World rankings frozen: Nadal, Federer, Djokovic, Thiem - who benefits?
Since Wednesday it has been clear that not only will professional tennis not take place until June 8 - the world rankings will also be frozen until then. Who benefits from this?
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: Mar 24, 2020, 09:25 am
There are simple and complicated answers to this question. The simple one is: Roger Federer . The Swiss had undergone surgery on his knee in mid-February and would only have entered tournament tennis again in the grass season from June. Under normal circumstances, Federer would have lost 2,680 points - from his previous year's win in Miami (1,000), the final in Indian Wells (600), the semi-final in Roland Garros (720) and his two quarter-finals in Madrid and Rome (180 each). Federer would have dropped to 7th or 8th place in the ranking, now he will keep his current 6,630 points and remain in 4th place.
But what about the other top players if they had withdrawn regularly? Novak Djokovic , currently world number one (currently 10,220 points) should have swallowed 2,635 points, Rafael Nadal (currently 9,850 points) had struck particularly well in the beloved sand season and collected 4,260 points between Indian Wells and Roland Garros last year (In 2017 there were even 5,370!).
Dominic Thiem (currently 7,045 points) would have lost 3,080 points, thanks in particular to his participation in the finals at the French Open (1,200 points) and the victories in Indian Wells (1,000 points) and Barcelona (500).
For comparison: Daniil Medvedev (currently 5,890 points) would have "only" lost 825 points (he had only reached the semi-finals in Monte Carlo in 2019 and the final in Barcelona, in Paris it was in round 1) - Medvedev would have Federer and Thiem outdated. At Stefanos Tsitsipas it would have been 1,355 points deduction, at Alexander Zverev mediocre 945 points.
Also with regard to the clay court enthusiasts placed further back, who are mainly concerned with the cut for the main fields, there would have been a lot of confusion. Conclusion: Many players would have been badly disadvantaged, so "freezing" appears to be a sensible measure.
Paris surprises Anisimova and Vondrousova avoid crashes
Some women also benefited from the women. Angelique Kerber , 2019 in the Indian Wells final, would have had to fear for the top 30 without "freezing" (she had already canceled Indian Wells and Miami due to an injury), which would also be the still injured Bianca Andreescu (as Indian Wells winner 2019) slipped and probably flown out of the top 10, as did Kiki Bertens. Venus Williams, currently world ranking 67th, should have said goodbye to the top 100.
Marketa Vondrousova, who had been injured in the French Open finals the previous year and had been injured for a long time afterwards, would have lost 2,100 of her 2,307 points and would just about have remained in the top 300. And Amanda Anisimova, Paris semi-finalist 2019, would have had almost 1,100 points instead of 2,307 points ...
How long the points remain frozen has not yet been announced. It would probably make sense until the relevant tournament has either been rescheduled (like the French Open in autumn) - and otherwise until the respective edition in 2021 ...