Greetings from Matt
The End-of-Year Countdown
The last of the four majors is over with Juan Martin Del Potro becoming the tallest ever Grand Slam Champion at 6'6" beating Roger Federer to take the Mens US Open title. He battled for 5 sets, finally knocking down Federer 6-2 in the final set. Yet another exciting tournament!
So what's coming up before the next major, the Australian Open, which starts on Jan 18th 2010 in Melbourne Australia? We have the countdown to the end-of-year Barclays ATP World Tour Finals held in London, England (November 22-29). As it now stands five players have already qualified for the tournament with three spots up for grabs. The five players already in are the usual suspects, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, and Juan Martin Del Potro.
Which three players will fill the last three remaining spots? In the next few months there are two critical tournaments that will have an effect on who will make it to the end-of-year tournament. These tournaments are the ATP Masters Cup in Shanghai, Oct 12-18, and the ATP BNP Paribas Masters in Paris, Nov 9-16, the week before the finals will be played. The players who are on the bubble are Andy Roddick (6th), Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (7th), Nikolay Davydenko (8th), Fernando Verdasco (9th), Gilles Simon (10th), Robin Soderling (11th), Gael Monfils (12th). Every other player below these rankings would need help; for instance, last year Rafael Nadal missed the event due to injury, giving others opportunity. Out of these remaining players vying for the positions their tournament selections and the number of points they are defending from last year will be critical. This will either help maintain their current ranking or help them to move up the rankings into the top 8 players in the world.
If I had a crystal ball...
Andy Roddick is the most likely the next guaranteed player into the finals. His current ranking is 6th, but there is a significant points gap (over 1000 points) between he and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at number 7. The only major points Roddick has to defend is his title in China, but he a chance to pick up points in both Master series.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has a much more difficult path because he has significantly more points to defend from last year. He finished strong last year and has to maintain the same results to sustain his ranking (7th). He is the current title holder in Thailand (Sept 28th-Oct 2nd) and the Masters Cup holder in Paris (Nov 9th -16th). This is a tall order for any player and he is definitely talented enough to pull it off, but I believe he will fall just one place short and finish in 9th position in the rankings.
Nikolay Davydenko is right on the edge of getting into the tournament. He is scheduled to play Malaysia (Sept 28th - Oct 2nd), followed by Japan (Oct 5th-11th), then the Shanghai Masters event. He has already played in 24 events this year and this might put him over the edge to help him make the last spot at the Barclays season-ending championships.
Finally, Fernando Verdasco is right behind Davydenko in the rankings and is playing in same tournaments for the next three weeks. If he manages to progress further in the tournaments and pick up more points his ranking will jump. He has the luxury of not having to defend too many points at this time of the year. He has also entered the Valencia Open in Spain (Nov 2nd-7th) where 500 points are up for grabs and no other major players are participating during that week. I believe his gain will be Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's loss and he will propel himself into the 7th ranking spot rounding out the top 8 players.
A lot can change over the next weeks and as we all know too well, tennis can be an unpredictable sport. Over the last four years Federer and Nadal have been taking charge of pretty much everything and the indoor tennis season usually causes some drama. I don't expect this year will be any different but that's why we follow professional tennis!
Thanks again for all your continued support.
Come by and say hi!
Matt Copland
