[amongsttheleaves]

By my calculations, which might not be correct, but because Andy has ended the year as number one he'll have at least 12 weeks as #1.

That is as many as Becker, and more than Newcombe, Muster, Moya, Rios, Kafelnikov, Rafter, Safin, and Ferrero.

Roddick had 13 weeks at #1. Wilander had 20 weeks. Then it is Nastase at 40 and Kurten at 43, and then Hewitt at 80.

In fact, I think, even if Andy were to gain no points in Doha, as long as he reaches the AO semi-final, he'll still be #1 after the AO. Not 100% sure about that one, but as Novak is the only one who can overtake Andy and he's defending 2250 in January, even if he defends those he can't overtake Andy if Andy reaches the SF in Melbourne.

[Ruthie]

wow atl.  I'd stupidly been assuming he had to get to the final of AO to maintain it but of course he has enough points over Novak to mean that's not the case.   And given Novak has so many points to defend up until RG, provided Andy stays fit, it does augur well for a reasonable spell at the top,  After that  of course it's going to be very difficult to defend all the points he has accumulated the second half of the year (apart from at USO).

[amongsttheleaves]

wow atl.  I'd stupidly been assuming he had to get to the final of AO to maintain it but of course he has enough points over Novak to mean that's not the case. 

I thought Andy would need to reach the AO final again to retain the ranking, but when I looked into it I quickly realised he doesn't because of all the points Novak hoarded in the first half of 2016. Just means the gap will shrink.

On 28th November Andy will be on 12410 points and Novak on 11780. Giving Andy a 630 point lead.

I've done some basic working out/guess work for what I think is the minimum Andy would need to do before Monte Carlo to retain the #1 ranking until then. For the sake of argument these workings out assume that Novak plays the same tournaments and also wins them all.

Doha - QF 45 points
AO - SF 720 points
Dubai - R16 45 points
IW - R16 90 points
Miami - R32 90 points

At the beginning of the clay season the points would be:

Andy - 12200
Novak - 12190

Aside from the AO final it seems to have been widely forgotten Andy reached, Monte Carlo is when Andy starts to have big blocks of points to defend.

If he only did the minimum outlined - obviously we want him to do far better than the minimum but you never know what might happen - but Novak still wins everything in sight like he did in 2015 and 2016 then Andy looks good for 22 or 23* consecutive weeks at #1 from 7th November 2016 to 17th April 2017.

*Disclaimer - I have not checked the date the MC 2016 dates will drop next season.

[Fiverings]

Interesting note from the ATP that this is the first time since the modern rankings began in 1973 that ten different nations have been represented in the top ten.

[TheMadHatter]

Interesting note from the ATP that this is the first time since the modern rankings began in 1973 that ten different nations have been represented in the top ten.

That's pretty cool!

And none of them American.

[marathonarthur]

ATL,

What will be interesting is what Andy will play next year. Do we know if he has a provisional schedule? 

I see that he is not playing the Hopman Cup again (Watson & Evans). I found out that he is playing Doha with Novak but any others before the Aussie open?

[marathonarthur]

ATL,  Thank you.