Sports fans have short memories.  They believe the results of the last week should matter more than the results of a year ago.  Alas, the men’s tennis rankings say otherwise.  The ranking is a culmination of a year’s work.  If you played fantastic a year ago, your rankings will reflect this.  Part of Soderling’s lofty rankings is making it to the finals of the French Open last year.  Part of Andy Murray’s lofty rankings was reaching the semifinals of Wimbledon.

So how does Andy Murray, who has suffered his worse back-to-back (to back) losses in some time go up in rankings from 5 to 4?

It has more to do with Robin Soderling than Andy Murray.  Soderling did well in both Indian Wells and Miami last year.  He lost to Andy Roddick in the semis (beating Andy Murray en route) of Indian Wells, but lost to Kohlschreiber in the 3rd round.  And he just lost to del Potro after making the semis of Miami last year against Berdych.

Murray only trails Soderling by less than 200 points.  Murray also happened to have an awful Miami last year, losing to Mardy Fish.  That he lost to Bogomolov, a player with 3 digits to his ranking, doesn’t change much.  The rankings don’t care who you lose to, just who you lost.  Perhaps, in the future, they will penalize top players for losing to players ranked 50 spots, 100 spots, and more than 200 spots below them to indicate what kind of upset that is.  Of course, Verdasco lost to Raonic (twice).  You never know when that low ranked played is a budding superstar.

In any case, Soderling’s loss drops him more than 200 points while Murray replaces one bad result last year with an equivalent bad result this year, so his rankings don’t change.  Indeed, he didn’t have much of a clay season last year.  If he hopes to get back, he’ll want to do better on clay, especially with semifinalist points to defend at Wimbledon (he didn’t do well in Queen’s either, so he has some time to make up some points).

Soderling could move back to 4 with a solid clay season.  His clay season wasn’t exactly great last year until he reached the finals of the French a second year.

Similarly, Federer is hoping to keep things close.  Djokovic lost early in Miami last year, but Federer lost early as well, so Federer can hope to keep the points similar in Miami.  With Djokovic’s form, Federer won’t gain much ground unless Djokovic is upset.

As a side note, Andy’s brother Jamie says perhaps the right coach would get Andy’s head in the right direction.  Ivan Lendl has expressed interest in helping Murray.  It’s unknown whether Murray is interested.