Melog Rankings: Post-US Open 2016

So... that happened.

For now, I will leave aside any ruminations on what the recent US Open says about the participants' places in history; that discussion will be better served by a post about Slam Scores, which will be forthcoming within the next couple of weeks.

Instead, let's just see what Stan Wawrinka's third Slam championship means for the Melog ratings.

	Player	Melog	Rank change (last update)	Melog change (last update)	Rank change (start of yr)	Melog change (start of yr)
1	Novak Djokovic	77.8	0	-5.9	0	-23.6
2	Andy Murray	62.2	0	1.5	0	-3.6
3	Rafael Nadal	38.5	1	2.2	1	-1.8
4	Kei Nishikori	34.2	1	3.9	4	2.7
5	Stanislas Wawrinka	27.8	4	4.5	2	-4.8
6	Roger Federer	27.5	-3	-11.0	-3	-37.9
7	Milos Raonic	26.7	-1	-1.8	3	7.8
8	Gael Monfils	26.4	3	4.4	9	11.3
9	Marin Cilic	22.3	-1	-2.0	13	10.2
10	Tomas Berdych	22.2	-3	-2.1	-5	-14.3
11	Dominic Thiem	20.1	2	-0.3	19	11.4
12	Roberto Bautista Agut	19.9	0	-1.5	-1	1.3
13	David Goffin	19.3	-3	-3.3	6	5.2
14	Nick Kyrgios	18.2	0	-0.4	10	6.9
15	Jo Wilfried Tsonga	15.7	0	-1.8	-2	-2.1
16	David Ferrer	15.3	3	-0.3	-10	-18.9
17	John Isner	14.0	0	-2.2	-3	-2.8
18	Richard Gasquet	13.7	-2	-2.9	-9	-11.8
19	Philipp Kohlschreiber	13.7	-1	-2.5	-3	-2.1
20	Juan Martin Del Potro	12.5	5	3.2	84	11.4
21	Jack Sock	11.9	-1	0.5	-1	-1.4
22	Pablo Cuevas	10.4	-1	-0.6	18	4.0
23	Grigor Dimitrov	10.2	-1	0.1	-2	-2.5
24	Fernando Verdasco	9.5	0	-0.3	3	0.2
25	Bernard Tomic	9.3	2	0.1	-2	-1.9
26	Gilles Simon	9.3	3	0.6	-11	-7.1
27	Steve Johnson	9.1	-4	-0.8	1	0.1
28	Gilles Muller	8.8	0	0.0	-3	-2.3
29	Marcos Baghdatis	7.7	7	1.0	12	1.7
30	Alexander Zverev	7.6	1	-0.4	54	5.4
31	Guido Pella	7.4	1	-0.5	27	3.7
32	Ivo Karlovic	7.0	3	0.2	-14	-7.2
33	Andrey Kuznetsov	6.9	1	-0.5	58	5.1
34	Feliciano Lopez	6.8	-8	-2.5	-2	-1.3
35	John Millman	6.8	4	0.4	30	3.5
36	Fabio Fognini	6.7	-6	-1.9	3	0.1
37	Albert Ramos	6.4	-4	-1.2	-1	-1.0
38	Sam Querrey	6.2	-1	-0.3	5	0.7
39	Lucas Pouille	5.9	17	2.0	48	3.9
40	Mikhail Youzhny	5.9	12	1.8	146	6.1
41	Kyle Edmund	5.7	7	1.2	58	4.3
42	Carlos Berlocq	5.5	-4	-0.9	29	2.6
43	Pablo Carreno Busta	5.3	-1	0.0	25	2.3
44	Borna Coric	4.9	-4	-0.8	17	1.5
45	Yen Hsun Lu	4.5	9	0.5	10	0.5
46	Nicolas Mahut	4.4	12	0.7	52	2.9
47	Guido Andreozzi	4.2	-1	-0.3	92	4.0
48	Daniel Evans	4.2	17	1.1	59	3.1
49	Viktor Troicki	4.2	-8	-1.2	-15	-3.4
50	Federico Delbonis	4.1	-1	-0.2	6	0.2
51	Jeremy Chardy	4.0	-7	-1.0	-22	-4.8
52	Jan Lennard Struff	3.9	20	1.2	53	2.7
53	Marcel Granollers	3.9	-8	-0.8	48	2.6
54	Paolo Lorenzi	3.8	20	1.2	21	1.1
55	Diego Sebastian Schwartzman	3.8	7	0.5	27	1.5
56	Kevin Anderson	3.8	-13	-1.5	-44	-14.4
57	Nicolas Almagro	3.7	-6	-0.4	-3	-0.4
58	Jiri Vesely	3.7	-11	-0.8	-10	-1.1
59	Taylor Harry Fritz	3.6	5	0.5	13	0.7
60	Illya Marchenko	3.4	13	0.7	19	1.0
61	Joao Sousa	3.4	10	0.6	-19	-2.2
62	Adrian Mannarino	3.3	-12	-0.9	-11	-1.2
63	Radek Stepanek	3.1	3	0.1	56	2.4
64	Ivan Dodig	3.0	-7	-0.8	-12	-1.2
65	Juan Monaco	3.0	-2	-0.2	-20	-2.2
66	Dudi Sela	2.9	4	0.1	26	1.2
67	Martin Klizan	2.8	-12	-1.1	10	0.1
68	Andreas Seppi	2.7	-9	-0.9	-33	-4.8
69	Gastao Elias	2.6	-2	-0.3	77	2.5
70	Mikhail Kukushkin	2.6	-17	-1.4	-3	-0.5
71	Guillermo Garcia Lopez	2.6	-11	-0.8	-45	-7.0
72	Alexandr Dolgopolov	2.6	7	0.2	-41	-6.1
73	Thomaz Bellucci	2.4	-12	-1.0	-27	-2.8
74	Benoit Paire	2.3	-5	-0.4	-27	-2.8
75	Dustin Brown	2.3	5	0.0	47	1.7

Stan obviously benefits pretty substantially, having the largest rating increase of the week - though not necessarily by a vast margin; his jump is nearly matched by those of Gael Monfils and Kei Nishikori, and Nishikori maintains his lead on Stan in the overall ratings.

Why? Remember, we're looking at the last 52 weeks, and so when a Slam is played, the change in ratings reflects not just what the player did this year, but what he did last year. In the 2015 US Open, Wawrinka made the semis and lost to Roger Federer - a fine result, though obviously not as good as a title.

Nishikori and Monfils were both knocked out in the first round of last year's US Open - Nishikori in a five-set match with Benoit Paire (in which he held match points), and Monfils by withdrawal after splitting the first two sets and falling behind 0-5 in the third to Illya Marchenko (who seems to be making a habit of coaxing injuries from mercurial top talents at the US Open, as Nick Kyrgios met the same fate against Marchenko in this year's round of 32). Both men made the semis this year - Nishikori via upset over Andy Murray, and Monfils without loss of a set until he ran into Djokovic. Melog sees both of those improvements as nearly the equal of Stan's, and justifiably so.

And then... there are the declines. Roger Federer, of course, made the final in 2015 (losing a tight match to Djokovic), and did not play this year; his tumble through the rankings is not yet complete, as he still has a title in Basel and a 4-1 showing at the World Tour Finals from last year that will vanish over the next couple of months. There are no shortage of other declines as well, but the biggest one apart from Federer's comes at the top of the rankings.

Novak Djokovic won the US Open last year, and lost in the final this year. That's not the sort of change that would usually result in this large of a decline in Melog - so what's the deal?

Last year's US Open was a vintage performance from Djokovic. He completed his seven victories in only 24 sets. The last five of his triumphs were over players ranked in the ATP's top 25, including a crushing of #9 Marin Cilic in the semis (Cilic had turned an ankle in his quarterfinal match, but Melog doesn't know that) and a solid win over #2 Federer in the final.

This year was... different. Djokovic dropped a set to Jerzy Janowicz in the first round, which I took as a troubling sign; it was very difficult to tell if that interpretation was correct, because the World #1 went essentially untested for the next several rounds. He received a walkover in the second round, and the next best thing in the third (his opponent withdrew before the first set was complete). In the fourth round, Djokovic drew Kyle Edmund, who was coming off of upsets against Richard Gasquet and John Isner, but was not at all up to Djokovic's test. The quarterfinals saw another injury withdrawal (Novak took the first two sets from Tsonga before the Frenchman pulled out). A solid win over Monfils put Novak in the final, which, of course, he lost to #3 Wawrinka.

In both years, Djokovic entered the final having dropped only two sets. But in 2015, his set record was 18-2; this year, it was 11-2. Add in the defeat in this year's final, and Djokovic's overall set record dropped from 21-3 to 12-5. It's not Novak's fault that he was the beneficiary of injuries; he can only beat the opponents in front of him. But it's also fair to say that his path to the semifinals was less challenging than, say, Nishikori's, and Melog reflects that

With Andy Murray having improved incrementally on last year's disappointing result (he lost a round later this time, and to a better opponent in a closer match), the gap at the top of the rankings narrows once more. And yet, Djokovic still most likely improved his odds of finishing at the top of the rankings, because Murray almost certainly needed to outplay him at this event, and did not.

But there's still tennis to be played in 2016, and the next bit of it is coming up this week, as the Davis Cup semifinals pit Murray's British squad against Argentina and Juan Martin del Potro (whose quarterfinal run boosts him back into the top 20 this week). Then it's off to Europe for a pair of small events, followed by the beginning of the three-week Asian swing. We'll be back near the beginning of October to see what changes have taken place over the next fortnight and a half, and how the year-end rankings look to be shaping up.