Andy Murray’s 4th spot in the world was under threat last week, with the Scot needing to reach the final to retain his ranking. He actually went onto win the event and will more than likely be the world number 4 when the US Open comes around.

The 2nd and 3rd placing though are not certain with Federer regaining 2nd in the world this week after reaching the Toronto final beating new world number 3 Djokovic along the way. The difference between these two is just 130 points and with Federer beating Djokovic in last years Cincinnati final both have a lot of points to defend this week. If Federer fails to reach the semi-final this week he will be passed by Djokovic regardless of what the Serb does.

Juan Martin Del Potro continues to fall down the rankings as he continues to struggle with injury. He has not added any points to his 12 month total since the Australian Open in January and will lose a further 2000 points if he does not compete at the US Open. He will likely drop out of the top 20 if he does not reach final at flushing meadows.

Andy Roddick also continues to drop in the rankings, though has just been diagnosed with a virus that may have been affecting his energy levels over the last three months.

With just a few days to go, the question on every one’s lips is not who will win the world cup, its…

Who will win Wimbledon 2010?

The 2010 Wimbledon draw has been made and the favorites to lift the title have safely made it through to the second week. Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Robin Soderling and Lleyton Hewitt have now been eliminated and there are just 4 men left.

Rafael Nadal in the last 3 months has returned to his very best, after a 10 month period that seen him lose for the first time at Roland Garros, unable to defend his Wimbledon title and a string of poor results, the Spaniard looks to be back to his best both physically and mentally. He has regained his French Open title and world number 1 spot and now looks to regain his Wimbledon Title. Though he disappointingly went out of Queens Club at the quarter final stage. In his first match he looked good, though was then pushed to 5 sets in next two matches and looked to be suffering from a recurring knee injury. A straight sets win in the 4th and an impressive quarter fianl win over many folks tournament dark horse Robin Soderling pit any injury doubts to bed.

Despite all this Federer was the favourite ahead of Nadal to lift the 2010 title, something that may seem it little strange when you consider that Rafael Nadal now holds a 14-7 record over Federer and has won 6 of their last 7 matches, but he is the favorite now.

Andy Murray is the bookmakers 2nd favourite to win Wimbledon this year and they certainly believe the event winner will come from winner of the Murray Nadal semi final. His odds were 3 or 4 times that of Nadal or Federer, but those odds have been reducing after five very impressive wins., dropping just 1 set all tournament to date. His form since reaching the final at the Australian Open has been woeful and the Scot was looking like he was suffering from the crushing defeat in Melbourne. That form looks to behind him now and he now looks to be in the right frame of mind to claim his first grand slam.

Novak Djokovic’s failure to ever mount a challenge at Wimbledon and recent average form had seen him drop to 6th favourite but after overcoming tough 4th round match against Lleyton Hewitt and cruising past Lu. Djokovic is now favorite to reach the final from his semi final match.

Tomas Berdych – If you placed a bet on Berdych to win Wimbledon this year at the start of the tournament, then you would be in the running for a mighty profit. The big serving check wasn’t really on anyone’s radar, always consider an “under performer” until he reached the semi finals of Roland Garros last month. He eliminated Roger Federer though so does he really deserve the least likely to win tag?

Betfair have been offering the best odds all week on just about all the potential winners and when you sign up, you’ll receive a free £25 bet.

Favorites already Eliminated…

Roger Federer – 2 years ago after losing to Rafael Nadal in that now infamous Wimbledon final, people started to question whether or not the career of Federer was now on a downward spiral – he proved his critics wrong then, coming back to claim his 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th grand slam titles – though most importantly he never had to face Rafael Nadal in any of those events. Those same question have now surfaced again. To add to his woes he lost the final of Halle where he had been unbeaten since 2002. He was just a few points from being eliminated in the first round by Falla and even struggled past Hasse in the 2nd before looking comfortable against Clement in the 3rd round and Melzer in the 4th Round. It would be Tomas Berdych who eliminated the now former champ.

Andy Roddick was last years champion and was the 4th favourite coming into Wimbledon though he had dropped to 5th favourite to win this year. He took out Britain’s great hope last year in the semi finals before losing an epic final to Roger Federer. He has since had a decent 12 months whilst still not really challenging the top players. Early knock out at Queens was not the best preparations, but had looked decent in the first 3 rounds. He was dumped out though on court 2 in the 4th round by journey man Lu.

Roddick dropped the 4th favourite tag to Robin Soderling – The French Open finalist has cemented his place inside the top 10 and has recent wins over Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray – He had been looking mighty impressive until he met Nadal that is.

The third round of matches are now complete and the line up for the round of 16 is known. Of the 4 favorites to win Wimbledon, In the top half Roger Federer and in the bottom half Andy Murray have the toughest matches, whilst Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal both have unseeded opponents.

Federer takes on the resurgent Jurgen Meltzer, in recent months, the talented Jurgen Melzer has produced some of his best tennis and has risen to a career high of 16 in the world. He reached a career best semi final at Roland Garros last month only losing to Rafael Nadal and along the way came back from two sets down to eliminate Novak Djokovic. If Federer  is not on the top of his game, then this one could well be another stonker!

Andy Roddick faces unseeded Yen-Hsun Lu and the winner of that match will play the winner of probably the match ofthe day between two of the best outside bets for the title. 3rd seed Novak Djokovic will take on former Wimbledon winner and former world number 1 Lleyton Hewitt.

In the bottom half of the draw Andy Murray will take on the winner of Queens this year and 18th seed Sam Querrey, see a Murray Querrey preview here. The winner of that match will definitely play a Frenchman as 32nd seed Julien Benneteau takes on 10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.

Meanwhile Rafael Nadal will face another Frenchman, Paul-Henri Mathieu and will play the winner of what should be another great match between 6th seed Robin Soderling and 9th seed David Ferrer. Soderling as so far negotiated his way through the first 3 rounds with consummate ease and is looking supremely good – Watch out the rest of the draw for this Swedish dark-horse!

It will be no fairy tale Wimbledon win for Andy Murray this year Gutted he has just been beaten in 4 very close sets sets 6-4 4-6 7-6 7-6.

Andy Murray wil now look to the 2009 US Open as the Scot looks to claim his first grand slam championship and end the British drought.

All credit must go to Andy Roddick, he proved all his doubters that he is indeed still one of the worlds best and looks like he surely is in the form of his life.

Andy Murray successfully defended his Qatar Open title 6-4 6-2 against big serving American Andy Roddick in Doha.

Murray was in sublime form and gets the Scot of to a 100% record for 2009 adding to his 3 exhibition wins last in Abu Dhabi.

There had been some fears before the game that Murray would have to pull out of the match because of the back problem that seen Murray need treatment in his semi-final win against Roger Federer.

Murray, who is still only 21 looked focused from the start and broke Roddick to love in the fifth game to go 3-2 which allowed him to take control of the match, he served out the set 6-4 with an impressive show on first serves, perhaps Murray’s most improved shot over the last year. Murray took control of the second as he did in the first with and early break, Roddick, who had only beaten Murray twice in their seven meetings before this game, struggled to hold serve and he was broken a second time by Murray and the Scot went on to win the set easily 6-2.

After the win, Murray said,

What excites me is that I don’t think I’m close to my best tennis, I still think I can play better and improve things. As in the last two sets against Federer I served very well. In one of the games Andy had a chance to break me, but when I got behind I served very well. On the big points I didn’t give him too many chances to hit winners and when that happens it makes life easier. The semi-final and final matches were very good against two top players so I am very pleased. It is great to start the season with a title.

Andy Murray has been given a bye in the first round of the Rogers Cup after gaining the 8th seed position in the masters tournament and in the second round will face Qualifier.

Tomorrow will see the start of the first round matches, the Murray and the other top seeds wont start their campaigns till Tuesday or Wednesday. Looking ahead to later in the week, their a few potential tantalising matches. In the top half, Roger Federer could meet Andy Roddick in the quarter finals. Roddick has only ever beat Federer on 2 out 17 matches between the two, though one of those wins was their last meeting earlier this year.

The bottom half which includes Andy Murray – The Scot could meet Marat Safin in the third round, Novak Djokovic in the quarters and Rafael Nadal in the semi’s. 

Andy Murray will again join the top tennis players of the world next week at the next ATP tour masters event, the Rogers Cup, played at the Rexall Centre at York University in Toronto.

The Rogers cup is Celebrating its 127th anniversary, it is the third oldest tournament behind only Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. Forty four of the top 44 players on the ATP Tour have been confirmed for the Masters Series Canadian event. There will be 4 former Rogers Cup champions in the field including defending Champion Novak Djokovic, two time champion Roger Federer (2006, 2004), 2005 champion Rafael Nadal and 2003 champion Andy Roddick.

The Toronto tournament will be the first tournament played by many of the top players after Wimbledon, this is the case of all the current above defending champions, world number 4 Nikolay Davydenko and world number 9 Andy Murray.

Murray pulled out of last week’s Indianapolis Tennis Championships to prepare better for the upcoming weeks includes 2 master events, the olympics and the US Open.

Last year this was the Scot’s first comeback tournament after his long lay off because of a wrist injury sustained 4 months earlier. He only managed one win against American Robby Generpri, before losing to Italy’s Fabio Fognini, who was a lowly ranked 139 qualifier.

In 2006 though Murray made it to the semi finals of tournament, where he dispatched 4 players before losing to his this years Wimbledon 4th round opponent Richard Gasquet. Among the four players he beat on his way to the semi finals, was 2 seeds David Ferrer and Jarkko Nieminen, former world number 1 Carlos Moya and Britains own Tiger Tim Henman. It was the second time Henmanand Murray had met on the tour an the first victory for Murray, they would meet twice again in 2006, Murray winning both matches.

Although the tournament is called the Roger’s Cup – it does not currently belong to Roger. Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer in epic final last year, which seen the young Serb record his first victory against the world number 1 after losing in the last 4 matches. It was perhaps here at this tournament last year that we did in fact see the end of Federer’s dominance. The two would meet a few weeks later in the US Open final and although Federer won that match, he would lose the next between the two at the Australian open.

Rafael Nadal will continue his quest for the world number 1 position, the Spaniard will again take to his least favorite surface, hard courts - But he can take heart that he has tasted victory here in Toronto, he beat Andre Agassi in the final in 2005 and only lost to Djokovic in the semi’s last year.

Andy Murray, Nikolay Davydenko, Andy Roddick and James Blake will be amongst the players looking to make a dent in the Federer / Nadal / Djokovic dominance of the 2008 so far.