Most of the top four are taking the week off.  Indeed, Roger Federer said he wouldn’t return until Basel, which is after Shanghai.  Djokovic had said he would skip next week’s event, but hasn’t mentioned whether he’ll play Shanghai or not.  Rafael Nadal is still slated to play Tokyo where he is the defending champ.

The only top four player playing this week is Andy Murray.  During the Davis Cup, he grumbled about traveling to Bangkok and basically insinuated that the reason he was doing it was for the guarantee money.  That was probably whiny Andy talking, because Andy Murray also realizes he has a pretty good opportunity on his hands.

Andy Murray stated today that he wants to be number 3 at year’s end.  This would mean finishing ahead of Roger Federer.  If you were to merely think about whether Federer could reliably beat Murray, it might be a wash.  Federer has a losing record against Nadal, but he still maintains a winning record over Djokovic.  However, Murray still has more wins over Federer, although Fed did close the gap some last year.

But that’s not how you should look at this.  Tennis is about the ranking system, and rankings are based on accumulation of points over the year.  Last year, at about this time, Roger Federer had lost early in the French and Wimbledon (by his lofty standards) and had won two titles (Australian Open, Cincinnati).  If he wanted to regain number 1, he needed to accumulate more points.

And, remarkably he did.  After failing to reach the US Open final for the first time in many a year, Roger Federer went on the best streak of winning he’s had in some time.  In late 2009, he reached the finals of Shanghai, he won Stockholm, he won Basel, he reached the semis of the Paris Indoors where he had match points on Monfils, and he won the ATP World Tour Final without dropping a match.  Federer pointed out that the final win was worth 3/4 of a Slam, at least, in points.

Alas, Federer didn’t anticipate that Djokovic, a man he had beaten 4 of 5 times in 2010, would go on to have the best year of his life, in particular, beating him in the Australian Open semifinals, and then, he didn’t expect he’d be number 3 in the world.

Here’s why Andy Murray’s goal is pretty reasonable.  He trails Roger Federer by 1240 points.  Roger Federer says he will return to tour at Basel.  That means he loses his points at Shanghai and Stockholm.  That is already 850 points.  The question is, will Djokovic play Basel?  If Federer can’t defend Basel, he’ll lose another 200 pooints.  By then, Murray would just need to gain 200 points to move ahead of Federer, and that still assumes Federer wins the year-end championship without the loss of a match.  Indeed, if Federer doesn’t win the year-end championship, he stands to lose maybe 500 points, and all Murray would have to do is to defend his points.

It’s all pretty realistic given Federer’s quality of play and the sheer number of points Federer has to defend.

Now, Murray has some motivation to do well.  He is defending Australian Open points early next year, and although he’s done well there before, it might be nice to have a cushion heading into that event.

Let’s see where Murray stands now with points to defend for the rest of this year

  • Beijing (90 pts, QF)
  • Shanghai (1000 pts, W)
  • Valencia (45 pts, R16)
  • Paris (180 pts, QF)
  • ATP World Tour Finals (400 pts, SF)

This is 1715 points to defend (Federer has to defend about twice as many points).  Murray is playing Bangkok which he hasn’t played in years.  So he’ll pick up points just by playing.  He’s already in the semis.  Murray will play Tokyo for the first time in a while.  Nadal is scheduled to play that in his first tournament back since playing Davis Cup.

Shanghai is the tough spot for Murray because 1000 points is a lot to defend.  Federer isn’t planning to play.  Djokovic might play, at least, he’s currently scheduled to play.  Murray also had a reasonably comfortable draw last year.  His toughest opponent before the finals was Jo-Wilfried Tsonga who was not playing as well as he’s playing now.

But Murray could still do well in Paris (though it’s the fastest surface on tour).  The point is, Murray can be number 3 more because he has fewer points to defend, that Federer has a lot to defend and is already skipping two tournaments he did well at.

Murray beat Grigor Dmitrov today in straight sets.  He’ll take on Gilles Simon who needed three sets to beat Bachinger.  Murray has a very good record against Simon, though he’s generally beaten Simon when Simon has played lots of long matches.  Even so, Murray had the quicker match and Simon needed 3 sets to win, and he also needed 3 sets to win his previous round.

In the other semis, Donald Young has reached his second semifinal of the year.  Young reached the semis of Washington DC where he lost to Radek Stepanek.  Young has finally made some progress after years on the tour (some attribute it to his Prince racquet–he had played with Head all his life–which allows him to hit with more spin).  Young is in modesty mode these days, which makes sense given how long he’s been mired in Challengers.  He points out that Gael Monfils beat him pretty bad the last time they met.  Monfils hasn’t had an easy road to this point and still has an injury.  So Young, at least, is facing Monfils not at his very best, which means Young has an outside shot to win.  However, if Monfils can play as usual, he should win, given that he makes his opponents play a lot of balls and Young can be impatient.

In Kuala Lumpur, where the other men’s ATP 250 event is being held, Kei Nishikori upset the top seed, Nicolas Almagro in three sets.  He will take on the third seed, Janko Tipsarevic, who beat Davydenko in the quarterfinals when the Russian retired after playing four games.

In the other quarterfinals, Viktor Troicki beat Dmitri Tursunov 4 and 4 to put two Serbs in the semis of this event.  Troicki will play Baghdatis, a wildcard, who upset Jurgen Melzer in two close sets.  There’s a decent chance that two Serbs could reach the finals of this event, which would probably be the first time that’s happened, or at least, without Djokovic in the finals.