Since the Slams are weighted more heavily than other tournaments, it’s not surprising that the rankings have changed since the conclusion of the French Open.

Rafael Nadal has reclaimed the number 1 spot, leaving Roger Federer one week short of tying Pete Sampras’s 286 weeks at number 1.  Nadal has 8700 points to Roger’s 8390 points.  Nadal’s quadfecta of winning three Masters 1000 clay events and the French has given him a ton of points.  He also reached the semis of Indian Wells and Miami.  So Nadal is back on a tear.  Nadal has no points to defend until Toronto.  In particular, whatever round Nadal reaches at Wimbledon–and he’s highly favored to reach the finals–is going to increase the separation between him and Federer.

Other players benefited too.  Robin Soderling is now 6 in the world, though mostly due to Juan Martin del Potro not defending his semifinal points.  He’s still one spot behind Nikolay Davydenko who is expected to mark his return to competitive tennis playing in Halle.  The reason Soderling didn’t really benefit is because he reached the finals last year, and so he replaced his finalist points from last year with his finalist points from this year.

Jurgen Melzer jumped 11 spots to reach 16 in the world for his semifinal appearance at the French.  Tomas Berdych moved up 4 spots to 13th in the world by reaching the semifinals.  Ferrero moved up one spot and Almagro three spots to 17 and 18 in the world.  Thomaz Bellucci and Marcos Baghdatis jumped up 5 and 4 spots respectively to 24 and 26 in the world.

Other big movers.  Thiemo de Bakker moved up 6 spots to 44, Mayer moved up 6 spots to 51, Rochus moved up 8 spots to 54. Robby Ginepri moved up 28 spots to 70th in the world.  His last win at the ATP level tournaments prior to this?  You’d be surprised.  A first round win over French Open finalist, Robin Soderling, in Chennai, prior to the Australian Open.  (Soderling proceeded to lose in the first round at the Australian).

This week, grass court tournaments start including the Gerry Weber Open in Halle and the Stella Artois Championships held at Queen’s Club.  Plenty of upsets at Halle including losses by Ferrero, Chardy, Garcia-Lopez (but to Troicki), Baghdatis.  Hewitt and de Bakker won their matches.  Federer is playing doubles with Yves Allegro, a fellow Swiss.  They’ve lost the first set, but are close in the second set.

At Queen’s, Istomin over wildcard Baker, Benneteau over Clement, Kevin Anderson over Taylor Dent, Jesse Levine over Ryan Harrison, Gasquet over Nishikori, Ginepri over Brit, James Ward.  Dimitrov is down 1 set to love against Bogdanovic.  Fish just started a match against Devvarman.  Ram wins over Karol Beck in 3 sets.  Marcos Daniel over Blaz Kavcic in straight sets.

Halle has Federer, Davydenko, Youzhny and Ferrero as the top 4 seeds.  Presumably, Federer is heavily favored to win.  Grass isn’t a good surface for Davydenko and in any case, it’s his first tournament since Indian Wells when he withdrew after beating Ernests Gulbis in the first round.

Queen’s has the stronger field with Rafa, Djokovic, Murray, Roddick, and Cilic as the top 5 seeds.  Djokovic has bounced back and forth.  Last year, he played Halle and lost to Haas.  The year before he played Queen’s and reached the finals losing to Nadal (in 2008).  Andy Murray is the defending champ.

Tommy Haas is the defending champ in Halle.  Roger Federer declined to play when he won the French Open for the first time.