Kingmaker, Buzzkill, or Neither?

When Andy Murray won Olympic singles gold and the U.S. Open title this summer, he legitimized the idea that tennis is dominated by a Big Four. Why this seems to be such a compelling construct is a bit beyond my ken; I mean, what’s so bad about, oh, a Towering Three? A Fab Five? A Super Six (if only Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played along!)?

But Murray is firmly established now in the thick of things, after having his nose pressed against the glass for a long time. One pleasant side effect of the situation is that it advances the multiple, overlapping narratives in tennis in a way that ensures you never really know which one is going to pop up next.

If you’ve been watching Murray in action at the Japan Open this week, you might know where this is heading. I wrote a few days ago about the tight nature of the race for the ATP No. 1 ranking (between current No. 1 Roger Federer and No. 2 Novak Djokovic). While Federer has a substantial lead in the official, rolling 12-month rankings (1,335 points), Djokovic has almost as large an edge—990 points—in the even more important “Race to London” ranking points table, or the ranking points they’ve earned this year. And that’s the number to watch, because at the end of the year those numbers (rolling ranking and race points) will converge, yielding the year-end No. 1.

So forget the complicated business of ‘defending points’ and tournaments ‘dropping off’ or ‘coming on’; the reality is that we have a surprisingly clear race that starts out with the men on near equal footing—once you get past the fact that Djokovic has nearly a Masters 1000 title’s worth of points in the bank.

The only even remotely comparable advantage Federer has this fall is his prowess on the predominant playing surface; he’s been by far the best player on indoor hard courts for many years now. And two of the biggest remaining events on the calendar will be fought out on indoor hard courts, the Paris Masters and the ATP World Tour Final. Federer is defending champ at both of those events; last year his record after the U.S. Open was 17-0. So even with that big lead, Djokovic has his work cut out.

One great thing about the coming weeks is that Federer and Djokovic play a schedule that is for all practical purposes identical. Each man is committed to four events, including the aforementioned Paris Masters and World Tour Finals. They will also both play next week’s Shanghai Masters.

Djokovic is already playing in China, in action this week in Beijing, an ATP 500-level tournament. Federer is cooling his jets until Shanghai, but he’s playing his hometown ATP 500 in Basel in a few weeks—an event Djokovic played last year (where he lost in the semifinals to Kei Nishikori), and where Federer is—surprise, surprise!—defending champ.

Much to the delight of tennis public relations folks, this competition for number one is guaranteed to be a two-man race; Rafael Nadal has pulled the plug on the year due to his injured knees, and Murray is just too far behind in the points race to elbow past the top two men. The Scotsman currently has accumulated 6,730 points in 2012—more than three thousand points behind Djokovic’s 9,910. If you’re counting at home, that’s a difference of about three Masters titles and change worth of points. So much for Murray, you might say.

But while Murray can’t win the race to the top, he can sure play kingmaker. And if you’ve been watching him at the Japan Open, you can see where he could become the spoiler for either Djokovic or Federer.

Murray advanced to the semifinals in Tokyo today, defeating the Federer surrogate, Stanislas Wawrinka, 6-2, 3-6, 6-2. Although Murray next faces the Ontario flamethrower Milos Raonic in the semis, whatever happens there won’t alter the obvious: Murray isn’t resting on the laurels he earned in New York. The win over Wawrinka was his 10th straight, and you could see that he isn’t feeling pressure. He’s feeling confident. That could spell trouble for Federer and Djokovic.

The third-ranked Scot has been nothing less than Federer-esque in the fall; he’s the defending champ in Tokyo (and with Berdych now out of the way thanks to local hero Nishikori, Murray’s chances of successfully defending have gone up) as well as Shanghai—the next outpost where he might find himself matched with either of the top two men.

Murray lost a tight quarterfinal to Berdych at the Paris Indoors in 2011, and he had to pull out of the World Tour Finals with an injury. Given that he’s gone from sympathetic also-ran to the savior of British tennis in the course of the last 12 months, you can assume that Murray will enjoy a palpable home-court advantage by the time the season-ender begins in London’s O2 Arena.

All this may complicate life for the top two, and introduce an element of uncertainty into their battle to finish atop the year-end rankings. In the head-to-heads, Djokovic leads Murray 8-7, but Murray has won the last two. Murray leads Federer, 9-8, but he’s won just once (at the London Olympics) in the past four tries. In any event, the numbers show just how much trouble both of the top players have with Murray more vividly than any comparison of their games or individual skills.

All this is excellent news for tennis, except in one way: Murray could be the kingmaker, the spoiler (the way he was when he prevented Federer from adding that Olympic singles gold medal to his resume), or—worst case but very possible scenario—the buzzkill.

If Murray keeps up his level of game, he could turn the Federer vs. Djokovic struggle for No. 1 into just a numbers game, something with all the sex appeal of actuarial tables. And it could become a “race” that isn’t resolved as we all hope, with face-to-face confrontations between the litigants—ideally, at the very end of the year, in the knockout portion of the World Tour Finals.

There’s no telling how all this will develop. What we do know is that the way Murray is playing, all the scenarios mentioned above are tenable. We have a Big Four now, but the old saw still holds true: Be careful what you wish for.