Will Federer ever compete at world tour finals ever again?
- Thread starter Shivashish Sarkar
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Wawrinka seems to be in the zone. It will be a good match I guess.
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On the basis of the crappy play on display this week from the players ranked 3-10? This is a rhetorical question, right? If he's able to play his regular schedule next year - or even 15 tournaments - and make it to semis, finals and win a few? He'll make the tour finals. Every time I watch men's tennis these days I can't help but laugh at all the pundits who talk about the depth of the field. There may be the occasional major upset of Roger, Murray or Djokovic (yes, I just shaded Nadal) - but otherwise no one else seems to be able to win 2 consecutive big matches except Stan...but he can't do it week in and week out. So yes, if Federer plays well at the Slams and Masters events - he'll be at the Tour Finals next year. And based on what I'm seeing from some of these guys who could barely beat an injured Roger last year? Well...let's just say I'm liking Roger's chances for getting back in the Top 3...
Fiero425
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The thing is, will Roger even accept a bid to play? Looking back at '08, Nadal begged out with a foot injury and after him Simon brought in as his alternate! The ATP needed another couple alternates and I had forgotten 24 players declined to take the positions due to DC play or wanting to save themselves for the next season! Wow; talk about declining stature of an event! Nole has helped it by winning the last 4 at least! We need to hope the next generation is ready, willing, and able to take over in the next couple seasons because the end is near for the "Big 4" or 5! It has to happen sooner or later; preferably sooner! 
:ras:
:ras:
Kieran said:
He'll be rusty for a few weeks and I wouldn't expect much at the Australian Open, but the players below Murray and Djokovic are very inconsistent and nobody seems to be able to string together 2 good matches let along 2 straight weeks of good matches. No, players won't be nervous to pay him anymore or as awestruck, but their inconsistency works to Roger's benefit. He lost some close matches to young players last year - Thiem and Zverev - when he was injured and not 100%. If he's close to 100% and healthy, then he'll be a different player and harder to beat. And besides that - he doesn't have many points to defend between the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Everybody else has points to defend. If they can't do that and he's able to make semis and finals - he'll easily be top 8 again - and probably top 3 or 4.
GameSetAndMath
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I am willing to bet my house that he will compete in WTF again at least once more, if not many times.
I hope he does many more times.GameSetAndMath said:
As long as he is physically competent he can qualify for the WTF. No professional player has achieved great things after his age so far. If he is able to accumulate some titles and wins, that would be beautiful again. With Roger nothing is impossible. So let's hope.
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With AO draw out, we can look at some scenarios for Roger's immediate rankings future.
He's got 1980 points at the moment, of which 720 are his AO semi points. So after AO he will have 1260 plus whatever he earns there.
Current world # 32 Kohlschreiber has 1325 points. So if Fed loses in the third round or earlier, he will either drop out of the top 32, or be close to doing so. With the likely match against Berdych in R3, this is a possibility.
Pessimistic scenario would be loss against Berdych in R3, for 1350 points. Optimistic (but still realistic) senario: loss against Murray in QF, 1620 points.
Fed is entered for Dubai, Miami and IW, where he has no points to defend. Even in the pessimistic scenario, he ought to be seeded for the MS events (with 32 seeds), by picking up some points in Dubai.
Let's take a look at what it would take for Fed to make it back into the top 16 for the clay-court season. (I will take 2200 points as likely to be enough for top 16, of course it also depends on others' results ...)
AO QF exit: 1620 points - ca. 600 points required. E.g., 1 MS final, OR 1 MS SF + 1 MS QF + Dubai QF etc., OR 2 MS QF + Dubai F.
AO R4 exit: 1440 points. Ca 750 points required. E.g., 1 MS final + Dubai SF, OR 2 MS SF, etc.
AO R3 exit: 1350 points, Ca 850 points required. E.g., 1 MS final + 1 MS SF, 1 MS final + Dubai F or similar.
With a good chance of getting tough draws in the MS events, it would seem that Fed needs to reach the AO quarterfinals in order to have a realistic chance of being back in the top 16 by the start of the claycourt season.
Of course, it is far from clear whether or not he will play Monte Carlo, where he's got a QF to defend, so even if he does make it back to the top 16, it is not clear that he will be there for the clay-court MS events he enters.
Making it safely into the top 16 seeds for the FO, on the other hand, would seem like a reasonable proposition if Fed is anywhere near his level of the last few years.
The big question for me is whether he can be seeded top 8 for Wimbledon. His previous two years results will be some help in view of the seeding formula, but he'd still need some fairly strong performances in the next few months. I guess we'll have a better idea where his form is after the AO!
He's got 1980 points at the moment, of which 720 are his AO semi points. So after AO he will have 1260 plus whatever he earns there.
Current world # 32 Kohlschreiber has 1325 points. So if Fed loses in the third round or earlier, he will either drop out of the top 32, or be close to doing so. With the likely match against Berdych in R3, this is a possibility.
Pessimistic scenario would be loss against Berdych in R3, for 1350 points. Optimistic (but still realistic) senario: loss against Murray in QF, 1620 points.
Fed is entered for Dubai, Miami and IW, where he has no points to defend. Even in the pessimistic scenario, he ought to be seeded for the MS events (with 32 seeds), by picking up some points in Dubai.
Let's take a look at what it would take for Fed to make it back into the top 16 for the clay-court season. (I will take 2200 points as likely to be enough for top 16, of course it also depends on others' results ...)
AO QF exit: 1620 points - ca. 600 points required. E.g., 1 MS final, OR 1 MS SF + 1 MS QF + Dubai QF etc., OR 2 MS QF + Dubai F.
AO R4 exit: 1440 points. Ca 750 points required. E.g., 1 MS final + Dubai SF, OR 2 MS SF, etc.
AO R3 exit: 1350 points, Ca 850 points required. E.g., 1 MS final + 1 MS SF, 1 MS final + Dubai F or similar.
With a good chance of getting tough draws in the MS events, it would seem that Fed needs to reach the AO quarterfinals in order to have a realistic chance of being back in the top 16 by the start of the claycourt season.
Of course, it is far from clear whether or not he will play Monte Carlo, where he's got a QF to defend, so even if he does make it back to the top 16, it is not clear that he will be there for the clay-court MS events he enters.
Making it safely into the top 16 seeds for the FO, on the other hand, would seem like a reasonable proposition if Fed is anywhere near his level of the last few years.
The big question for me is whether he can be seeded top 8 for Wimbledon. His previous two years results will be some help in view of the seeding formula, but he'd still need some fairly strong performances in the next few months. I guess we'll have a better idea where his form is after the AO!
Ok, thanks to http://live-tennis.eu/en/atp-live-ranking we can do a little more analysis for that "worst-case" scenario where Fed falls to Berdych in round 3. (Hopefully this will turn out to be unnecessary, but just for fun ...)
After everyone's AO results are taken out, and first-day results are taken into account, Fed sits at #32 of the live ranking. The question I will consider is this: *If Fed loses in R3 to Berdych, will he remain in the top 32 after the AO?*
After a R2 win, Fed would have 1350 points. This means that he *cannot* be ranked any higher than 31, as #30 Steve Johnson is currently on 1365.
I will make the reasonable assumption that no player below 990 points pre-AO will make the semis, and hence will not overtake 1350 points. The remaining players are:
Players that would need to make the QF: Lorenzi, Verdasco, Sousa, Troicki. Lorenzi and Troicki play each other next, and the winner would need to come out of a section including Wawrinka and Kyrgios. Sousa has never gone beyond R3 in a GS (in singles) and is likely to face Thiem in R2. Verdasco was last in a GS QF in 2010, and of course faces Djokovic in R1. I'm going to discount the possibility of any of these making the quarters as too remote.
Players that would need to make R4: Baghdatis, Tomic. Baghdatis would need to beat Youzhny, and then probably Nadal. As much as I like him, I don't think that's going to happen. Tomic on the other hand has made R4 in Australia the last two years. Cilic is likely to be in his way in R3, and Tomic beat him last time they met.
Feliciano Lopez only needs to reach R3 to stay ahead of Fed in this scenario. Beating Fognini and Haas or Paire is well within his abilities, although a loss would also not be entirely shocking.
In conclusion, by best bet is that, should Fed lose to Berdych, he will drop to 33 in the world, behind Tomic. :exclamation: But if Tomic falters, he will cling on to the top 32.
Of course, all of this is pretty academic - the rankings around that mark can change so quickly that he could easily drop back in or out of that spot a few weeks later. And a decent run in Dubai would cement his seeding for the upcoming MS events.
Anyway, all the more reasons to hope that Roger takes out the Birdman!
After everyone's AO results are taken out, and first-day results are taken into account, Fed sits at #32 of the live ranking. The question I will consider is this: *If Fed loses in R3 to Berdych, will he remain in the top 32 after the AO?*
After a R2 win, Fed would have 1350 points. This means that he *cannot* be ranked any higher than 31, as #30 Steve Johnson is currently on 1365.
I will make the reasonable assumption that no player below 990 points pre-AO will make the semis, and hence will not overtake 1350 points. The remaining players are:
Players that would need to make the QF: Lorenzi, Verdasco, Sousa, Troicki. Lorenzi and Troicki play each other next, and the winner would need to come out of a section including Wawrinka and Kyrgios. Sousa has never gone beyond R3 in a GS (in singles) and is likely to face Thiem in R2. Verdasco was last in a GS QF in 2010, and of course faces Djokovic in R1. I'm going to discount the possibility of any of these making the quarters as too remote.
Players that would need to make R4: Baghdatis, Tomic. Baghdatis would need to beat Youzhny, and then probably Nadal. As much as I like him, I don't think that's going to happen. Tomic on the other hand has made R4 in Australia the last two years. Cilic is likely to be in his way in R3, and Tomic beat him last time they met.
Feliciano Lopez only needs to reach R3 to stay ahead of Fed in this scenario. Beating Fognini and Haas or Paire is well within his abilities, although a loss would also not be entirely shocking.
In conclusion, by best bet is that, should Fed lose to Berdych, he will drop to 33 in the world, behind Tomic. :exclamation: But if Tomic falters, he will cling on to the top 32.
Of course, all of this is pretty academic - the rankings around that mark can change so quickly that he could easily drop back in or out of that spot a few weeks later. And a decent run in Dubai would cement his seeding for the upcoming MS events.
Anyway, all the more reasons to hope that Roger takes out the Birdman!
These are testing times for Roger mentally. Really. It will be a great achievement if he gets back to top 10. Even more amazing if he enters top 8. He has nothing to prove though [WHITE SMILING FACE]
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Strictly speaking, as far as the 2017 WTF itself goes, it doesn't matter what Roger defends from last year. Only the Race to London points are important for entry into the WTF, so it will only depend on his results this year.
Of course, as mentioned, his seeding throughout the year will be based on the rolling 52 week ranking as usual. However, one cannot take for granted that a higher seeding will affect him adversely. Case in point: Juan Martin del Potro in 2016. I believe a good case could be made that once he sufficiently established his form, his high ranking was worse for the top adversaries, than for him. I see the same idea, if not more so, applying to Federer's situation.
Just to complete the Aussie scenario for Federer:
Federer's 52 week 2017 AO live/projected points with 2016 AO SF dropped:
By virtue of his R128 win over Melzer, he currently has 1305 points in the rolling 52 week rankings.
As previously mentioned, that puts him at #32, just ahead of Tomic.
On the other hand, his best case scenario, I believe him winning the AO title would probably get him in the top 10, unless Goffin reaches the semis, or RBA reaches the final.
If he stays healthy, I see him making the WTF this year, no matter his 52 week ranking.
Anyone from the current 3-8 can drop out of the top 8 by the end of the year and it wouldn't surprise me. Either of the top 2 dropping out would surprise me.
One might reasonably say only injury/retirement will stop him from continuing to make the WTF.
Even at his age, he has simply been a better, more consistent player than many of the contenders we have seen so far. Recall that when he halted his 2016 season after Wimbledon, in an injury plagued year, only playing 7 tournaments, and 28 matches, he was still #3 in the world, making 2 major SFs in as many played. He has had 6 months off, the first time in his career that he has done so. One has to believe that will turn out to be positive for him and extend his career at the top level.
Besides the WTF, Roger Federer doesn't even rule out the possibility of one last shot at an Olympic singles gold.
"I hope so," he said when asked by CNN if he felt he could still be in gold medal contention in 2020. "But it's still such a long way a way that I can't be thinking this far ahead."
"It would be amazing to win the singles gold in Tokyo."
"But, honestly, it's too far away to make that kind of an announcement."
Respectfully,
masterclass
Of course, as mentioned, his seeding throughout the year will be based on the rolling 52 week ranking as usual. However, one cannot take for granted that a higher seeding will affect him adversely. Case in point: Juan Martin del Potro in 2016. I believe a good case could be made that once he sufficiently established his form, his high ranking was worse for the top adversaries, than for him. I see the same idea, if not more so, applying to Federer's situation.
Just to complete the Aussie scenario for Federer:
Federer's 52 week 2017 AO live/projected points with 2016 AO SF dropped:
Code:
R128 R64 R32 R16 QF SF F W
1270 1305 1350 1440 1620 1980 2460 3260By virtue of his R128 win over Melzer, he currently has 1305 points in the rolling 52 week rankings.
As previously mentioned, that puts him at #32, just ahead of Tomic.
On the other hand, his best case scenario, I believe him winning the AO title would probably get him in the top 10, unless Goffin reaches the semis, or RBA reaches the final.
If he stays healthy, I see him making the WTF this year, no matter his 52 week ranking.
Anyone from the current 3-8 can drop out of the top 8 by the end of the year and it wouldn't surprise me. Either of the top 2 dropping out would surprise me.
One might reasonably say only injury/retirement will stop him from continuing to make the WTF.
Even at his age, he has simply been a better, more consistent player than many of the contenders we have seen so far. Recall that when he halted his 2016 season after Wimbledon, in an injury plagued year, only playing 7 tournaments, and 28 matches, he was still #3 in the world, making 2 major SFs in as many played. He has had 6 months off, the first time in his career that he has done so. One has to believe that will turn out to be positive for him and extend his career at the top level.
Besides the WTF, Roger Federer doesn't even rule out the possibility of one last shot at an Olympic singles gold.
"I hope so," he said when asked by CNN if he felt he could still be in gold medal contention in 2020. "But it's still such a long way a way that I can't be thinking this far ahead."
"It would be amazing to win the singles gold in Tokyo."
"But, honestly, it's too far away to make that kind of an announcement."
Respectfully,
masterclass
El Dude
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Great stuff as always, masterclass (or should I call you Classy Master? ).
The problem for Roger is that after Andy and Novak, the field is very crowded and the rankings could be tight. There's a whole slew of players who can legitimately vie for a spot at the WTF: Rafa, Roger, Roanic, Nishikori, Wawrinka, Cilic, Tsonga, Berdych, Thiem, Dimitrov, Kyrgios, Monfils, del Potro, and maybe others besides. I can't remember a more crowded #3-15 field, at least in a few years.
If I had to guess who would make the final eight, it would be Andy, Novak, Milos, Nishikori, Rafa, Roger, Kyrgios, and Dimitrov, with del Potro being a darkhorse, either supplanting an injured Kei or Grigor.
I think Thiem will slip back a bit and settle more in the 8-15 range, at least until he takes a step up. Tsonga and Berdych will continue to slip, although stabilize in the 10-20 range for a year or two, and I think 2017 is the year that Stan doesn't win a Slam and starts looking old. Cilic will go back to being 10-15ish, and Monfils will be Monfils.
Zverev will knock on the top 10 door, but not quite make it in. Pouille--like Thiem--will take a step back.
). The problem for Roger is that after Andy and Novak, the field is very crowded and the rankings could be tight. There's a whole slew of players who can legitimately vie for a spot at the WTF: Rafa, Roger, Roanic, Nishikori, Wawrinka, Cilic, Tsonga, Berdych, Thiem, Dimitrov, Kyrgios, Monfils, del Potro, and maybe others besides. I can't remember a more crowded #3-15 field, at least in a few years.
If I had to guess who would make the final eight, it would be Andy, Novak, Milos, Nishikori, Rafa, Roger, Kyrgios, and Dimitrov, with del Potro being a darkhorse, either supplanting an injured Kei or Grigor.
I think Thiem will slip back a bit and settle more in the 8-15 range, at least until he takes a step up. Tsonga and Berdych will continue to slip, although stabilize in the 10-20 range for a year or two, and I think 2017 is the year that Stan doesn't win a Slam and starts looking old. Cilic will go back to being 10-15ish, and Monfils will be Monfils.
Zverev will knock on the top 10 door, but not quite make it in. Pouille--like Thiem--will take a step back.
the AntiPusher
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Pouille shouldn't be mentioned in the same class as Thiem, IMOEl Dude said:Great stuff as always, masterclass (or should I call you Classy Master?
The problem for Roger is that after Andy and Novak, the field is very crowded and the rankings could be tight. There's a whole slew of players who can legitimately vie for a spot at the WTF: Rafa, Roger, Roanic, Nishikori, Wawrinka, Cilic, Tsonga, Berdych, Thiem, Dimitrov, Kyrgios, Monfils, del Potro, and maybe others besides. I can't remember a more crowded #3-15 field, at least in a few years.
If I had to guess who would make the final eight, it would be Andy, Novak, Milos, Nishikori, Rafa, Roger, Kyrgios, and Dimitrov, with del Potro being a darkhorse, either supplanting an injured Kei or Grigor.
I think Thiem will slip back a bit and settle more in the 8-15 range, at least until he takes a step up. Tsonga and Berdych will continue to slip, although stabilize in the 10-20 range for a year or two, and I think 2017 is the year that Stan doesn't win a Slam and starts looking old. Cilic will go back to being 10-15ish, and Monfils will be Monfils.
Zverev will knock on the top 10 door, but not quite make it in. Pouille--like Thiem--will take a step back.
El Dude
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You misunderstand. I'm not saying they're in the same class, but that they'll both take a step back--or at least stagnate--in 2017. I can't imagine Pouille going higher than his current #16, at least not at the level he's at now, and will probably fall out of the top 20, just as I think Thiem will have a hard time maintaining his #8 ranking until he develops his game a bit more, and may fall out of the top 10. But yeah, I agree that Thiem is a better talent.
the AntiPusher
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El Dude said:
I got ya.. I still don't see what a lot of you all see in Pouille..even if he didn't defeat Rafa .. i am just not impressed
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Some players don't need to do anything else after to beat one of the three top players, they will be remembered as "once upon a time he beat X" or "he will be a #1". And of course if they have beaten Nadal then they will be more and more remembered
