Melog Rankings: Post-Madrid 2016

And order was restored to the universe.

Three weeks ago, the Monte Carlo Masters saw Novak Djokovic absorb his first loss to a player ranked outside the top 50 in five and a half years. As a result, Djokovic decided to play Madrid last week, an event that he has sometimes skipped in the past - and he won it, rather easily, beating quality clay opponents such as Kei Nishikori and Andy Murray along the way.

The last three weeks also saw another return to normalcy, as Rafael Nadal reclaimed the Barcelona title that he'd long dominated, but which had eluded him for the last two years. The title match came against Nishikori, who continues to be established as one of the world's best clay court players.

Lower down in the rankings... well, let's just say there's a lot going on at all levels, and get to the table.

	Player	Melog	Rank change (last update)	Melog change (last update)	Rank change (start of yr)	Melog change (start of yr)
1	Novak Djokovic	103.7	0	6.7	0	2.4
2	Roger Federer	60.7	1	-0.6	1	-4.7
3	Andy Murray	57.0	-1	-4.9	-1	-8.8
4	Rafael Nadal	44.4	0	3.8	0	4.2
5	Stanislas Wawrinka	32.1	0	-0.1	2	-0.5
6	Kei Nishikori	30.3	0	-1.1	2	-1.2
7	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	25.6	1	0.7	6	7.8
8	Tomas Berdych	23.9	1	-0.5	-3	-12.6
9	Richard Gasquet	22.5	-2	-2.6	0	-3.1
10	David Goffin	22.3	1	-0.7	9	8.2
11	Philipp Kohlschreiber	21.8	3	0.3	5	6.0
12	Gael Monfils	20.9	1	-0.6	5	5.8
13	David Ferrer	20.6	-1	-1.6	-7	-13.6
14	Milos Raonic	20.1	1	0.7	-4	1.2
15	Roberto Bautista Agut	19.6	-5	-3.5	-4	1.1
16	Gilles Simon	19.3	3	1.1	-1	2.8
17	Dominic Thiem	18.9	3	1.1	13	10.3
18	Marin Cilic	18.2	-1	-0.4	4	6.2
19	Nick Kyrgios	17.6	-1	-0.6	5	6.3
20	John Isner	17.0	-4	-2.4	-6	0.2
21	Grigor Dimitrov	13.4	0	-1.7	0	0.6
22	Kevin Anderson	12.4	1	0.3	-10	-5.8
23	Fabio Fognini	12.2	3	2.7	16	5.6
24	Pablo Cuevas	11.5	0	0.2	16	5.2
25	Jack Sock	11.2	-3	-1.0	-5	-2.2
26	Feliciano Lopez	10.3	2	1.1	6	2.2
27	Gilles Muller	10.1	0	0.9	-2	-1.0
28	Ivo Karlovic	9.7	-3	0.1	-10	-4.5
29	Albert Ramos	9.3	7	1.9	7	1.9
30	Alexandr Dolgopolov	8.5	-1	-0.2	1	-0.1
31	Bernard Tomic	8.4	-1	-0.1	-8	-2.9
32	Fernando Verdasco	8.3	2	0.8	-5	-1.0
33	Marcos Baghdatis	8.0	-2	-0.3	8	2.0
34	Jeremy Chardy	7.9	1	0.5	-5	-0.8
35	Joao Sousa	7.6	4	0.7	7	2.1
36	Guido Pella	7.6	6	1.2	22	4.0
37	Leonardo Mayer	7.3	1	0.2	1	0.6
38	Andrey Kuznetsov	7.3	2	0.5	53	5.5
39	Benoit Paire	7.2	4	1.1	8	2.1
40	Steve Johnson	7.2	-3	-0.2	-12	-1.8
41	Paolo Lorenzi	6.6	5	0.9	34	3.9
42	Pablo Carreno Busta	6.4	7	1.1	26	3.4
43	Viktor Troicki	6.3	4	0.6	-9	-1.4
44	Federico Delbonis	6.2	6	1.0	12	2.3
45	John Millman	6.1	0	0.2	20	2.9
46	Alexander Zverev	5.6	6	0.7	38	3.5
47	Andreas Seppi	5.4	1	0.0	-12	-2.1
48	Thomaz Bellucci	5.3	-7	-1.2	-2	0.1
49	Jiri Vesely	4.8	7	0.4	-1	0.1
50	Sam Querrey	4.8	4	0.1	-7	-0.7
51	Nicolas Almagro	4.8	19	1.4	3	0.7
52	Borna Coric	4.8	6	0.4	9	1.4
53	Hyeon Chung	4.7	-21	-3.4	-20	-3.3
54	Kyle Edmund	4.7	22	1.5	45	3.3
55	Guillermo Garcia Lopez	4.7	-22	-3.4	-29	-4.8
56	Denis Istomin	4.5	3	0.2	-3	0.4
57	Mikhail Kukushkin	4.5	0	0.1	10	1.4
58	Lucas Pouille	4.4	11	0.9	29	2.4
59	Marcel Granollers	4.2	-6	-0.5	42	2.9
60	Damir Dzumhur	4.1	14	0.9	34	2.4
61	Teymuraz Gabashvili	4.1	-17	-1.9	-12	-0.6
62	Juan Monaco	4.0	-7	-0.4	-17	-1.1
63	Yen Hsun Lu	3.9	2	0.1	-8	0.0
64	Ivan Dodig	3.9	9	0.5	-12	-0.4
65	Taylor Harry Fritz	3.8	2	0.1	7	1.0
66	Lukas Rosol	3.8	-15	-1.4	-7	0.4
67	Carlos Berlocq	3.8	8	0.6	4	0.9
68	Pierre Hugues Herbert	3.7	-4	-0.2	13	1.3
69	Ricardas Berankis	3.5	2	0.1	24	1.8
70	Dudi Sela	3.5	10	0.6	22	1.8
71	Denis Kudla	3.5	13	0.9	19	1.7
72	Martin Klizan	3.5	-10	-0.5	5	0.8
73	Adrian Mannarino	3.3	-10	-0.7	-22	-1.1
74	Mischa Zverev	3.1	5	0.2	22	1.5
75	Vasek Pospisil	3.1	-7	-0.5	-31	-2.1

Murray slips behind Federer again in the #2 spot. Federer didn't do much to pass him (he didn't play at all in the last three weeks, although the dropping of last year's Istanbul title doesn't hurt him much, because his level of play in that event was actually pretty unimpressive), and Murray's effort in Madrid this year isn't that much different from last year (title vs. loss to Djokovic in final). The difference, then, is Murray's decision not to defend last year's title in Munich, which featured solid wins over Roberto Bautista Agut and Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Speaking of Kohlschreiber, Murray's absence opened up the Munich title for him this year, and he took full advantage, securing the crown with solid wins over Juan Martin del Potro, Fabio Fognini, and Dominic Thiem. The effort puts him right on the verge of joining the Melog top 10, and since his ATP ranking is currently in the mid-20's, he's in good position to not draw first-round matches against the two best grass court players in the world when the tour moves to his favorite surface in a month. I suspect he's not done climbing just yet.

Bautista Agut, meanwhile, tumbles sharply this time, thanks to an injury that led to a bad first round loss in Barcelona and forced him to pull out of Munich. He's far from the only player who fell pretty hard over the last three weeks; Guillermo Garcia Lopez worsened his results in both Bucharest (title to semifinal) and Estoril (semi to quarter) as compared to last year, and drops 22 spots as a result. Hyeon Chung, meanwhile, utterly dominated his home Challenger in Busan last year, taking the title without dropping a set; this year, he lost in the first round, and falls almost exactly as far as Garcia Lopez.

One of the players who passed Garcia Lopez was Kyle Edmund, which is at least slightly amusing because Garcia Lopez just dismissed Edmund from Bucharest in straight sets. Of course, there's an entire year's worth of results to consider for both players, and Edmund's results now include a run to the Rome Challenger title in which he won more sets 6-0 (two) than he lost by any score (one). It's Edmund's fourth Challenger title in the last 12 months, and they're split evenly between clay and hard courts, showing a level of diversity that's never a bad sign in a 21-year-old.

Also leaping roughly 20 spots is the considerably older Nicolas Almagro, whose return from injury culminated in his capture of the Estoril title two weeks ago. Almagro defeated four seeded players on the way to that title (most notably Nick Kyrgios in the semis). It's worth pointing out that he's still not what he once was; losses to Teymuraz Gabashvili and Borna Coric in other recent clay events drive that point home quite nicely. But he's at least a threat to make a run in any clay event once more.

Suffice it to say, it's been a lively clay season so far - and it's likely to continue that way, with the Rome Masters this week. Last year's event saw semifinal appearances from Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Stan Wawrinka, and David Ferrer. With Novak being drawn in the same quarter as Nadal, and the other three players looking like significant question marks right now, it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for this year's semis to be composed of completely different players.

Regardless of how Rome plays out, we'll check back in right before the French Open starts and see how things look in advance of Djokovic's umpteenth attempt to secure the career Slam (and, in this case, the contiguous Slam as well).