Novak Djokovic Has Odds of 4/5 To Finish 2017 as Top Ranked Tennis Player

Published on December 29th, 2016 8:47 pm EST
The main storyline in tennis on the men's side of things in 2017 will be the ongoing battle between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.

In 2016, Murray mounted a ferocious attack on Djokovic's #1 ranking in the second half of the year, finally catching the long-time #1 ranked player in the last quarter of the year. This was a very big deal, as Djokovic's stranglehold on the men's tennis world has been formidable over the past couple of years.

Many people attribute Djokovic's fall-off in 2016 to "personal issues" that reportedly plagued him earlier in the year. Djokovic was frequently out of sync this year and was dispatched early from a number of tournaments.

Murray, on the other hand, seized on the opportunity and was practically unbeatable.

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The Australian Open, which Djokovic has dominated over the course of his career, is just around the corner.

After a gruelling slog of a year in 2016, pros like Djokovic, Murray and Federer will set out on another tour. Most everybody expects that Djokovic and Murray will be battling it out for the #1 ranking all year, though others such as Wawrinka and Raonic will have something to say about that.

As you can imagine, Murray and Djokovic are the two odds-in favourites to finish 2017 as the #1 ranked player in all of men's tennis. Here are their odds:

Novak Djokovic, 4/5
Andy Murray, 5/4

As you can see, oddsmakers expect that Djokovic will likely be the #1 player by the end of 2017, though the odds are incredibly close. So close, in fact, that it is basically a coin flip.

Here are the other players that have 100/1 or better odds of finishing 2017 as the world's #1 ranked player:

Stan Wawrinka, 25/1
Milos Raonic, 25/1
Juan Martin del Potro, 40/1
Kei Nishikori, 50/1
Roger Federer, 33/1
Rafael Nadal, 33/1

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Will Djokovic be able to rebound from the issues that plagued him in 2016? Will Murray be able to continue his momentum? Will somebody else step up to throw a wrench into the works?