Here's the top 4 chart after Rome:

The important thing is that Nole can only gain 160 points on Andy next week (250 points from Belgrade less the 90 points that are currently his last counting optional and will be replaced if he scores more than 90 there), so as you all know by now, the Murray mountain will defintely be above the Nole line on Monday week.

It's worth noting that although the points since the start of the US Open last year are:

7705 Rafa
6740 Muzza
5860 Fed
5770 Nole

... Nole has now scored the 2nd most points since the start of 2009, which is why his line ends up back above Andy's towards the end of the year as things stand at the moment. Rafa has scored more than twice as many points as anyone else so far this year!

2009-only

6105 Rafa
3030 Nole
2990 Muzza
2460 Fed

Does this mean Andy will now typically avoid Rafa's half of the draw?

I'm assuming here that draws are generally made with no's 1 and 4 being in the same half, and 2 and 3 being in the other half. 

I'm also assuming that Andy doesn't drop back to 4th. To which end I really hope the rest of his clay season is based more on what he produced in Monte Carlo, and not so much on his Rome performance.

-- Edited by andyjmr on Sunday 3rd of May 2009 11:59:56 PM

Interesting - I always felt that tournaments tended towards 'rewarding' the no.1 seed by putting him in the same half as the 4th seed.

I really do hope Andy improves on clay. Rafa, Djoko and Fed all seem so well adapted to the surface. And it seems odd, given that Andy's formative years were based at the Sanchez Casal academy.

From the Scotsman http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport/Murray-breathing-down-Federer39s-neck.5233419.jp - the best ranking-related article I've ever seen in a newspaper.

Stuart Bathgate is not afraid to go into some detail (he even shows the points added since the start of the year, which match the ones at the bottom of http://www.britishtennis.net/top4a.htm?n=1), yet manages to stop before it gets too complicated.

So, either he's been reading this thread or the equivalent one on AM.com (in which case it's great that he's tried to get what's going on across to a wider audience) or he's done more research than most tennis journos seem to do on such technical subjects.

What with that and the Mail's summary of the best performances from lower-ranked Brits last week, maybe OEM's going to have a bit of competition at last in terms of articles that don't just scratch the surface or aren't entirely Murray-centric. That's something which, given his remarks in the Net Post this week, I imagine he'd probably be quite happy about!

The battle for the top three chart further up this page has been updated, and it's now official:

Now that both players have reached the QFs in Paris, if Andy was to get one stage further than Roger, Andy would be no 2 in Monday's rankings.

Currently Roger has 10470 points and Andy 9020 points.

Take away last year's French Open points ( Roger 1400,  Andy 150 ) and effectively their net position at the start of the French Open was Roger had 9070 points and Andy 8870 points.

Each progression from the QFs on is worth more than that 200 point differece.  QED.

Of course as of right now, I am sure Andy is thinking much more just about the French open itself, but hey he could just possibly be seeded no 2 for Wimbledon and have a 50 / 50 chance of being in the opposite half of the draw to BOTH Nadal and Federer.   

In fact if he was to beat Gonzalez in the QFs, and Federer lose to Monfils, he will almost certainly be seeded no 2 for Wimbledon.

PS : Except ( nasty thought ) it would still be fairly close ranking pointswise and Wimbledon has that grass adjusment, with Roger's grass record clearly better.  Wow, the public would love that if Andy was ranked no 2 and Wimbledon seeded him no 3 !  But it is a set equation they have used recently and I presume are using again this year.
-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 2nd of June 2009 10:07:32 AM

-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 2nd of June 2009 10:12:22 AM

Shucks, Andy better just go and win the French Open then to try and make the ponts difference big enough to compensate for the "adjustment"