as a patriotic Serb he will be super motivated to get the Olympic Gold.

The USO will be crucial, and I'd love Murray to keep a bit of interest going in the No. 1 race by winning it.

Fed is pretty sure to have at least 6 more weeks at No 1. between now and the beginning of October - he may even break the 300 barrier.

The big variable is how Djokovc responds. We've seen that Federer and Nadal come back, but will Novak?

Only time will tell.

Nadal is 3rd favourite as stated now the clay's gone. Mind you, let's not write him off. We've made that mistake before.

Murray needs something spectacular and is a long shot.

This is Djokovic v Federer, probably, as mentioned, so I agree.

Djokovic has to be the favourite for the simple reason that he is probably a better player than Fed, more consistent in getting the ball in play, stronger on the BH side, and so mentally strong.

But this analysis doesn't come with the same confidence it did last year, or even before the clay season when Djokovic had taken AO and Miami.

It is starting to look like an interesting race.

Asia is looking an interesting variable. My guess is that both of them will play at least Shanghai this year at least, but they'll need to see how they feel after the US Open.

Question is whether to go for broke in Asia or whether to save energies for Paris and the World Tour finals.

Another interesting question has to be how much energy to put into Paris now there isn't a rest week before the world tour finals.

It's exciting to see this race potentially going all the way to the WTF, as that hasn't happened for a long time. Was 2003 the last time the race went to the wire? Since then there's always been one player had a magnificent season and got the job done basically by the US Open.

Well my guess would be Djokovic winning the US Open and taking the year end no 1, but Federer is in there with a real shout now.

Yes, but if Novak blows out at the US Open he's toast.

All it takes is a crappy draw (Raonic?) or a bad day. Or an inspired GOAT and a 'shot' that goes wide.

Henman Bill wrote:
It's exciting to see this race potentially going all the way to the WTF, as that hasn't happened for a long time. Was 2003 the last time the race went to the wire? Since then there's always been one player had a magnificent season and got the job done basically by the US Open.

Well my guess would be Djokovic winning the US Open and taking the year end no 1, but Federer is in there with a real shout now.

Nadal had his chances in 2009, if he would have won the title and had Fed lost in semi's Rafa would have ended up as no.1, but I guess its Rafa who bowed out in league stages itself.

I didn't remember that, I was thinking with 2 slams and 2 slam finals Fed had probably wrapped up 2009 Y/E no 1 by the US Open with Rafa missing Wimbledon and falling early at the FO, but I guess Rafa picked up more masters points that year.

Brian Baker.

Just kidding. The American swing is going to be fascinating. Nadal, Djokovic and Murray need some points and well with the Olympics too. Tight scheduling. We could well see a Masters victor outside the top 4.

I would intrigued to see if either Nadal, Djokovic or Murray play Salem and Washington.

What about Lukas Rosol?

Unlike others I think Nadal is still in with a shot. He played some of his best tennis at RG and has had 3 significant wins over Djokovic. Rosal was a fluke. Pfft. If he can continue like that he will be difficult to beat.

Great for Roger to get the number one back. Great story about him being just one week short of the record of number of weeks at number one set by Sampras. Then him coming back and stealing it in such dramatic fashion.

hawkeye wrote:Unlike others I think Nadal is still in with a shot. He played some of his best tennis at RG and has had 3 significant wins over Djokovic. Rosal was a fluke. Pfft. If he can continue like that he will be difficult to beat.

Great for Roger to get the number one back. Great story about him being just one week short of the record of number of weeks at number one set by Sampras. Then him coming back and stealing it in such dramatic fashion.

It's not the first time Fed has shown he's the come back King. He showed after losing the French Open finals 3 times in a row he wouldn't give up and more amazingly, after the crushing defeats of Wimbledon '08 and Australia '09 he firstly managed to hold on to the USO '08, which was good but the following year, after morale sapping loses he came back to win the Roland Garros-Wimbledon double out of nowhere. Winning both wasn't easy.

That was his first come back and it netted him a further 3 slams. This situation of no slams though was longer and the 'slump' if we like to call it that, really did have many writing him off so much so that people didn't even consider him the seriously for Wimbledon, it was Rafa's and Djokovic's to lose. His age kept being brought up and I was always of the view that the greats of the game go on winning into their 30s, but with no slams to show, many, including on here said his slam winning days were over. After the prolonged wait for a slam Fed has needed much patience and had to endure tough defeats but he took them! Now he's back, to where I always felt he deserved to be! This is, for me, one of his best come backs ever. All the better because age hasn't been the issue many thought it would be.

Dont worry HE...I think the extended break Nadal has up to OG (it will have been almost 6 weeks) will do him a world of good. Time to reflect, fine-tune, consolidate...and hone the serve for OG and HC season coming up where he needs more pop.

Thanks Lydian. I'm not worrying... or not until the next time Nadal has to play Djokovic anyway.

I agree that Nadal will be back, I'm unsure about which event it will be at, but it will happen: he had a pretty successful clay court season but a shock defeat can overshadow things with the media forgetting things quickly.

I'd only add that it would take quite a bit of success (probably 2 or 3 titles from now until November) for him to challenge for the YE No.1 spot. His 4 titles this year definitely help him but the problem is the missed opportunity of Wimbledon. A quarters but definitely a semi would have given him a good chance which is now very difficult. A key problem is that Fed won IW but more crucially Madrid but Wimbledon is clearly the most significant jewel that makes it very difficult for Nadal to overtake him unless Fed has a poor indoor hard court season (which is quite a way away). Djokovic on the other hand could be overtaken, it would require him having a somewhat poorer American swing in August/September and Nadal doing a bit better than last year at the same events.

Its too close to call at the moment, but based on past years form, I give Federer the edge over Djokovic.

Federer could equal the record for most years ended at #1, which is 6 held by Pete Sampras. Is this now the only significant record that Sampras holds alone?

I think it is a straight race between Djokovic and Federer and just now my money would be on Roger Federer. Nadal probably will be back but not at this time of the year. Habitually, he is a winter/spring player if you like as that is when he stacks up his points and puts in his best performances but always seems to be less impressive in the second part of the year.

I've gone for Rafa. Yes, I know he tends not to do much after the USO. But he's saved much energy by getting knocked out in the second round at Wimbledon and Rog has a stack of points to defend at the end of the year.
It would be nice to see Rog chalk up at least 300 weeks at the top and that could still happen. But he's at least got the Sampras record now. Reckon it was probably more likely he would win another slam than get back to number one. But, hey, one led to the other.

I can't go for Rafa simply because he's 3rd in the race and clay is gone. I mean, to win he has to outperform both Djokovic and Federer from now until December.

If he could do that he'd be miles ahead by now having done the business on clay.

#1 Djoko
#2 Federer
#3 Nadal

I just can't wait for Nadal-Djokovic semi's from here on, atleast in Olympics and USO.

Although important, it is not primarily who is the better indoor / hard court player, but who has the most points to defend. Hence the real question is who will have a better hard court season compared to last year.

Of course the Olympics throws a bit of a spanner into the works, but considering the damp summer we are having, and the somewhat greasy slippery nature of surface, we would probably have to make Federer favorite for the gold. Of course in a best of three sets tournament one cannot afford to drop the first two sets of the match like Federer did to Benny.

ps should Rosol be given a wild card into the tennis olympics?

I agree with Lydian but think that it's very tight between Fed and Djoko (probably not so much with Nadal).

It's down to who has the best 4 months from now. The younger man has played less and Fed has had his back injury scare. Both can play on HC and both can play indoors, both have done very well at all the major tournaments between now and the year end at different times in their careers. I don't think Fed's win at Wimbledon provides a decisive steer as to who will clean up on HC or indoors between now and November.

Murray has the potential to play a significant role in the race to #1 by taking points off either Fed or Djoko in the HC tournaments to come should they drop below a high degree of intensity.

It's a bit fanciful to consider Nadal in contention. On the basis of....? Right now he's over 2, 000 points behind and he'd need to win more than 1 or 2 titles to put himself in serious contention. Nor can he gain a junk of that through just winning the USO because he made the final last year. His post Wimbledon record speaks for itself (it's dire). I'm sure he will make his mark and win somewhere but I don't think he's going to suddenly do something he's not been able to do in his post Wimbledon career: win 3 titles in the 5 months (which is what he needs).

By the end of August we'll have a much better idea of knowing where things are heading but I'm amazed that some posters don't seem to realise that Djokovic still has to defend 1, 600 points during August (from last summer) and unless he does better (which seems rather unlikely), Fed only needs to go further in tournaments in summer (which isn't hard, very easy in fact) and he makes his lead at the top bigger. Cinci is Fed's big chance to boost his chances of getting Y.E.1 as he's won it 4 times in the past. That then means he can lose Paris at the end of the year and only needs to win Basel and WTF (both indoors) and he gets the top spot for the year end. Basel is his home tournament so he has an excellent chance of winning that and WTF is a tournament he's had an excellent record in recently apart from in 2008 when he had a pretty devastating year overall.

Nore Staat wrote:Although important, it is not primarily who is the better indoor / hard court player, but who has the most points to defend. Hence the real question is who will have a better hard court season compared to last year.

Of course the Olympics throws a bit of a spanner into the works, but considering the damp summer we are having, and the somewhat greasy slippery nature of surface, we would probably have to make Federer favorite for the gold. Of course in a best of three sets tournament one cannot afford to drop the first two sets of the match like Federer did to Benny.

No, defending doesn't matter. Take the race position right now

http://live-tennis.eu/race

and add on what happens from here.

Nore Staat wrote:ps should Rosol be given a wild card into the tennis olympics?

Yes, so long as he's drawn against Nadal 1st round.

Given that the remainder of the season will be played on hardcourt and indoors, I would also say this is between Djokovic and Federer now. Murray is too far behind (>3000 points), and Nadal would need to perform much better than he has done in any of the past years.

The win over Djokovic at Wimbledon is very signifant IMO, because it looked like Fed was starting to have similar mental problems against him as he has against Nadal... Beating Djokovic at the USO this year would problaby fully restore his confidence that he is the better player after all.

Just looking in here and thought it worth giving further explanation about about "race" points. Bogbrush did try to do this but think it's worth re-stating considering the amount of confusion. Race points are the same as ranking points but just counted from the beginning of the year. At this point they don't include any points a player has won from Wimbledon 2011 to year end 2011. Therefore there are no points to defend.

At this moment the top three are more or less tied. Federer has just 255 points more than both Nadal and Djokovic who strangely enough have exactly the same number of points (see article). All that sweating and running about and there are only 255 points separating the top three. The question is who can win more points between now and year end. Simple really...

hawkeye wrote:Just looking in here and thought it worth giving further explanation about about "race" points. Bogbrush did try to do this but think it's worth re-stating considering the amount of confusion. Race points are the same as ranking points but just counted from the beginning of the year. At this point they don't include any points a player has won from Wimbledon 2011 to year end 2011. Therefore there are no points to defend.

At this moment the top three are more or less tied. Federer has just 255 points more than both Nadal and Djokovic who strangely enough have exactly the same number of points (see article). All that sweating and running about and there are only 255 points separating the top three. The question is who can win more points between now and year end. Simple really...

I see what you're saying here. What I'm interested in is that Federer (and probably Djokovic) will play Basel whereas Nadal won't. Djokovic is also playing Beijing and also, on top of that, it may come down to which of the top 3 play Shanghai.

All of them will play the Olympics, Canada, Cinci, USO, Paris & WTF (6). However, Djokovic is likely to play 2 (Basel & Beijing) further tournaments and Federer 1 (Basel). Nadal no further tournaments (unless you include Shanghai, but more about that next). Shanghai is meant to be played by all of them but last year only 1 (Nadal) of the top 3 did. So it may come down whether one of the top 3 wins Shanghai (especially for the top 2). I'm surprised Djokovic is playing Beijing and most likely Shanghai, does this suggest he wants to reclaim the Y.E. 1? Certainly looks that way.

If Fed does well at the Olympics, I'm pretty sure he'll skip Toronto and will travel directly to Cincinnati.