Tennis Tuesday: Federer Back To World #4, Murray Down To #8

The new ATP rankings have continued good news for Roger Federer, who rejoined the Top 4 even though he lost in the quarterfinals of the Miami masters 1000 tournament to Kei Nishikori, who rose to #18. Tomas Berdych is up to a career-high World #5 and John Isner is up to World #9 now that Richard Gasquet has fallen out of the Top 10. Milos Raonic is now in the Top 10 and close behind him is Grigor Dimitrov at World #15. Raonic, Dimitrov and Nishikori are all part of the next generation of tennis players who are expected to dominate in the next 3-5 years after the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic era ends. Andy Murray falls to World #8 in the latest ratings.

On the women's side Maria Sharapova falls to #9 and has a lot of points to defend in the upcoming clay court season. My two favorite lefties, Petra Kvitova and Angie Kerber rose 2 spots each to World #6 and #7 respectively. Amazingly, Vika Azarenka is still at World #4 despite an injury which would have her out for a few more weeks.