Year End Number One 2017. The ATP World Tour in Tennis have this year once again seen the all-time greats Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal dominate for the whole year. In the absence of former world number ones Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, the two biggest names in tennis have had a year of almost total dominance winning all 4 Slams and 5 of the 8 Masters 1000 played so far.
The race to become year end number one 2017 of course started in January when Roger Federer won his 18th Grand Slam title in Melbourne after 6 months off the tour. In the final, he managed to win over longtime rival Rafael Nadal for the first time in Grand Slam events since the Wimbledon final 2007. Federer had improved his backhand so it no longer was the weak side Nadal could take advantage of and played an absolutely amazing tennis the whole tournament beating players like Tomas Berdych, Kei Nishikori and Stan Wawrinka to reach yet another Grand Slam final.
In march, Federer continued his success when he won the sunshine double on the hard courts of Palm Springs and Miami beating Nadal again on both occasions. During the following clay court swing in Europe Rafael Nadal was almost impossible to beat winning Monte Carlo-Barcelona-Madrid before losing to Dominik Thiem in Rome (QF). In Paris Nadal won his 10th title at Roland Garros and he did it losing only 35 games in the whole tournament, almost beating the “impossible” record of Björn Borg from 1978 (32 games lost).
In Wimbledon Federer replied with being the first man since Björn Borg to win the title (his 8th in Wimbledon and 19th Slam in total) without losing a single set and once again he had a 4 slam lead over his great Rival Nadal (19-15). Now, everybody said Federer was for sure the goat…and not many believed Nadal should win his second GS for the year in New York.
As it happened Nadal was in blistering form in New York and got his 16th Grand Slam title and 3rd in the US Open. All of a sudden people started to say Nadal will surpass Federer and become the GOAT anyway. Nadal also won his second title in Beijing and reached the finals of Shanghai after the US Open. But once again he got beaten by Federer (for the fourth time this year) in the final and also got hurt in his knees. So now we are at the end of the year and have this amazing question: Who will be year end no 1 in tennis 2017? Rafael Nadal, 31 years old or Roger Federer 36…?
Year End Number one 2017 – Federer or Nadal or a Tie?
With a month left of the season it looks like this right now:
ATP rankings with Basel-Paris-London left to play for Federer/Nadal.
1. Rafael Nadal 10 465
2. Roger Federer 8 505
3. Alexander Zverev 4 400
If Federer plays and wins Basel-Paris and London he will gain 3000 points. That might be enough to secure the year-end number one for the 6th time in his career. If Nadal doesn’t play Basel and Paris Bercy his lead will only be 460 points coming into London. If Federer wins his record 7th Masters title in London without losing a match he will gain another 1500 points and if Nadal loses in the final then it will still not be enough since that would get him 1000 points. So, a final between Federer and Nadal could be deciding who would finish as year-end number one, Federer for the 6th time (tying Sampras record) or Nadal for the 4th time (tying Djokovic).
If Nadal earns 1041 points he will remain number one. A final in London is worth 1 000 if unbeaten. Then he needs to play in Paris-Bercy to get some more points to make sure a Runner-Up in London is enough.
Federer and Nadal Tie for year end number one
If Nadal misses out on Basel and Paris and Federer wins Basel and gets a semifinal in Paris the difference between Nadal and Federer will be 1100 points going into the Nitto ATP Masters in London. If Nadal wins only 2 round robin matches in London he will earn 400 points. If Federer wins all matches, and the title in London he will earn 1 500 points and the two best players of all time will end up at the exact same points at the end of the year… and then Federer will be the Year End Number One 2017 because he has more of his total points earned in the major tournaments, Grand Slams – ATP Finals and Masters 1000 events.
ALSO READ: ATP World Tour Stats
