Roger Federer accused by German official of 'manipulating' ATP rankings system for himself

It has been a quiet year on court for Roger Federer, who played just one tournament in 2020 before withdrawing from competition to tend to his knee injury. Surprisingly, despite this lack of game time, Federer has mand to retain his place in top 5 of ATP rankings - something that would have never happened in ar, rmal year. mechanics behind this "protection" that Federer has massively benefitted from, seem to have irked VP of German Tennis Federation, Dirk Hordorff. 

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Federer injury and Federer ATP ranking: A controversy in making?

Roger Federer, who has been a part of tennis circuit since 1998, has been accused of using his influence at ATP to bend rules in favour of himself. With resumption of ATP Tour in middle of COVID-19 pandemic, ATP instituted some changes to its ranking system to aid players who preferred t to play due to health concerns. This new rule allows players to retain ir points from tournaments played last year, allowing players to skip tournaments without fear of losing points for missing out on events. 

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However, biggest beneficiary of this regulation seems to be Roger Federer itself. Federer's only ATP level Tour this year was Australian Open, where he lost to vak Djokovic in straight sets in semi-final. This gave Federer only 720 points in 2020. Despite this, Federer will be seeded at .5 coming into Australian Open 2021 - significantly higher than players who actually performed in 2020. “It is irresponsible and quite simply incorrect. In my opinion, he takes vant of his position on players’ council," Dirk Hordorff said during an interview on  Tennisnet podcast. 

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Federer ATP ranking without protection in 2020

Since leaving Tour to rehabilitate from knee surgery early this year, Roger Federer has only dropped two places in ATP rankings. Under rmal circumstances, ATP does allow players a protected status while y are recovering from a serious injury, meaning Federer would t have dropped drastically from ranks eir way. While Hordorff commented that Federer would have dropped below top-50 rankings without protections, Twitter user @JeuSetMaths has done actual math. 

Having retained his points from his Miami Open win, Wimbledon finals, Roland Garros semi-finals, and Indian Wells finals, Federer has finished 5th this year. However, h only his 2020 points been taken into account, Federer would have ended year ranked somewhere around 29. Or players who have benefitted from this include Nal, who would have finished third, behind Dominic Thiem and vak Djokovic without new rules. Alexander Zverev, Andrey Rublev, Milos Raonic and Pablo Carre Busta are players who have been most negatively impacted by this rule.

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Im Credits: ATP Tour and Dirk Hordorff Twitter