Battle for ATP Year-End Number One — The Contenders and What They Need to Do
Rafael Nadal won his 19th Grand Slam title at the Arthur Ashe Stadium defeating Daniil Medvedev after a close five set battle. This victory increases his ranking points tally to 9,225, which is only 640 points behind the World No.1 Novak Djokovic.
Therefore, Nadal is currently the favorite to capture the World No. 1 ranking as he is not defending any points for the remainder of the year, whereas his closest rival Djokovic is defending 2,600 points (at Shanghai, Paris and ATP Finals) in the next couple of months. Therefore, a withdrawal or an early exit for Djokovic at one of those events could hand the World No. 1 ranking to Nadal.
Considering the performances so far in 2019 Nadal has accumulated 9,225 points this year, which gives him a 1,960 point advantage over second placed Djokovic and a 3,715 point advantage over third placed Federer. Therefore, Nadal remains the overwhelming favorite to end the year as the ATP World No. 1.
While the points gained up to now indicates a 2-horse race to clinch the Year-End No. 1, Roger Federer and maybe Daniil Medvedev might also have a mathematical possibility of getting there.
This article will evaluate what Djokovic, Federer and Medvedev need to achieve to clinch the Year-End World No. 1 ranking.
Daniil Medvedev
Thanks to an exceptional performance in North American hard court swing, Medvedev leapfrogged Thiem, Tsitsipas and Zverev to become world number 4 and qualify for the ATP Tour Finals. Medvedev is currently playing at St. Petersburg Open and is expected to play at China Open, Shanghai Masters, Vienna Open and Paris Masters before ATP Finals. Can he clinch the ATP World No. 1 title at the end of the year by winning all tournaments that he is scheduled to take part?
Before evaluating Medvedev’s chances, let’s have a brief review of the methodology used to calculate the ATP rankings.
ATP ranking points tally consists of 19 tournaments;
· Four Grand Slam tournaments
· Eight mandatory ATP Tour Masters 1000 tournaments (Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Canada, Cincinnati, Shanghai, and Paris)
· ATP Finals
· Best Six results from the non-mandatory tournaments (Monte-Carlo, ATP Tour 500s, ATP Tour 250s, ATP Challenger Tour, Futures Series)
Medvedev has already played 19 tournaments in 2019, therefore even if he play all non-mandatory tournaments in his schedule he can only earn a maximum of 820 points more by winning China Open (ATP Tour 500) and Erste Bank Open (ATP Tour 500) as the 180 points earned at the Queen’s Club will be removed as only six non-mandatory events are included in the rankings.
Therefore, Medvedev will not be able to clinch the Year-End No. 1 ranking even if he wins all tournaments in his schedule from this point on wards.
Roger Federer
Wimbledon runner-up and Miami Masters champion Federer has 7,130 points currently. Roger is scheduled to feature at Shanghai Masters, Swiss Indoors and Paris Masters prior to ATP Finals.
Since Roger only featured in 11 tournaments so far, all points he earns from this point on wards will be added to his final tally, allowing him to reach 9,510 points by the end of the year.
Therefore, mathematically Roger can still clinch the Year-End No. 1 ranking if he wins all the tournaments in his schedule. However for this to happen, Nadal and Djokovic has to secure less than 285 and 2,245 points respectively from the remaining tournaments.
Novak Djokovic
Current World No. 1 Djokovic has 9,865 points before his name at the moment and is scheduled to play at Japan Open, Shanghai Masters and Paris Masters prior to ATP Finals. However, shoulder injury he suffered at US Open might lead to him to skip the Asian swing in order to recuperate and prepare for Paris Masters and ATP Finals.
That said, if Novak plays and wins all the tournaments as planned he will end the year with 11,265 points, which is well above the current point haul of Nadal.
However, the question remains whether he can?
As illustrated in the above chart, Novak in his peak years (2012–2015) dominated the Asian and European indoor tournaments. Therefore, a point haul greater than 3,000 is doable for the Serbian if he is healthy.
If Novak wins all tournaments on his schedule, can Nadal still clinch the Year-End No. 1 ranking?
According to his official calendar, Nadal will only take part in Shanghai Masters, Paris Masters and ATP Finals. However, according to reports he will have his wedding on mid-October and to make things worse he suffered a wrist injury while playing in the Laver Cup. Therefore, he is highly likely to skip the Shanghai Masters. However, let’s assume he will participate in Shanghai for calculation purposes.
According to the calculation, Nadal can still clinch the Year-End No. 1 position by becoming the runner-up of Shanghai, Paris and ATP Finals. However, given the fact that Nadal is likely to skip Shanghai, Novak will retain the World number one title if he wins China Open, Shanghai, Paris and ATP Finals.
Finally, given all the injury concerns to Djokovic (shoulder), Nadal (wrist) and Federer (back) what can we actually expect from the “Big Three” in the last quarter of 2019?
Last year, Rafael Nadal surrendered the number one ranking to Djokovic by withdrawing from Paris Masters due to injuries. Likewise, I have a feeling that Nadal to regain the No. 1 ranking after Shanghai when Djokovic withdraws from the Asian Swing. Further, he will secure the Year-End No. 1 ranking for the fifth time in his career at the conclusion of Paris masters or at the round robin stages of ATP Finals 2019.
Hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know your thoughts and areas I can improve going forward.