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

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

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

Roger Federer, who has been a part of the tennis circuit since 1998, has been accused of using his influence at the ATP to bend the rules in favour of himself. With the resumption of the ATP Tour in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ATP instituted some changes to its ranking system to aid players who preferred not to play due to health concerns. This new rule allows players to retain their points from tournaments played last year, allowing players to skip tournaments without the fear of losing points for missing out on events. 

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However, the biggest beneficiary of this regulation seems to be Roger Federer itself. Federer's only ATP level Tour this year was the Australian Open, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in straight sets in the semi-final. This gave Federer only 720 points in 2020. Despite this, Federer will be seeded at No.5 coming into the Australian Open 2021 - significantly higher than players who actually performed in 2020. “It is irresponsible and quite simply incorrect. In my opinion, he takes advantage of his position on the players’ council," Dirk Hordorff said during an interview on the Tennisnet podcast. 

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Federer ATP ranking without protection in 2020

Since leaving the Tour to rehabilitate from knee surgery early this year, Roger Federer has only dropped two places in the ATP rankings. Under normal circumstances, the ATP does allow players a protected status while they are recovering from a serious injury, meaning Federer would not have dropped drastically from the ranks either way. While Hordorff commented that Federer would have dropped below the top-50 rankings without the protections, Twitter user @JeuSetMaths has done the 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, had only his 2020 points been taken into account, Federer would have ended the year ranked somewhere around 29. Other players who have benefitted from this include Nadal, who would have finished third, behind Dominic Thiem and Novak Djokovic without the new rules. Alexander Zverev, Andrey Rublev, Milos Raonic and Pablo Carreno Busta are the players who have been most negatively impacted by this rule.

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Image Credits: ATP Tour and Dirk Hordorff Twitter