Leading men of tennis staging 2009 finale

Usually, I love my tennis players in shorts all hot and sweaty. But the top pros sure do clean up well – especially Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal!

The top two players in the world, who have won 21 grand slam singles titles between them, are in London this week for the year-end championships of a tennis season that is much, much too long. Both men have taken long breaks during the season due to injury with Nadal having to skip the chance to defend his French Open and Wimbledon titles – both won by Federer this year.

What makes this tournament- which began earlier today with round-robin play – a little more important is that if Nadal wins the thing, he will regain the number one ranking that Federer snatched back from him this summer. Tbey have finished as the top two players every year since 2005.

But neither is a shoo-in to win the title in London. Serbian star Novak Djokovic (pictured below, front row second from left) is the number three player and beat both Federer and Nadal in recent weeks to capture the tour titles in Switzerland and France. Also in the field is US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro (back row, far left) who has established himself among the game’s most elite.

The rest of the field includes British player Andy Murray who has played both outstanding and lousy this year, Spanish player Fernando Verdasco, Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko’s and Sweden’s Robin Soderling, the 2009 French Open runner up.

America’s top player, Andy Roddick, qualified for the tournament’s eight-man field but pulled out due to injury. I don’t think Nadal is in good enough form to win so Federer should be assured of finishing the year as number one but I wouldn’t put money on him winning either.

I think this tournament will belong to defending champion Djokovic who seems like the only top player who is not burned out right now!