BNP Paribas Open has secured Djokovics World No.1 Status

Now that Novak Djokovic has become the winner of the BNP Paribas Open, he can feel a little secured about his World no. 1 status.

He has 1310-point advantage over the second ranked Federer and it seems almost impossible for the Swiss maestro to overcome that by the end of the ongoing season.

Coming into this week, Djokovic’s position at the top of the rankings was well and truly in danger. If he had been knocked out early from Paris and Federer had gone on to lift the trophy, the Serb would have slipped down to no. 2, but, it wasn’t to be.

It actually happened the other way around.  It’s Federer who lost it in the Round of 8, while, Djokovic, on the other hand, won the title for the second consecutive time in the French capital to put himself forward as the hot favourite for the season ending tournament i.e. the tour Finals.

The BNP Paribas Masters was the first competition which Djokovic was taking part in after becoming father.

He had not been in the scene for a few weeks as he was there with his better half at home. So, it was believed that because of being short of practice, he might struggle a little bit to start with in Paris. But, he was at his fluent best straightaway and his dominance over the other players can be understood by the fact that nobody was able to win a set against him during the whole tournament.

The records absolutely tumble for Djokovic during the final match yesterday. By winning that match, he took his total victory count on the tour to 600 and also, took his Masters Title count to 20. These are fantastic numbers for somebody who is still only 26 years of age.

Federer Future In Discussion

There have been a lot of discussions happening about Roger Federer’s future these days especially after the defeat of the Swiss legend in the final of the Wimbledon Championships.

While, some people have started to write him off, the others think that he is still good enough to add one or two titles to his Grand Slam tally.

The people who are backing Federer to be able to achieve glory again at the Grand Slam level have their reasons to do so.

Although Federer has not won too many titles this season, he has been playing far better than how he had played last season.

Federer has been to the title round of as many as 6 tournaments so far in 2014 and it clearly shows that he’s been consistent. This consistency was not there in his game in 2013. Not only was he getting beaten by the top players last year, he was suffering defeats against the lower ranked guys as well.

This year, at least, Federer has not been the victim of horrible upsets. Secondly, most of his defeats of late have been narrow ones. In the Wimbledon final too, he wasn’t outplayed by Djokovic. He had pushed the Serbian to the limits and had things gone slightly in his favour during the dying moments of the match, he would probably have pulled that match off.

So, Federer’s fans have all the reasons to keep their belief in him, but, it’s also true that with Nadal and Djokovic around and that too at their peak, it would take a hell of an effort from the Swiss maestro to lift another slam trophy.

There would be many eyes on Federer at Flushing Meadows towards the end of the ongoing season.

Cash Reckons Murray Has Less Desire To Compete

Pat Cash, the Aussie who had lifted the singles trophy at All England Club back in 1987, has said that Andy Murray’s desire to achieve success at the top level is not as strong these days as it was a couple of years back and that’s the reason why his performances have been continuously going down.

According to Cash, after creating history by becoming Wimbledon champion last year, Murray got a little complacent and that complacency is still there. He has just not been able to motivate himself enough after that glory.

Four Grand Slam tournaments have taken place so far since the 2013 Wimbledon Championships and Murray has participated in all of them, but, in neither of those tournaments, he has made it to the title round.

He had qualified for the semis in the French Open of this year, but, apart from that, he has been mostly suffering early exits from the slams of late.

Speaking in a programme about the deterioration in Murray’s game in the last few months, Cash said, “I have noticed that after the last year’s Wimbledon, Andy has not been playing with the same kind of intensity and it’s something that can happen to a sportsman. After achieving something spectacular, like the Wimbledon in Andy’s case, people often start struggling to get motivated to achieve more.”

“I feel for Andy to be honest. I have been in the similar sort of situation. After winning the Wimbledon, I got knocked early the following year and the guy who defeated me was a quality player i.e. Boris Becker, but, still, I was embarrassed.”

That Wimbledon championship of 1987 was the only Grand Slam that Cash won in his career. He retired from professional tennis in 1997 at the age of 32.