There's a change of leadership coming up.
Men's tennis is the first time in a year that the world's first racket has been changed. In the championship race Rafael Nadal outpaces Novak Djokovic by 1960 points. A year ago Rafael also had an advantage, but then the difference between him and the Serb was only 1035 points. In addition, Nadal was injured at the US Open, and after that Grand Slam tournament in 2018, he was no longer on the court. Novak, on the contrary, was healthy, full of strength and, having won in New York, reached three consecutive finals. In Shanghai he won another Masters, in Paris he lost to Karen Khachanov, and at the final championship in London - Alexander Zverev. Of course, the points were enough to beat Rafael and finish the season first.
This time the situation is quite different. Nadal is tired, but not injured, and Dzhokovic has shoulder problems. Theoretically, the Serb expects to play in four tournaments: Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris and London. In practice, however, it is not clear in what condition his shoulder will be. If anyone has forgotten, it was because of him that Novak refused to continue his fight with Stan Wawrinka in the 1/8 finals of the US Open. There is no specific information - it seems that even Djokovic himself does not know what to do in this situation. There were rumors that he was thinking about the operation, but they have not yet received confirmation. And the legendary John McEnroe suggested during the US Open that no more Serbs would come to court this season.
Injured Djokovic picks potatoes
Djokovic himself commented on the injury situation as follows. "Unfortunately, the injury is more serious. This really prevented me from completing the U.S. Open. I'm sorry, because it's one of the four biggest tournaments and it's especially important in the second part of the season. I would like to tell you when I'll be back, but I really don't know that for sure. I monitor the results of the rehabilitation every day. I see how the shoulder reacts to the recovery. I hope to be on the court in a week or two. Speaking of the perfect scenario, I would love to play in Tokyo.
So far, Novak has decided to go to a small Serbian village and help the locals harvest potatoes. Serbia noted that such trips and activities awaken warm childhood memories and are therefore particularly pleasant. Well, it's not every day that you see a multimillionaire working in potato gardens. Djokovic is really good in this respect - many people can learn how to communicate with ordinary people.
Medvedev is close to Federer.
But let's get back to the rating, or rather, let's move from the championship race to the rating of 52 weeks. Here Djokovic is 640 points ahead of Nadal. Accordingly, if he is unable to play either in Tokyo or Shanghai, Rafael will in any case become the world's first racket - Novak will burn 1000 points for the title in the Chinese Masters. It should be noted that before that Novak will definitely be ahead of Ivan Landl and will be third in number of weeks on the first line after Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. On September 23, Dzokovic will have 270 weeks of leadership - the same number as Landl - and on September 30, he will be in the lead. Sampras was in the lead for 286 weeks and Federer for 310 weeks. Nadal's 196 weeks is the sixth time in history (Jimmy Connors is the top five with 268 weeks). Thus, Raphael can help Roger - if Novak does finish the year first, he will be very close to the Swiss record.
There are no other contenders to take the first place in the season. Of course, we can come up with a fantastic scenario, in which Federer wins Shanghai, Basel, Paris and London with 4000 points and Nadal gets nothing else - but it's not science fiction anymore. Roger has no other way to play 3715 points behind Raphael. For the Swiss, another task is more important - to keep the third line (of course, if Federer himself is interested in it). Daniil Medvedev is only 705 points behind him in the championship race and may well be ahead of him if he retains his form before the end of the season.
And next year, he could be at the top
True, the Russian's schedule is just Stakhanovsky. After St. Petersburg, he plans to rest for a week, and then to play in Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow, Vienna and Paris without interruption. It is possible that at least one of these tournaments will eventually be dropped by Medvedev - at least if he continues to reach the finals everywhere. From the point of view of the rating it would be most logical to miss ATP250 - "VTB Kremlin Cup" - especially since Daniel can't actually add points there, because only 5 optional tournaments are in the standings, and at the worst of them the Russian scored 180 points. But it is clear that Daniil wants to play in his homeland, so the most logical option is to refuse to play in Vienna in case of success in Asia and Moscow.
After Paris, Medvedev has a week of rest, and then two more competitions - the final championship in London and the final part of the Davis Cup in Madrid. Taking into account that the match in St. Petersburg with Andrey Rublyov will be his 69th in the season, Daniil can theoretically play a little more than 100 matches a year. In general, the figure is not crazy - the same Federer or Nadal in their best years played 90 and more matches in a year - but Medvedev may have more than fifty fights in the last 3.5 months of the season, and this is really a serious burden. Let's hope that the Russian will keep up the pace. And if Daniil scores a lot of points at the Masters and in London, then next year he may even fight for the first place.