NOW FOR No 1
Peerless Federer aims for top spot after beating Nadal for the fifth time in a row
Roger Federer began the year ranked the 16th best player in the world, having not hit a ball in anger since Wimbledon 2016.
Now it is conceivable that he will end 2017 in the No 1 position, and at 36 — an age which used to be considered geriatric for a tennis player.
The extraordinary Swiss opened up that possibility yesterday by inflicting his fifth consecutive defeat on rafael Nadal, 31, beating him 6-4, 6-3 to win the final of the Shanghai Masters.
It is the first time in their 38-match rivalry that Federer has strung together a straight quintet of victories against the Spaniard. That sequence now stretches back nearly four years, and Federer never showed such dominance even when he was at the height of his powers.
As he later acknowledged, it helps that he has pretty much avoided playing on clay for the past two seasons.
There are now five weeks to go of the regular season, with potentially three tournaments left for either man to play, and there will be some nervous tournament directors in Basle and Paris.
These are the ATP Tour venues where Nadal and Federer are due to feature before the Nitto ATP World Tour Finals at London’s o2 Arena in mid-November.
Both said after the match that they would spend the next few days considering whether to play in Switzerland and France. Nadal will probably be thinking of his knees, which look like they are starting to creak after a tough summer.
No wonder the tournament supremos will be anxious, even though both players have a week off to recuperate.
Between them, Federer and Nadal ( right) have propped up men’s tennis since Wimbledon, with younger rivals Novak djokovic, Andy Murray and others sitting out the season.
It has been tennis’s good fortune that the two longest- standing rivals in any mainstream sport have turned it into a competition for the year-end No 1 spot, even though the prize remains Nadal’s to lose.
He is still 1,950 points ahead of Federer, a large cushion. However, if the Spaniard did opt to rest and Federer kept up his momentum, it could let in the Swiss.
There are 1,500 points available to someone who wins all their matches at the o2, so it could be done — and it is the one significant event Nadal has never won.
Afterwards, Federer said that the priority would be to be at his peak for London, and alluded to the fact that these days he needs to pace himself.
‘ I’ll figure out my schedule regardless of No 1. When I’m prepared and ready, good things do happen,’ he said. ‘It was the best I’ve felt since Wimbledon.’ He told Sky: ‘Finishing the year as world No 1 is a long shot, and I don’t think it will happen but if I play like this, who knows?’ After his cruise to the title at the All england Club, which turned out to be similar to the one Nadal enjoyed to the US open title two months later, Federer’s back again began to cause him problems.
‘It’s a wonderful moment for me to be back here playing against my good friend and rival, rafa,’ he said. ‘We didn’t think maybe we were going to have the year we did. I definitely didn’t.’
Since the US open, Federer has also found the time to play in, and promote, his Laver Cup event that saw europe take on a rest of the World team in which he was the only player to win three matches. Perhaps if he had a few spare moments he could sort out Brexit as well.
on the court, his improved backhand, aided by the bigger racket he now uses, has helped negate Nadal’s tactic of hitting hard and high to that flank.
Yesterday’s conditions suited Federer, with the roof closed for bad weather and the court having a decent speed but low bounce.
Nadal also looked slightly weary after a run that had seen him win 16 consecutive matches (outside the Laver Cup). So, in itself, this meeting will not go down as one of their more memorable.
The Spaniard still leads their head-to-head series 23-15 and surely, even for Federer, there will not be time for him ever to gain parity in that.