It seems that Roger Federer has “chosen” the best year to take a long hiatus after his double operation to his knee. In 2020, tennis has been uniquely disrupted by the Coronavirus pandemic and therefore the ATP has taken a bold and necessary step to adjust the ranking system. The new system takes into consideration the 18 best results over a period that stretches from March 2019 to December 2020. Usually, the ranking system considers the results of the previous 52 weeks. However, with the cancellation of many tournaments in 2020 and the uncertainty about what is going to happen in the next few months, the ATP had to adapt.
Federer
Roger Federer will benefit a lot in terms of rankings since he won’t be back to competitions at least until January 2021. That means that he will keep most of the precious points that he has achieved in 2019 and he wasn’t able to defend because of his physical condition. Some examples are the points pocketed in Miami (1000), Indian Wells (600), Halle (500), Basel (500), Wimbledon (1200), and Roland Garros (720) just to name a few.
Interestingly enough, with the new system, Roger would qualify for the ATP Finals even if he practically skipped the entire season.
What else?
Roger Federer in 2020
Currently ranked no.4, Roger played his last match on the 30th of January when he surrendered to Novak Djokovic 7-61 6-4 6-3 in the semifinal of the Australian Open.
Roger Federer’s best result of the year was reaching the semi-finals at the Australian Open.
