Andy Murray will climb into second in the ATP entry rankings next week, pushing ahead of Roger Federer without either player striking a single ball this week. The reason behind this is that Federer will be dropping the 1000 points that he gained last year in Shanghai when he won the Masters 1000 event, whereas Murray will only be dropping 90 as he only managed to reach the last 16 last year.
With this shake up to the points, the Scot now occupies second place in the rankings with 8640 points; 220 points ahead of Roger Federer in third place. They may not seem to be a huge difference between second and third but when it comes to Grand Slam seedings it means you avoid Djokovic all the way until the final and, in the short run, it also means avoiding the Serb in the round robin stages of the World Tour Finals.
As for the race, which determines qualification for the aforementioned World Tour Finals, Murray currently holds a 770 point advantage over Federer in second spot.
But in terms of the entry rankings system from now until the end of the season Federer has to defend: the title in Basel (500 points), quarter finals in Paris (180 points) and he will also drop 90 points from the Davis Cup final come the end of the year, without forgetting that he will have to defend the 1000 points that he acquired for winning the World Tour Finals last year.
As for Murray, he has to defend the title in Valencia (500 points), the title in Vienna (250 points), a quarter final showing in Paris (180 points) and he will also drop 350 points for the Davis Cup at the end of the year which he will make up for by having reached the final or possibly winning the nations trophy. As ooposed to Federer, he only defends 200 points from the World Tour Finals after falling in the round robin stage last year.
So overall Federer defends 1770 points until the end of the season and Murray 1480. The race for second place will go right down to the wire and will have a huge impact on the draw for the Australian Open come January of 2016.
