Rafael Nadal & Roger Federer stand to lose a fair bit as ATP announces rankings update

On Thursday, the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) announced a new update to the rankings system with a view to slowly return to normalcy. According to the latest statement, the points from ATP tournaments - which were frozen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic last year - will start dropping as usual from the week beginning 23 August.

Interestingly, two of the vaunted 'Big 3' in men's tennis - Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer - might be the most severely affected by this change. Both Nadal and Federer have been carrying a lot of points from the second half of the 2019 season, which will no longer be the case three weeks from now.

The frozen rankings put in place during the pandemic last year allowed players to keep the ranking points that they earned during the 2019 season for an extended 52-week period. But from 23 August, i.e. the end of this year's Cincinnati Masters, only the points earned from tournaments up to the week ending 15 August (which is when the Canada Masters ends) will be considered for this purpose.

The point retention from events up to 15 August is being done on a 'best of' basis. As per this system players retain points from 2019, if their 2019 performance at an event was better than their 2020 one. However, points from events that took place between 4 March 2019 and 12 August 2019 are being weighted at 50 percent, with the exception of four events from this period that did take place in 2020.

For those exceptional events - Roland Garros, Rome, Hamburg and Kitzbuhel - the players are being allowed to retain 50 percent of the points earned from the 2020 editions rather than the 2019 ones.

FedEx ATP Rankings points will be added and dropped per traditional methodology beginning 23 August (the rankings after the 2021 Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati).📷: Vic Kincer/Western & Southern Open

— ATP Tour (@atptour) August 4, 2021

But things will return to 'normal' for all events starting from the Cincinnati Masters this year. And the retention of 2019 points (or 2020 points for the four exceptional events mentioned above) from pre-Cincinnati events will also end next year, i.e. on 15 August 2022.

That is when the ranking system would finally get back to its original format in all aspects.

Rafael Nadal & Roger Federer would need to defend their 2019 US Open points in order to avoid slipping down the rankings

Rafael Nadal with the 2019 US Open trophy.

Injuries and the COVID-19 restrictions prevented Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal from participating in the US Open Series last year. But neither of them dropped any of the points they earned over the course of the Series in 2019, due to the frozen ranking system.

The latest adjustment means that Nadal and Federer will no longer be allowed the luxury of retaining their 2019 American hardcourt points. Nadal in particular will need to find his stride early as he would have to defend 2000 points at the US Open - given that he triumphed there in 2019.

An early defeat could see the current World No. 4 drop four places to No. 8, which would be his lowest ranking since January 2017.

Roger Federer (L) and Grigor Dimitrov also have ranking points to defend from 2019.

Roger Federer, meanwhile, had reached the quarterfinals of the US Open in 2019. He had also made it to the third round of the Cincinnati Masters, which means he has a total of 450 points from 2019 currently in his kitty.

If Federer fails to defend those points over the next month and a half, his advantage over World No. 10 Denis Shapovalov would narrow down to just 140 points.

Other top names who will have a lot of ranking points to defend from the 2019 season include Daniil Medvedev (Cincinnati title and US Open final) and David Goffin (Cincinnati final), as well as Grigor Dimitrov and Matteo Berrettini (both US Open semifinal).

On the other hand, players who did better in the 2020 hardcourt season than the 2019 one will not be too greatly affected by the latest ATP update. For them, it would be a simple matter of defending their 2020 points.