Federer Concedes 2012 Year-End #1 To Djokovic

Roger Federer lost a tough 3-set match to Juan Martin del Potro 6-4 6-7(5) 7-6(3) in the final of his hometown tournament in Basel, Switzerland on Sunday and then immediately withdrew from the Paris Masters tournament, thus ceding the year-end #1 ranking to Novak Djokovic.

Djokovic responded to the news that he will end the year as the #1 player for the second-consecutive year at a press conference in Paris:

“It feels very satisfying, and of course I'm very happy to be able to finish the season as No. 1. Obviously that serves as an indication of how good the season was for me,” says Djokovic. “It was very difficult to follow up after 2011 and to expect, well, from myself to repeat what I've done in that season. But winning one Grand Slam this year, and five titles so far and being very consistent with my results helped me to be in this position right now.”

Djokovic so far has won a tour-leading 70 match wins (to 11 losses) while there are still two important tournaments left to play: the Paris Masters and the ATP World Tour Finals, both of which were won by Federer last year. Last year, Djokovic also won 70 matches but only lost 6 times all year while winning 3 major tournaments. In 2012, Djokovic reached 3 major finals but only won one of them.

Federer had beaten del Potro 6 consecutive times in 2012 and had not lost to the Argentinian since 2009. Del Potro improved to a career head-to-head record of 3 wins and 13 losses. Two of these three wins have now occurred in tournament finals. I believe this is evidence that del Potro is getting closer to the form that made him a grand slam final winner in 2009. It will be interesting to see if he will become the player who will be successful in breaking the stranglehold that the Fantastic Four at the top of men's tennis have had on the game for the last four years.