Djokovic catches up on Federer in ATP Rankings

By Ashley Williams

Novak Djokovic scored 1,000 ATP rankings points with Shanghai Masters triumph.

LONDON, England (TheSportsNEXT) October 15, 2012: Novak Djokovic scored 1,000 ranking points with the Shanghai Masters title Sunday which took him just 195 points below world number one Roger Federer in the latest ATP Rankings published on Monday.

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Roger Federer, who lost to Andy Murray in the semis, has 12,165 points as he is now number one for a total of 300 weeks.

Djokovic is 195 points away with three championships yet to be decided in 2012 ATP calendar.

Novak Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in three sets by 5-7 7-6 (13-11) 6-3 in final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters which spanned for over three hours on Sunday which showed him in great form and shape to challenge Roger Federer on top of the ATP Tour Rankings.

As per the ATP rules, the Masters tournament has worth of 1,000 rankings points and with three Masters left this season there are a maximum of 3,000 rankings points up for grab and with Roger Federer enjoying a pretty slim lead of 195 points over Novak Djokovic, the battle has just heated up tremendously right towards the end of the season.

Roger Federer could have had a bigger lead on his Serbian opponent had he defeated Olympic and US Open title holder Andy Murray in Semi-Final of the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

Interestingly, all the three ATP Masters events will have Roger Federer as the defending champion after the Swiss tennis maestro revved up his game right at the end of the last year to came back into contention.

Andy Murray trails Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic as world number three while out-of-action Rafael Nadal is ranked fourth. All of these four players have qualified for the World Tour Finals and David Ferrer also joined them as fifth qualifier on Monday, which means the battle for the top spot will get to the wire. It also means that the battle will also have some means left for the players down the rankings as well.

As per the latest ATP Tour Rankings released Monday, the only change in the Top 10 was Tomas Berdych who improved his position by a place as he moved to sixth from seventh after losing to Novak Djokovic in the Shanghai Semi-Finals. He has replaced Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at sixth and has a slender 30 points lead over the Frenchman.

There are three ATP tournaments this week where four top 10 players are in the draws. Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Tomas Berdych will be seen in action in Stockholm in Sweden while Juan Martin del Potro and Janko Tipsarevic will be vying for the laurels at Vienna, Austria.

Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Juan Martin del Potro are the leaders for the last three invitations to the World Tour Finals.

Following are the latest ATP Tour Rankings.

01-Roger Federer              12,165

02-Novak Djokovic            11,970

03-Andy Murray                 7,690

04-Rafael Nadal                6,995

05-David Ferrer                 5,360

06-Tomas Berdych             4,840

07-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga        4,810

08-Juan Martin del Potro     3,670

09-Janko Tipsarevic           3,265

10-Juan Monaco                2,775