220 points.

That’s all that separates Roger Federer from Rafael Nadal.  It seems slender.  But the gap is much bigger than that.  The reason is two-fold: Roger Federer is defending champion, and Rafael Nadal skipped Wimbledon last year.  That means, just to keep the gap the same, Roger Federer would have to win Wimbledon again, and Rafa would have to, well, skip Wimbledon again.  Turns out first round losers still get 10 points.

Let’s see how Roger’s points will change.  Roger currently has 8525 points.  He won Wimbledon last year and earned 2000 points.  He lost in the quarterfinals.  That’s worth 360 points.  That means, he’ll lose 1640 points.  This leaves him with 6885 points.

Now, Novak Djokovic is currently at 6545 pints, so he’s some 340 points behind Roger Federer.  But, Novak Djokovic lost in the quarterfinals last year, and by beating Lu, he’s now in the semifinals.  He had 360 points for his quarterfinal from last year, but will get at least 720 points by reaching the semifinals.  This means, he’ll gain 360 points, to move his total to 6905 points, or 20 more points than Roger Federer.

It turns out Andy Murray is a little too far behind to overtake Roger Federer.  If Murray won, he would get a net of 1280 points for a total of 6435 points, which is 550 points behind Federer.

The amusing part of Novak regaining number 2 in the world is that he did it without playing exceptional tennis.  In 2008, Novak had a chance to overtake Rafael Nadal and become 2 in the world, but he couldn’t beat Rafa on clay, so it didn’t happen.  Novak finally took over number 2 when Rafa retired in the Australian Open and lost points over the next few months by not playing as he recovered.  Indeed, Rafa dipped as low as number 4 and went back and forth from 3 to 4 as Murray also didn’t play well during this period.  Since Rafa was defending his Australian Open title and lost in the quarterfinals (at the time, Andy Murray’s rank had slipped to 5, and so he met Rafa earlier than expected) and Novak lost in the quarterfinals (the same round he lost the previous year), his point total remained the same, but Rafa slipped, so Novak back into number 2.

Where will Rafa end up?  Any points he gets will just add since he didn’t play last year.  If he loses in the semifinals, he will gain 720 points.  He can add 2000 points if he wins Wimbledon.

In a way, none of the top 4 players have had a good year, at least, up until the clay season started.

The last time Roger was number 3?  November 10, 2003, or nearly 7 years ago.