Nadal Seeks 5th Title At Depleted Canadian Masters; Zverev, Thiem, Tsitsipas In Field

Nads is not out of the race for #1. He’s got a marriage coming that I think will rattle his OCD brain some and that and a need for a break may block him from making a hard push, but Djokovic has A LOT of points to defend starting in Cincinnati.
Same with Fed. He may be running on fumes soon, but no sign of that so far and he has been going hard without real let-up until Toronto.

It is in Djokovic’s interest to not squander his large lead. Passing Connors and Lendl in weeks as #1 is a near mathematical certainty if not an actual one quite yet, but after will need 40 weeks to pass Federer, who has a chance to be #1 again himself if Djokovic and Nadal fade and the cards fall right. Federer has no Holy Slam title so far in 2019, but he is having a marvelous season with 1 Masters and 2 500 titles and a bunch of RUPs inc two at Slams.
Suck it up Novak, after the USO, you should push hard! The points for the race to London are close. Rafa, Novak, OR Fed could be #1 in that race following the USO.

August 5th, 2019 at 12:26 pm

Agree CF1,

After USO we will have a clear view of what can happen #1 wise.

But for Federer, the only chance I see for him is to wins USO.
Nadal is a question mark with wedding coming up and he is most vulnerable in HC. His last HC title was 1 year ago in Toronto.
Djoko can pretty much seal #1 after USO. A title there and #1 is finished. If he doesn’t win it, as long as Fedal don’t win it his odds improve dramatically also.

Djoko not playing Canada can be tricky (same for Federer), an early loss in Cincy (R32 if he gets a bad match up or R16) and he enters USO with bascially no points in NA summer. Also, he was bad in last 2 HC masters this year but won AO, so hard to guess at this point.

Federer winning Cincy entering USO will add extra spice, actually Federer can get #2 seed for USO if he wins Cincy and depending on how Nadal fare in both Canada/Cincy. Right now the point difference between the 2 removing last years Masters points is just 85 pts for Nadal:
– Nadal 6945
– Federer 6860

Meaning, if Federer wins 90 pts more than Nadal in Canada / Cincy he gest the #2 seed in a consecutive Slam again.
But for that to happen he needs minimum finals in Cincy and Nadal either 2 QF, or a semis and a R32 loss. Or Federer semis and Nadal a QF and a R32 loss.
If Fed wins Cincy (which would be ideal for him) we can assess if he is over that Wimbledon final, he pretty much secures #2 seed for SUO unless Nadal wins Canada or makes finals in one and semis in the other. An early loss for Nadal this week can point out what Federer will need to do for #2 seed.

But again, similar to Wimbleodn, I bet Nadal and Federer will be drawn together in USO semis again. They are desperate for a 1st Fedal in NY and the sooner they can meet the better odds it happens. They were 1 match away from this dream match several times before.

August 5th, 2019 at 1:22 pm

And once again Gorgeous Grigor is out in an early round. Love must lead swiftly to marriage if Grigor is going to do well in his maturity.

August 5th, 2019 at 5:43 pm

J-Kath, the way Dimitrov’s career is going, he may need to find a rich woman soon to help him through his retirement.
And speaking of retirement, Grigor’s old flame Sharapova bombed out again. Looking like a career in steep decline with her as well. She’s rich. Maybe she should retire and take Dimitrov with her.

August 6th, 2019 at 9:02 am

Dimi amassed U$ 16 mi in prize money throught out his career, apart endorsements he is pretty safe.

But its a shame the way he is going, seems like a glimpse of what Federer career could have been like.

August 6th, 2019 at 9:36 am

Good look ahead Daniel.
#2 rank is very much wanted by Fed or Nadal. At Cincinnati I prefer Djokovic to win and collect his 2nd ATP 1000s and Championship Sweep. (Then it gets tougher, he’d have to win at Monte Carlo PLUS win at Cincinnati to get his 3rd Sweep. So hard! Poor unfortunate guy!)

A 3-way race for year end #1 is exciting for you, me, fans of any of the 3. Fed and Novak both want to match Sampra’s 6 year end #1s. Year end #1 will also set Novak in a position to overtake Sampras weeks at #1 quickly, then be in a very good position to overtake Fed if he gets through the AO in better shape than Fed. Then he just has to outplay Fed and Rafa a little over half of 2020 to get the Weeks at #1 title. And if Rafa wins year end #1, he makes it a 4-way tie with Fed, Djokovic, Connors each having 5 year end #1s.

Fedal at the USO is so salivating to the USO organizers and ratings that if there is a way to “fix things” to guarantee a Fedal semi, they will do so to the Draw. Yes, Daniel, they are desperate for that because how many Fedals are left?

And add the excitement of a Big 4 again – being some chance of being possible if Andy returns to singles, starting in North America. If he has big wins over any of the three and goes deep in most events again.

August 6th, 2019 at 9:37 am