Sports Then and Now

Robin Soderling of Sweden won this week's Paris Masters.

Robin Soderling, whose total tennis repertoire stole the show at the Masters in Paris, tops our Power Rankings for the very first time.

The Swede’s 2010 indoor season proved to be the best of his career, ending with his first ATP Master’s 1000 win.

Soderling, along with many of the world’s top players, fought hard throughout the Fall in order to qualify for the season-ending championships.

As the culminating event of a very long year in tennis, the eight top-ranked men in 2010 will begin play at the World Tour Finals in London on Sunday, November 21.

The eight who have qualified: (1) Rafael Nadal (2) Roger Federer, (3) Novak Djokovic, (4) Robin Soderling, (5) Andy Murray, (6) Thomas Berdych, (7) David Ferrer, and (8) Andy Roddick are almost all featured in our Power Pankings.

Only Berdych failed to make the list, suffering a bit of a slump at the end of this year.

The next question facing the tennis-loving public is—who will win the World Tour Finals (WTF) in London?

Much will depend, of course, on the draw. But with the top eight doing combat, no opponent will be easy.

Judge for yourself as you consider the following candidates:

Read the rest of this entry →

Since 2009, the WTF has been held in London.

It is a given in any sport that happens to light your fire––at the end of the season, fans need to crown a winner––the ultimate champion whose accomplishments set him, her or them above all the rest.

For men’s tennis, this event rolls around shortly in November.

The World Tour Finals, paradoxically referred to as the WTF––the latest moniker for the year-end tournament for men’s professional tennis––will be held in London for the second year. It is an unfortunate acronym, although purportedly unintentional.

Since 1970 men’s professional tennis has tinkered with the year-end tournament, finally settling on its current format in 1999 when the ATP and ITF decided not to compete with each other. At long last the guys at the top realized that competition between the governing bodies in tennis was counter-productive.

Now if they could do something equally as innovative for the Davis Cup, the tennis world could breathe a collective sigh of relief! The Davis Cup should be a premiere event instead of a lingering afterthought as it is now.

The Masters year-end tournament, first played in 1970, features the top eight players on the men’s tour selected based on accumulated calendar year ATP ranking points.

The top eight men draw to create two teams with members of each four-man team competing with each other in three round-robin matches. From each group, the two players with the best results move onto the semifinals where the top-ranked player from each group plays the second-ranked player from the other group.

The final is contested by the winners of the semifinal contests.  The winner of that match is accorded 1500 ranking points as well as the honor and prestige of winning in a field of the best eight players in the world. Ironically, last year’s champion, Nikolay Davydenko will not make the field in 2010.  It is tough out there when you get injured.

So in the 40 years the championships have been held, who are the greatest champions of the event? We will count them down here.

Read the rest of this entry →

Murray won the ATP Shanghai Masters.

The three-week five-tournament Asian hard-court swing ended last Sunday at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

The following players left with one more title on their career list: Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (Bangkok), Mikhail Youzhny (Kuala Lumpur), Rafael Nadal (Tokyo), Novak Djokovic (Beijing) and Andy Murray (Shanghai). Not surprisingly, all of the winners are featured in this installment of men’s tennis power rankings.

And the European indoor hard-court season has started this week in Stockholm and Moscow. With four open seats yet to be filled in the World Tour Finals, this is a key stretch for those still hoping to qualify.

The Top 10

Andy Murray No. 1 in this week's power rankings.

1. Andy Murray (Last Power Ranking: 10; ATP Ranking: 4)

Last Four Tournaments: Shanghai [Winner]; Beijing [Quarterfinalist]; US Open [R32]; Cincinnati [Quarterfinalist]

Power Ranking Points: 1080

Andy Murray took several weeks off after his surprisingly early exit at Flushing Meadows and then joined the action at Beijing and Shanghai.

In the quartefinals at Beijing, Murray was unable to find his rhythm against a hard-hitting Ivan Ljubicic. However, he swept aside the competition at Shanghai, winning his sixth Masters 1000 title without dropping a set. His 6-3,6-2 final win over Roger Federer was most impressive, with his exceptional retrieving ability on full display.

After splitting with Maclagan, Murray has won two Masters 1000 titles, his only titles this season. However, already 23, Murray is yet to win that elusive first Grand Slam. Maybe more changes than his coaching staff are needed. How about giving up video games, Andy?

Read the rest of this entry →

Nadal celebrates winning his first U.S. Open and a career grand slam.

It was the day after the Australian Open. Rafael Nadal had slipped, in the space of a fortnight, from No. 2 in the world to No. 4, and was almost 4,000 points off the Federer pace.

But you can’t afford to turn your back for a moment in this fast-changing game of tennis.

Take the last two months. Wimbledon—and the grass season with it—came to an end. The normal hiatus that follows the frenetic action between the clay Masters and London is usually a welcome oasis in the middle of the tennis year. But this year, there has barely been time to draw breath between the clay, the grass, and the hard-court seasons.

First, France celebrated a famous win over champions Spain in the Davis Cup.

No fewer than three top players ditched their coaches: Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Murray, and Stanislas Wawrinka. Another, renowned for ploughing his own furrow, suddenly took on a coach: Roger Federer.

A handful of players had one last fling on clay before the rigors of the North American hard courts took over the tour—and that helped to ensure that the top three places in the Power Rankings would be filled by Spaniards: Rafael Nadal, Nicolas Almagro, and Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Many others turned early to their preparations for the U.S. Open Series on the searing courts of Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Washington.

The big names, though, kept their powder dry until the two Masters that provide the test-bed for the final Major of the year in New York.

They reaped the rewards for that reticence, too. Federer won the Masters in Cincinnati, Andy Murray took the Masters in Toronto, and Nadal shared the honors at the U.S. Open with Novak Djokovic.

So, yes, some things change fast. For every Mikhail Youzhny and Stanislas Wawrinka who has gate-crashed this month’s Power Rankings (PRs), there has been an exit by an early hard-court bloomer such as Tomas Berdych and Sam Querrey.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. The second and third in the world, Djokovic and Federer, who were outside these rankings in August, are back again, ranked—you guessed it, second and third.

And that man who trailed by 4,000 points back in February? He’s now the one with clear water between him and the rest: on top of world. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…

Read the rest of this entry →

As we get ready to head into the 2010 U.S. Open at the end of a long stretch of hard court tournaments in America, there are some traditional clear cut favorites who will claim the attention of the media and tennis fans.

Unfortunately, last year’s winner, Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina, will not be able to defend his 2009 U.S. Open Championship after undergoing wrist surgery in May at the Mayo Clinic in the United States. He has just recently returned to the practice courts.  This means he will not be up to match strength, denying him the ability to compete at such a high level over an extended period.

The usual suspects head the list of favorites starting with Rafael Nadal, the No. 1 seed, as well as No. 2 seed Roger Federer who has won this tournament five times in the past six years.  Additionally, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray have made the finals in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Most of the odds makers will focus on this quartet of top-ranked tennis elites.

It is also important, however,  to consider our Power Rankings, which highlight those players who have recently excelled on the hard courts leading up to the U.S. Open. These are the top ten contenders going into Flushing Meadows.

The Top 10

1. Roger Federer (Last Power Ranking: OLI; ATP Ranking: 2)

Last Four Tournaments: Cincinnati [Winner], Toronto [Finalist], Wimbledon [Quarterfinalist], Halle Germany [Finalist]

Power Ranking Points: 1359

Roger Federer won the tournament in Cincinnati just prior to the U.S. OpenPower Ranking Points: 1359

After suffering a quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon, Federer took some time off from the tour. As he resumed a rigorous practice schedule, Federer announced to the world that he would meet and work with Paul Annacone, former coach to Pete Sampras.

Their first tournament together was Toronto where Federer progressed to the final but was not able to overcome Andy Murray, losing 5-7, 5-7.  The Swiss came back, however, in Cincinnati to repeat as champion over Mardy Fish in a hard-fought three-set final.
Federer seems well rested and well-prepared to compete in his eleventh U.S. Open.

The state of his coaching trial with Annacone remains up in the air at this point with no real explanation as to why Annacone did not travel with him to Cincinnati.  Regardless, his recent play must revive Federer’s confidence heading into New York.

U.S. Open Success? Half of the time that Federer has gained entry into the U.S. Open, he has won the title.  He will remain one of the favorites going into the tournament to win it again in 2010.  That is not to say he will be without competition. Everybody enters to win. If Federer, however, plays as he did this past week, his chances look very good, indeed.

Read the rest of this entry →

With victories in the French Open and Wimbledon, Rafael Nadal has solidified his place at the top of the tennis power rankings.

The Championships at Wimbledon have come and gone, just like that. It has been a historic tournament, especially with the Queen’s visit (on June 24) and the longest match in tennis history (John Isner vs. Nicolas Mahut, first-round, June 22-24).

In the end, though, it was all about Rafael Nadal, who claimed his second Wimbledon crown and his eighth major title. In doing so, he became the first man since Bjorn Borg to achieve the Roland Garros-Wimbledon double more than once.

Before the tour shifts to the second hard-court season of the year, most top players will take a summer vacation. The list below reflects the players’ form to some degree, although how well they will be able to keep it up after a multi-week break remains to be seen.

The Top 10

1. Rafael Nadal (Last Power Ranking: 1; ATP Ranking: 1)

Last Four Tournaments: Wimbledon [Winner], London [Quarterfinalist], Roland Garros [Winner], and Madrid [Winner]

Power Ranking Points: 2,536

Nadal has dominated the men’s tour since April, when the clay-court season began in Monte-Carlo. He won all but one (London) tournament that he entered, including two majors and three Masters. He accumulated 7,045 ranking points in three months—more than the total of second ranked player, Novak Djokovic. On the way, he surpassed Roger Federer as the new world’s No. 1 and Andre Agassi with the most number of Masters shields. Read the rest of this entry →