There was plenty of talk about Andy Murray not being physically ready for Wimbledon 2017. On Wednesday, he suffered a defeat in the quarterfinals at the All England Club, losing to Sam Querrey in a five-set match. The result ends Murray's Wimbledon 2017 campaign, however, the Scot will still be the top-ranked player on Monday. With Rafael Nadal, Stan Wawrinka, and Novak Djokovic all eliminated from the tournament, there is no one remaining in the draw that can ascend to the top ranking, even with a title.
No. 1 just out of reach for Federer right now
Roger Federer is into the Wimbledon semifinals as the highest-ranked player remaining. Should he win the title he would not be terribly far behind the top ranking. However, with Wimbledon results, he can only come within about 1200 points of Murray. Federer, if he wins the Wimbledon title, can certainly target the top spot in the months ahead. However, the Swiss Maestro can't catch Murray with only Wimbledon results.
Djokovic was last threat
Murray went out in the quarters before Djokovic took to the courts on Wednesday. The Serb seemed to be suffering from an arm injury during his match with Tomas Berdych. After Djokovic lost the first-set tiebreaker and then fell behind by a break in the second set, he retired from the match.
That took the Serb out of the race for the number one spot for the time being.
There are still three matches to be played at Wimbledon 2017, and the swings in ranking points are immense at this point. If Federer wins the title at the All England Club then he would be third in the world on Monday. If Cilic wins the title then he would be 5th in the world on Monday, a ranking that would be a new career high for him.
If Tomas Berdych wins the title, he would be back into the top ten on tour. Lastly, if Sam Querrey wins the title, then he would be close to the top ten.
Long term, you would think that Federer is poised to increase his total number of weeks as the World No. 1 player. He is already the all-time leader in weeks at No. 1, having passed Pete Sampras for that mark a few seasons ago.
But the reason that Federer is perfectly poised to get the top ranking is that he was idle after Wimbledon 2016 last season. That means that he has a ton of ranking points to gain after Wimbledon, including at the US Open. Murray, on the other hand, was very active in draws in late 2016, winning several tournaments in the latter half of the year. The Scot has a lot of ranking points to lose, while Federer has so many to gain. There are other players in the mix, but the way Federer is playing, he certainly looks difficult to stop. If he wins the title at Wimbledon 2017, getting back to No. 1 this year will seem very plausible.
