As the focus of men’s tennis is shifting from one city of skyscrapers to many more, in some of the world’s most populous places in Asia, the battle to reach the World Tour Finals at London’s O2 Arena in November is going to get increasingly interesting. Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have, as usual, already booked their tickets to the English capital. Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka can start sorting flights out too, comfortably holding fourth place. By virtue of winning in New York, Marin Cilic is also almost guaranteed to be there, along as he finishes inside the top 20 of the rankings, according to the official ATP rulebook (Section IV: World Championship B.1.b). The other three places are all to play for. Anyone down from current No. 6-position holder Kei Nishikori to Latvian Ernests Gulbis who is at No. 13, has a realistic chance of qualifying. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, at No. 12, and Gulbis would need to get some serious points at the remaining Masters 1000 events in Shanghai and Paris though to stand a chance. The “Asian swing” begins with ATP 250 events in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur and, for the first time, in the Chinese city of Shenzhen. Rising Asian star and recent US Open finalist Kei Nishikori leads the field in Malaysia, with the aforementioned Gulbis the No. 2 seed for the week. In a strong coup for the organisers in Shenzhen, Andy Murray accepted a late wild card to play in the event. The Scot is languishing down in unfamiliar territory at No. 11 on the ATP Race to London list and desperately needs some points and confidence in this latter part of the season. David Ferrer, Richard Gasquet and Tommy Robredo will also feature there. At his best, or even close to it, Murray will win this tournament. We know how good he can still be, as proved by the opening two sets against Novak Djokovic in the US Open quarter finals. All 10 players above him in the rankings have won at least one title this year but Murray remains on zero. A tournament victory in Shenzhen could set him up to produce a late-season surge. The maximum 250 ranking points on offer at the event isn’t massive but grabbing them instead of fellow challenger Ferrer could prove to be crucial. The second week in Asia will consist of opposing ATP 500 competitions in Beijing and Tokyo. World No. 1 Novak Djokovic is two-time defending champion at Beijing’s China Open and has won the event four times in the last five years. He’ll be joined by Rafael Nadal, injury permitting, and Andy Murray, who took a further wild card to play in the Chinese capital. US Open champion Marin Cilic will be there too. Fellow ATP World Tour Finals challengers Tomas Berdych and Grigor Dimitrov also join a strong field. Across the sea in Tokyo, there’s no doubt that all Japanese eyes will be firmly placed on their man Kei Nishikori. A great run while being backed by his home fans could go a long way to securing a spot at the O2 Arena, and becoming the first Asian man to do so. He’ll have a tough task winning the tournament though with Stan Wawrinka, David Ferrer, Milos Raonic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga all there too. Fascinatingly, the Japan Open has been won by a first-time victor of the event since Pete Sampras won it for the third time in 1996. The champion has been a new person every single year since then, according to the tournament’s official website. The third and final week of the Asian swing is where all the stars come together in Shanghai, with huge and crucial points on offer at the Masters 1000 event. Once again it’s the Serb Djokovic who is the two-time defending champion. Last year he bested Juan-Martin Del Potro in the final and the year before that, in 2012, he defeated Andy Murray in a stunning match. The current world No. 1 saved five match points in that match in a second-set tiebreak. Murray won the tournament in 2010 and 2011 though, so he has a solid record on the hard courts of China’s most populous city. After the joy of helping Switzerland reach the Davis Cup final and then three weeks off, Roger Federer will return to action in Shanghai. The next three weeks could be the defining ones of the season. There’s still a chance that Federer can usurp Djokovic for the year-end No. 1 ranking. So despite already qualifying for London, those two still have a lot to play for. Nadal could have a say too if he’s fit. But this is definitely not the Spaniard’s favourite period of the calendar. Andy Murray was originally scheduled to just play in Shanghai and was seemingly not overly bothered about pushing himself to try and qualify for the World Tour Finals. Give Me Sport reported (via The Mirror) the Brit saying: “To be honest, it was not a massive goal of mine. I mean, it’s obviously nice to qualify for it as it’s a good tournament. I played a number of years and enjoyed it, but I don’t want to overplay.” However, he also stated: “I’ll likely play probably a tournament before Shanghai, but I’m not sure exactly which one yet.” But, in fact, Murray has changed his mind and will now play a testing three tournaments in three weeks (that’s two before Shanghai). So much for not caring about playing in front of a home crowd at the O2 Arena, Andy? Strong runs at each, particularly in Shanghai with the other challengers lurking around, and the two-time Slam winner has as good a shot as any to reach the Finals in November. Murray’s main challengers are all playing on at least two weeks of the three in Asia. Berdych, Tsonga, Dimitrov and Raonic will play two; Nishikori, Ferrer and Gulbis will take on all three events. Canadian Raonic actually pulled out of this week’s Malaysian Open, citing that he wasn’t 100 percent fit, via The Star. So, it will be extremely tough for the big server to fight off the competition for places in London if he’s not fully raring to go. Who’s going to make it to the grand finale in London then? Well, on current form, you’d have to say that Tomas Berdych is the favourite to miss out on a space. In the Davis Cup for Czech Republic, he was wiped off the court by France’s Richard Gasquet in straight sets. It was a dire performance from the Czech, who is currently at No. 8 in the Race to London. In fairness, he recognised it after, calling it his “worst Davis Cup match.” David Ferrer has not quite been his consistently high self this year and surprisingly lost to Gilles Simon in the US Open third round. As usual, he’s scheduled to play a lot of tournaments up to the end of the season. With his experience at doing this year after year, we can expect him to pick up some ranking points with at least some last-eight and last-four appearances on this Asian swing. Kei Nishikori has to take advantage of the support he’s going to get in Asia over these next three weeks and really get himself some serious points. Yet, there’re also questions on if he’s been able to recover from a taxing US Open campaign and the ongoing injuries that he had before then, which could plague him even closer to the end of the year. On Grigor Dimitrov, we still wonder whether he has it mentally to win these important matches against his fellow top-10 players on the big stage. Undoubtedly, to make the World Tour Finals, the Bulgarian is going to have to win some high-pressure contests in these last couple of months. At this stage, it really is still wide open. A stunning run to win a Masters 1000 title would push any of the contenders into a very strong position for qualifying. Andy Murray and David Ferrer have been there and done it all before, so they would be favourites, even despite Murray being down at No. 11 right now. There are still so many points on offer and the margins are so tight. Kei Nishikori sits on 3,675 points, slightly ahead of the rest of the field, and he’d be the other pick to go through. Whatever happens, just because the glamour and glow of the Grand Slams has faded out for another season, there’s still going to be some high-quality, desperate and exciting tennis on display. It starts off on the hard courts based in some of Asia’s finest destinations, with the three-week Asian swing.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 11:51:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015