King of Spain prepares to rule the world

Events / Ralph Ellis / 01 August 2008 / Leave a Comment

Rafael Nadal could be the world number one by the end of the week, says Ralph Ellis.

The king is dead. After 235 weeks at the top of world tennis, Roger Federer is about to find himself relegated to number two.

It will happen this weekend if Rafael Nadal wins the Cincinnati Masters after Federer suffered his 11th defeat of the year against Ivo Karlovic last night. And the incentive of taking the number one spot should be all the Spanish star needs to make sure it happens. He's [1.07] to win the tournament now.

Federer's defeat seems to have caught out this morning's papers. It happened early enough, yet the Mail which is normally on the ball for tennis stories has ignored it completely to concentrate on Andy Murray's third round win over Dmitry Tursunov. And the Express has added the story only as an afterthought to their account of Murray's success.

If there was any doubt that Federer's humbling defeat in Paris this year was a tipping point to signal the end of his mercurial career, it should have been ended when Nadal won that epic Wimbledon final. If you didn't bet on the double Grand Slam winner to finish the season at number one then, it's too late now. He's as short as [1.05] this morning.

The value now is in laying Federer for the US Open. Nadal is [2.66] favourite, ahead of Federer at [3.8]. And it's unthinkable that the Swiss can recover from yet another chunk being taken out of the air of invincibility he had worked so hard to build. It's one thing losing to Nadal in epic finals, and another entirely when the journeymen of the tour begin to beat you.

As for Murray, his straight sets win over Tursunov was impressive but the test now will be how he handles moving straight from that to face Carlos Moya in the quarter-finals. His big weakness has always been the ability to put together a sequence of results, suffering too easily from fatigue after one big win to produce the next one. But the Express reveals that the young Scot has found a novel way to prepare for the searing heat of Cincinatti, by going through regular yoga sessions in a sauna. The idea was to test himself mentally and physically in the most severe circumstances.

And as Nigel Clarke reports: "As temperatures nudged 100 degrees on the stadium court, Murray welcomed the discipline he showed in the humid, energy sapping conditions."

The British number one is [7.8] to win in Cincinatti, which would be appealing if it wasn't for the form of Nadal. More interesting, given his gradual improvement and signs that he's finally raising his levels of fitness and endurance, might be to take the [24.0] on offer for the US Open. If nothing else that price would shorten dramatically if he reached the last eight enabling you to lay off and take a profit.

Five things you might not know about Carlos Moya

1. Like Rafael Nadal he was born in Majorca. His aunt Tamara Espinoza was a professional tennis player and gave him lessons from the age of six

2. He was number one in the world in 1999 - but stayed at the top of the rankings only two weeks

3. He plays with his right hand, even though he is naturally left handed.

4. He broke up with Italian tennis player Flavia Pennetta after Wimbledon last year, and is now dating Spanish actress Carolina Cerezuela.

5. He's always struggled at the US Open -reaching the semis in 1997 and the last eight last year are the only two times he's ever gone beyond round four.