The Next No. 1, Rafa or Djokovic?

The race for the number one spot in the tennis world rankings has vigorously heated up this year for the first time since Roger Federer was reigned number one in February 2004.

Heading into the clay-court season, world number 2, Rafael Nadal, is a mere 670 points adrift from the top-ranked Swiss, with Australian Open champion, Novak Djokovic trailing by an extra 1145 points to cling on to the number 3 spot.

Many speculations have favored the young Serb, Djokovic, to be Federer’s successor to top the rankings rather than Nadal, who has boldly held on to his number 2 spot for a record 140 weeks.

There is no doubt that Djokovic is a real threat to both the number 1 and 2 players in the world, given his fine form on all surfaces and his incredible wins over both the Swiss and the Spaniard, however Nadal will be very hard to step over in the rankings especially with the clay-court fever coming up.

Many believe that the insane number of points that Nadal needs to defend in the clay-court season will put extra pressure on the 21-year-old and give way to Djokovic to cruise past him or Federer to stretch the lead. People tend to forget that the Spanish phenomenon we know as Rafa, thrives under that kind of pressure as he has successfully captured those very points for the past 3 years, including a threesome of French Open titles.

In the meantime, Federer, who is yet to reach a final this season, let alone win a title, has shown signs of fatigue in his few appearances the past 3 months where his form was far from the ruthless/flawless one we know he possesses, which doesn’t quite give him much confidence ahead of the clay season where points tend to be longer and matches require a fine share of endurance (not to forget his “mono” and his problem with “low lights” on court).

As for Djokovic, his dominant level that saw him triumph at the Aussie Open has deserted him on a couple of occasions since then, as he suffered early exits from Marseille and the Miami Masters, where he failed to defend his title in the latter. He did however manage to snatch the Indian Wells shield from Rafa though. But to predict how well he’s going to do in the clay season is still premature. It is doubtful he can really threaten Rafa on clay.

If we look at Rafa’s form so far in 2008, consistency is evident, with the exception of a small slipup in Rotterdam (which was a cursed tournament with all the seeds falling like leaves in the second round but anyways). Nadal reached 2 finals, 2 semifinals and a quarterfinal in this year’s hard-court season, not bad for a guy who people refer to as the “king of clay”.

It appears that Rafa stands a strong chance of claiming the number one spot, before Djokovic gets a glimpse at it, given that Federer doesn’t magically regain his touch of course.

Federer makes his first appearance on clay this season at Estoril in Portugal next week before he joins Rafa and Djokovic in Monte Carlo, where the battle for the top spot will definitely intensify.

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