Melog Rankings: Pre-French Open 2016

The French Open should be interesting this year.

Well yeah, it's a Grand Slam. But even by Grand Slam standards...

For starters, Novak Djokovic is trying for the career Slam again - and this time, he also has a chance at the consecutive Slam (or contiguous Slam, if you prefer); if he takes Roland Garros, he'll hold all four Grand Slam titles at once, which hasn't been done (in men's singles, at least) since Rod Laver in 1969.

Djokovic has held the #1 ranking virtually unchallenged for the last two years, so you'd figure him to have an excellent shot at the French this year (which, to be fair, he does). But at the same time, the clay season has been considerably more topsy-turvy than has been the norm recently. The three clay court Masters events of 2016 were each won by a different player (Rafael Nadal, Djokovic, and Andy Murray, respectively); it's only the second time that's happened since Nadal emerged in 2005. Throw in the fact that Stan Wawrinka won the French last year, and things look rather unsettled in terms of how everyone is playing on the dirt right now.

That fact culminated a week ago in Rome, where Djokovic was defending a title he's won four times. Novak edged past Nadal in the quarterfinals, then won an even closer match with Kei Nishikori in the semis... and then lost the final to Murray in straight sets. It was Murray's first-ever win over Djokovic on clay, and it pairs nicely with his victory over Nadal in Madrid the previous week. Murray is more a factor on clay than he's ever been, and with the French Open draw putting Djokovic and Nadal on the same side again (for the third time in four years, with the only exception being 2014, when they were the top two seeds and had to be on opposite sides), Murray has a good chance at not just reaching the final, but facing a tired opponent once he gets there.

But we'll see how that plays out over the next two weeks. For now, here are the Melog ratings before the French begins.

	Player	Melog	Rank change (last update)	Melog change (last update)	Rank change (start of yr)	Melog change (start of yr)
1	Novak Djokovic	96.1	0	-7.6	0	-5.2
2	Andy Murray	59.7	1	2.6	0	-6.2
3	Roger Federer	55.0	-1	-5.7	0	-10.4
4	Rafael Nadal	43.8	0	-0.6	0	3.6
5	Stanislas Wawrinka	32.4	0	0.3	2	-0.2
6	Kei Nishikori	31.2	0	0.9	2	-0.4
7	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	23.7	0	-1.8	6	5.9
8	Richard Gasquet	22.0	1	-0.5	1	-3.6
9	David Goffin	21.9	1	-0.4	10	7.8
10	Tomas Berdych	21.7	-2	-2.2	-5	-14.8
11	Philipp Kohlschreiber	20.5	0	-1.2	5	4.8
12	Dominic Thiem	19.6	5	0.7	18	11.0
13	Gael Monfils	19.2	-1	-1.7	4	4.2
14	Marin Cilic	19.2	4	0.9	8	7.1
15	Milos Raonic	18.9	-1	-1.2	-5	0.0
16	Roberto Bautista Agut	18.4	-1	-1.2	-5	-0.2
17	Gilles Simon	18.1	-1	-1.2	-2	1.7
18	Nick Kyrgios	17.9	1	0.3	6	6.7
19	David Ferrer	17.1	-6	-3.4	-13	-17.0
20	John Isner	14.8	0	-2.2	-6	-2.0
21	Grigor Dimitrov	11.8	0	-1.5	0	-0.9
22	Kevin Anderson	11.7	0	-0.7	-10	-6.5
23	Jack Sock	11.1	2	-0.1	-3	-2.3
24	Pablo Cuevas	9.7	0	-1.9	16	3.3
25	Gilles Muller	9.4	2	-0.7	0	-1.7
26	Feliciano Lopez	9.2	0	-1.1	6	1.1
27	Fabio Fognini	9.2	-4	-3.1	12	2.5
28	Ivo Karlovic	8.7	0	-1.0	-10	-5.6
29	Albert Ramos	8.2	0	-1.1	7	0.8
30	Bernard Tomic	8.2	1	-0.2	-7	-3.1
31	Marcos Baghdatis	7.8	2	-0.2	10	1.8
32	Alexandr Dolgopolov	7.7	-2	-0.8	-1	-0.9
33	Jeremy Chardy	7.4	1	-0.5	-4	-1.3
34	Fernando Verdasco	7.4	-2	-0.9	-7	-1.9
35	Andrey Kuznetsov	7.2	3	-0.1	56	5.4
36	Guido Pella	6.5	0	-1.1	22	2.9
37	Steve Johnson	6.5	3	-0.6	-9	-2.5
38	Joao Sousa	6.5	-3	-1.2	4	0.9
39	Benoit Paire	6.3	0	-0.9	8	1.2
40	John Millman	5.9	5	-0.3	25	2.6
41	Pablo Carreno Busta	5.8	1	-0.5	27	2.8
42	Viktor Troicki	5.6	1	-0.6	-8	-2.0
43	Alexander Zverev	5.6	3	-0.1	41	3.4
44	Andreas Seppi	5.1	3	-0.3	-9	-2.3
45	Leonardo Mayer	5.1	-8	-2.2	-7	-1.6
46	Federico Delbonis	5.0	-2	-1.2	10	1.1
47	Paolo Lorenzi	4.7	-6	-1.9	28	2.0
48	Denis Istomin	4.5	8	0.0	5	0.3
49	Damir Dzumhur	4.5	11	0.3	45	2.7
50	Sam Querrey	4.3	0	-0.5	-7	-1.2
51	Kyle Edmund	4.3	3	-0.4	48	2.9
52	Guillermo Garcia Lopez	4.2	3	-0.5	-26	-5.3
53	Borna Coric	4.2	-1	-0.6	8	0.8
54	Lucas Pouille	4.1	4	-0.3	33	2.2
55	Marcel Granollers	4.1	4	-0.1	46	2.8
56	Jiri Vesely	4.1	-7	-0.8	-8	-0.7
57	Juan Monaco	4.1	5	0.0	-12	-1.1
58	Nicolas Almagro	3.9	-7	-0.9	-4	-0.2
59	Mikhail Kukushkin	3.8	-2	-0.7	8	0.7
60	Lukas Rosol	3.7	6	-0.1	-1	0.3
61	Thomaz Bellucci	3.7	-13	-1.6	-15	-1.5
62	Taylor Harry Fritz	3.7	3	-0.2	10	0.8
63	Ivan Dodig	3.6	1	-0.3	-11	-0.6
64	Adrian Mannarino	3.6	9	0.3	-13	-0.8
65	Pierre Hugues Herbert	3.6	3	-0.1	16	1.2
66	Carlos Berlocq	3.4	1	-0.3	5	0.5
67	Hyeon Chung	3.4	-14	-1.3	-34	-4.6
68	Ricardas Berankis	3.4	1	-0.2	25	1.6
69	Martin Klizan	3.3	3	-0.1	8	0.7
70	Yen Hsun Lu	3.3	-7	-0.7	-15	-0.7
71	Paul Henri Mathieu	3.0	9	0.0	14	1.0
72	Teymuraz Gabashvili	3.0	-11	-1.1	-23	-1.7
73	Illya Marchenko	2.9	3	-0.1	6	0.5
74	Denis Kudla	2.9	-3	-0.5	16	1.1
75	Dudi Sela	2.9	-5	-0.6	17	1.2

Novak falls about as far after Rome as he did after Monte Carlo, an event in which he lost in his first match rather than making the final. That speaks to how impressive his run was in Rome last year, including straight-sets victories over David Ferrer and Roger Federer, and a much more decisive win over Nishikori than he managed this time around.

In other words, Djokovic has slipped a little from his 2015 form - which is understandable, given that his 2015 is one of the greatest seasons of tennis that anyone has ever had. He's allowed a few stumbles now and again; I'm sure he'd just prefer that none of them happen in the next fortnight.

Meanwhile, Murray has passed Federer, and given that Roger just pulled out of the French (where he made the quarters last year), Andy seems likely to stay ahead of him for the foreseeable future. Indeed, depending on how Roland Garros plays out, Nadal may have a chance at leapfrogging Roger as well.

That brings us down to the defending champ; Wawrinka had a rough clay season until he won the Geneva title last week, but even that may not help much, as it's likely to have some fatigue-related ramifications. It'll be interesting to see what happens to Stan's ranking if he fails to defend the French title (which seems rather likely), as it would be one of the first times I've had a chance to update the Melog ratings after a Grand Slam title won by a player outside the Big Four drops out of the dataset.

Further down the list, Dominic Thiem's rating didn't change much (a Rome quarterfinal with a win over Federer, and a defense of his Nice title from last year), but movement around him allowed a 5-spot jump in the rankings, Given that Thiem lost his second-round match in Paris last year (something that his seeding makes much less likely this time around), and that several of the players ranked immediately ahead of him are defending substantial performances here (a semi from Tsonga, fourth rounds from Gasquet and Berdych), he may have a shot at joining the top 10 with a good run (his section of the draw provides the possibility of a fourth-round match with Nadal, and an upset there would help him considerably).

Speaking of further down, David Ferrer absorbed another loss to Lucas Pouille, and his descent from the top 10 appears likely to be permanent at this point. Tomas Berdych is right on the edge of joining him in that departure, and depending on how much he's leaning on last year's semifinal run, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga could drop as well.

But all of that is obviously pure speculation. So let's quit postulating, and get to the watching of the actual tennis that's being played as we speak.