The Del Potro Situation

I just got asked about Del Potro's ranking, so I thought I'd put up a bit of a general explanation for anyone who is unclear.

2 weeks on Monday, Del Potro is going to lose 2000 points. That's 63% of his points gone in a single week, leaving him with 1170. If we look at the current rankings, 1170 would move him down to around #35.

If he comes back after the USO he should be able to get direct entry into any tournaments he wants with protected ranking, so he should be able to pick up a few points here and there, but remember, he made it to the final of the World Tour Finals last year. That's 800 points he has no chance to defend, because he doesn't have the slightest hope of qualifying this year. That leaves him going into 2011 with his 180 points from Australia, plus whatever points he picks up in the last 3 months of the year. Just to put that into perspective, a player holding 180 points this week would be ranked #250. To have any chance of staying in the top 100 he would need around 350 points before the end of the year. That doesn't sound like too much when you're used to talking about players whose points are in the thousands, but considering he's not played a single match since January, that could be a tough call.

However, that's not a problem for next year, because he'll have his protected ranking. Now PR doesn't actually have any affect on the rankings as such, it's just a way for players to get into tournaments without having to ask for a wild card when their true ranking isn't enough to get them direct entry. So say a player is ranked #100 but had a protected ranking of #10, they would still be able to get into a tournament where the direct entry cut-off was #50 without having to go through qualies or ask for a wild card. They wouldn't be seeded for the tournament, but they would be able to play it. His protected ranking will be valid for 9 months, but he can only use it for up to 9 tournaments. After that he'll have to rely on his true ranking to get him into tournaments, so we may see him unable to get direct entry into Masters for a little while, but some of them may choose to give him wildcards once his PR runs out. Either way, I can see him getting back with a decent ranking fairly quickly, tho obviously it may take a while til we see him back at his best. Nalbandian has already shown us that a couple of decent runs in Masters/500s is enough to get you back well inside the top 50 from nowhere, so let's see if he can do the same.

US Open post will be coming next