Ah, the rankings. How did Rafael Nadal go from number 4 to number 3 without playing? Last we say, Nadal was retiring from his quarterfinal encounter with Andy Murray at the Australian Open. As the defending champion, Nadal lost a ton of points when his results from last year fell off.
For those who don’t know, the rankings for a player comes from 18 tournaments. 14 of the tournaments are generally spoken for, 4 Grand Slam majors, 9 Masters 1000 events which are essentially mandatory for top players (I believe 1 of the events is not mandatory–might be Monte Carlo), and the year end tournament now titled the ATP World Tour Finals. So only 13 are really “required”.
Then, four more ATP 500 events (the eight Masters 1000 can be used as well), plus 2 other events.
Anyway, it’s a little complicated.
Suppose a player plays Doha in 2009 and wins it receiving 500 pts. If the player does not play Doha in 2010, they lose 500 pts once the event is over. They may be able to gain points if they play a different tournament in the same week, or the penalty of losing 500 pts might be offset by playing a tournament before or after Doha that wasn’t played the previous year. But by and large, players “defend” points by trying to play as well in a tournament as they did the previous year.
How did Rafa go from number 4 to number 3? It turns out both Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray played in Rotterdam in 2009. Murray beat Nadal in the finals. Murray had 500 points for the win. Nadal had 300 points for the finalist position. Neither player chose to play Rotterdam. This means, Murray lost 200 more points than Nadal when the tournament concluded.
Unfortunately for Murray, he was only 130 points ahead prior to Rotterdam, so losing 200 pts meant falling back 70 pts. Had Murray had some spare tournament that wasn’t being counted, he might have lost less points. Your point total is based on a “best 18”, and so having a spare tournament or so might have helped.
As it turns out, both Murray and Nadal will play Dubai. Nadal didn’t play Dubai last year, so he’ll get points for Dubai. This may knock Rotterdam (which he has a 0) off his list of tournaments that contribute to his ranking. Meanwhile, Murray reached the quarterfinals of Dubai and earned 90 pts. He needs to get that far again to defend his point. Murray likely has to get at least one round further than Nadal to go to number 3.
The two may trade off between 3 and 4. Djokovic has a 940 pt lead over Nadal currently. He is also the defending champion at Dubai, so Djokovic may lose points there while Nadal may gain points. The likelihood is Djokovic will remain at number 2. Djokovic would pretty much have to lose in the first round while Nadal wins the tournament to make up 1000 points.
Because Rafa is 3 in the world, it’s now possible that Rafa and Roger might be in the same half of the draw in Dubai. The last time this happened with any seriousness was at the US Open last year when Murray was seeded second. As it turns out, Nadal and Federer were on opposite halves of the draw. If Djokovic can continue to play well, there’s a possibility of Nadal and Federer landing on the same half. Andy Murray can also affect this as well. If Murray plays well too, Nadal and Federer could be in the same half.
As far as tournaments go, being ranked 3 and 4 are pretty much the same thing. You can only meet one of the top 2 seeds in the semifinals, and you can’t meet the other seed except in the finals. In the same way, being number 1 and 2 are also pretty much the same thing.
