With his Wimbledon title this past Sunday, Roger Federer locked up a spot in the 2017 Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. Federer, who has won two majors this season, became the second man to clinch a berth following Rafael Nadal.
The 19-time Grand Slam champion has won two of the three majors this season. He triumphed at the Australian Open while surviving three five-setters along the way, including against Nadal in the final. Federer’s trek through Wimbledon was a much different one, as he dominated the field without dropping a single set the entire fortnight.
Federer is now 31-2 this year with five titles–the Australian Open, Wimbledon, Indian Wells, Miami, and Halle. He stands at second in the 2017 race to London with 6,545 points, 550 points behind Nadal and at least 3,200 points ahead of everyone else (Dominic Thiem is third at 3,245). Stan Wawrinka, Wimbledon runner-up Marin Cilic, Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray round out the current top eight.
Although just one more Grand Slam remains on the schedule, with the U.S. Open set to begin in August, four Masters 1000 events are still in play for 2017. As such, a whole host of points are up for grabs and everyone other than Nadal and Federer still has work to do in their effort to earn a place in London. And they will have even more work to do if they see Federer on the other side of the net at the U.S. Open, where is the current favorite according the live tennis odds.
“I look forward to returning to London in November,” Federer assured. “I was sad not to be able to compete last year as I love playing there and had not missed the event since 2002.”
The 35-year-old Swiss is 52-12 lifetime at the year-end championship with six titles. He made 14 consecutive appearances before missing the 2016 festivities due to injury. In addition to lifting the trophy on six occasions, Federer has also finished runner-up four times–including in both 2014 and 2015 to Novak Djokovic.
Nadal clinched his spot last month after winning the French Open for the 10th time in his career.
“I’ve had a great season so far and I am happy to have already qualified for London,” the second-ranked Spaniard commented. “I could not play last year because of injury so I look forward to returning in November.”
field already better than last year
who’s your pick for YE no.1?
Who’s your pick for YE#1, VR? I know you obviously want Rafa to be the one haha. Do you think it’s going to happen? Personally, I think it’s just too soon to be able to really know who it will be. We need to see them on hard courts again first. If Fed wins the US Open, or makes the final and Rafa doesn’t go deep, then I don’t see how Fed won’t end #1. If Rafa wins/goes deep at US Open and Fed doesn’t, then I would think Rafa would be the one. However, if Rafa wins US Open, I think that Fed could still seal it if he manages to win multiple masters (maybe Cinci and Shanghai) as well as the WTF. I think that if Rafa can sweep the US Open series, then it will be a wrap. If Fed dominates the NA masters, but Rafa wins the actual Open, then I think it will come down to the wire in the last couple months of the season. In that scenario, Rafa and Fed would each have 2 majors and multiple masters.
Where Fed may have screwed himself in terms of YE#1 is that he missed out on a ton of points by skipping the entire clay season including the French, while Rafa went deep in nearly ever big tournament this season including a ton of Finalist points in the first part of the season. Fed could probably get away with not winning US Open and still being #1, but he will have to do extremely well at all the other big tournaments. Personally, I am extremely excited for this Fedal race to #1! I can even picture a scenario where one of them leaves the US Open as #1, but then the other one ends the season as #1… The one advantage Fed does have is that he has traditionally done consistently very well in the second half of the season compared to Rafa. We all know that Rafa is capable of running the table in the second half, but it has historically been more inconsistent compared to Fed. So including all these different factors, I believe that it is a toss-up at this moment, and I can’t wait to see what unfolds! 🙂
My dream scenario would be for Rafa to win Canada, Fed to win Cinci, and then we get a battle royals in US Open final! 🙂
Rafa for YE #1. Hope it’s a tight race though and Novak/Andy start being stronger competitor’s again.
I’d say it’s about a 50/50 toss-up, at least until we see where their levels are at in regards to hard courts. If they face each other again in hard courts, which I’d be very surprised if they didn’t, Fed will obviously want to extend his 2017 hardcourt dominance over Rafa. However, now that Rafa won a major and a couple masters, he should have more confidence going up against Fed again in the hard courts. That is what makes this extra compelling to me- this is the first season in a long time where we have had both Rafa and Fed simultaneously as confident as they are. I love it!
All we need for the rest of the season are Fedal finals. They are very healthy, hungry and world nr 1 at stake. But also hope they dont overplay, so that we get healthy big 4 next year.