Summer clay

Recently I posted about the possibility of Federer losing the number 1 ranking at one point this year. Well since then 2 things have happened.

First, Nadal entered the Stuttgart tourny, a rare summer clay court event. Its an International event, so it will replace one of Nadal's current low scoring events. Winning the tounrament will net him 250 - 20 = 230 points. Is he desperate to keep playing on clay? It seems like a strange event for him to play, I would assume he would rather start preparing for the summer hard court events. But maybe he's doing it solely for the points, which for him are virtually guaranteed on clay.

Second, I actually did some further calculations. Even if Nadal wins Stuttgart, and then wins the two masters events (Canada and Cincinnati) and Federer defends none of his masters points, Roger enters the US Open ahead by 500 points. So no chance to pass by then. Now more realistically, lets say Roger loses in the final of both masters events. He would then GAIN points (recall he lost early to Andy Murray in last year's Cincinnati). Then even if Nadal wins both masters, Federer still has a 1200 point lead.

And for the Djokovic fans, he's currently slated to play Umag again, he was finalist there last year so not much chance to gain points. He'll skip Amersfort which he won last year, but he has another international event to replace and he'll only lose about 60 points. But he'll also enter both summer masters events. Last year he only played Cincinnati and lost in the 2nd round. He could easily gain 500 points and put some distance between himself and Roddick for 3rd place.