Fed's return is less than 8 hours away. He survived a first round bye, so far so good, his path now is 28-Dan Evans (who got past 53-Chardy in 3 sets) them 41-Basilashvili before a SF against Shapovalov or Goffin, and Thiem or Rublev in the final.

Federer is 325 points behind Tsitsipas so he won't be climbing back to the top 5 just yet. In fact, he's likely to drop out of the top 10 or even worse this year as he's defending a SF at Roland Garros and F at Wimbledon in 2019.

Federer's worst year-end rankings (2000-2020):
29th in 2000, 16th in 2016, 13th in 2001, 6th in 2002 & 2013, 5th in 2020.

Fed-Evans going 3 sets, quality stuff. They were training together in Dubai for the last few weeks.

Rune > Paire 62 63. Match highlights:

Federer as well, it seems

Thread title 2020 playing vs thread title 2021 today

ATP Doha: none of the top 4 seeds won their QF (3-Rublev had a w/o)

WTA Dubai: QF loser and birthday girl Coco Gauff (turns 17 tomorrow) up to a career high 35. I'm sure she will be aiming to be seeded for the upcoming slams. Next highest ranked 16yo and 17yo are outside the world top 350. At 16yo, Coco is the 3rd highest ranked teenager, and Swiatek and Anisimova will both turn 20 within 6 months.

WTA Mexico: 27yo #144 Genie Bouchard into a SF. Has beaten #154, #91 and #120. Next up is #134 Elisabetta Cocciaretto who defeated #46 and top seed Nadia Podoroska in the QF. A SF win for Genie would get her up to #116, her highest ranking since August 2019. A tournament win here would take her to #102.

I guess everyone is losing to Basilashvili this week. Guy hadn't beaten a top 250 player since Dubai last year.

Acapulco R1 Zverev vs Alcaraz. Juicy.

Genie playing the Gaudalajara final right now against Sorribes Tormo, one of the most annoying pushers on tour.

Genie serving at 2-4, shanked a 2nd serve into the seats, lost the next point, then smacked a ball into the seats on purpose for a ball abuse warning. Lost the next point and the game then smashed a racquet for a point penalty. SST holds easily for 6-2 first set.

Genie looking to go 1-7 in wta finals. SST looking for her first title in her first final.

Genie got down 1-3 in the 2nd set. Went on a heater to go up 5-3, then went back to the same old and lost the next 4 games. SST's game is pure grit and WIM. The first of many titles, but probably not slams.

Her career is pretty depressing. Her slam record sums up her career.

French doubles player with a man bun did pretty well against #2 in the Marseille final, right up until he served at 4-5 in the 3rd and made 4 errors at the net to give it away.

I think we often make the mistake of comparing the best and worst of a player or team and then focusing on the high as if that wasn't a momentary blip. The greater surprise is not that Genie has spent long periods outside the top 100 but that she was ever a top 5 player, albeit for just one week.

Two WTA250 finals in the past 7 months and she has taken her ranking from 332 a year ago to 116 this week. She's travelling and putting in the effort and I commend her for that. She will never reach top 50 again but I believe she is good enough to gain direct entry to another 10+ grand slams.

The women’s game is funny like that but she’s always put the effort and travel in. I was one of those saddos who followed her on Twitter

Considering the overall quality of play I saw in Guadalajara, Genie absolutely has the ability to be top 50 easily. It depends on whether she wants it or not.

I heard an interview with Michael Joyce recently, he worked with Genie for a short time a few years ago, I don't remember exactly when. He said he was skeptical about her work ethic at first and questioned the logic of it. Genie seemed to think it was better for her to spend time doing instagram product endorsements for $10k rather than work on her game in which she could make millions by going deep in slams. But when she actually decided to start training he was really impressed with how hard she worked and how coachable she was.

The fact that she flew from Lyon to Mexico and looked like she was putting in 100% effort for 5 matches is an encouraging sign. If she maintains anything close to that level of effort for the rest of the year she's a lock for top 50. Especially since she can get all the wildcards she asks for.

I've found it, btw
https://twitter.com/Yolitatennis

Top 10 in 52 week rating is quite interesting, with Novak, Medvedev and Rublev being top 3

I am really getting sick and tired of these frozen rankings. I did not know that the ATP had recently, again extended the freeze until August. How ridiculous!

Stay tuned for the ATP to announce that the ranking freeze will again be extended until at least the 2022 Australian Open. And then until the end of March 2022, ...

At least "weighted at 50%" is not as offending

Young guns doing well this week. Sinner just beat Bautista in 3, he'll get sonego or karatsev in the QF.

Musetti with a gret win over schwartzman and he'll play tiafoe tonight. Nakashima played well against tiafoe yesterday but lost in the 3rd set TB.

Seb korda beat cilic and he plays FAA tonight.

It depends on how well Fed does. If Fed gets enough points to have a decent ranking then they'll decide it's time to go back to the regular system. If Fed keeps losing early they'll decide they need to extend the freeze, for the sake of the lower ranked players of course.

It's also ridiculous how the ATP published an article bragging about how the lower ranked players made more money last year than in previous years. Which is almost entirely because of the slams redistributing prize money to the early rounds and had very little to do with the ATP.

Provisional career high 87 for Korda. He will jump into the top 80 if (big IF) he can get past FAA. He was ranked 213 as recently as October.

Challenger tour is expanding in south america:

https://www.atptour.com/en/news/chal...1-announcement

Now this is something that will actually help lower ranked players.

Grass court tennis in Brazil. Alright then.

I can't disagree. As more players are starting to say publicly, it's a joke.

I hope Federer is in Nadal's quarter at Roland Garros, but I doubt he would actually get that far.

Fun stat: Benoit Paire deserves to be ranked higher than Fed. He's won two matches in the last 52 weeks, one of them at RG. Fed has won one.

Fed, Nadal, Thiem, Kyrgios out of miami. WCs for Murray and Alcaraz.

End of the day it’s all down to money.

Fed brings money in and is the biggest name in the sport. That has weight.

Tennis is getting played, the rankings should be counting, there isn’t a valid reason not to.

No need to announce that Kyrgios is out of any tournament. If the tournament is not in Australia, he's not in.