The new rankings for men’s tennis are out, and for the first time in about 5 years, Nadal is leading the ranking. He is leading it by a whopping 770 points! Nadal has 6700, and Federer has 5930. Djokovic is back at 5105. The interesting fact is the gap between Nadal and Federer is almost the same as the one between Federer and Djokovic. At this rate, I don’t believe Federer has any chance of winning the No. 1 back this year, but he can certainly be caught by Djokovic if he stumbles at the U.S. Open. Nadal has had one of the best years one can have, and he is surely going to challenge big time for the U.S. Open title. So he can push his advantage to more than a 1000 points if he wins the U.S. Open. The question at this point is, who gets Djokovic time time around being that Nadal has gotten him a lot when he was No. 2.

The new rankings are out today and the first 5 are virtually unchanged. Nadal is obviously much closer to Federer now, and will have a sizable lead over the master on August 18th. But Murray had the biggest jump as he moved to No. 6 in the world. The situation is not as rosy for the former No. 6, Roddick. First he lost to Cilic in Tornoto, then he forgot how to sleep properly at Cincinnati. That all results into Roddick going down all the way to nineth, more importantly one below James Blake. Roddick will have to salvage his year by reaching the quarters of the U.S. Open or he could be out of the top 10 again. You can check the latest rankings here.