New Career-High World Ranking for Andy Murray: 9

With the French Open completed and Nadal narrowing the gap between himself and Federer (still over 2000 points between them), it would have been easy to miss the bizarre fact that Andy Murray has just moved up to 9th in the ATP World Rankings - his highest world ranking to date.

Bizarre, because Andy Murray hasn't played a competitive match for weeks.

Here's how it happened...

Andy Murray was slightly fortunate that his injury occurred during a period when - 12 months ago - he picked up very few victories. As a consequence, although he hasn't been able to pick up any additional ranking points, he also hasn't lost very many. He lost enough to move him from 10th place to 11th place, but that's all so far.

Then we come to...

Ivan Ljubicic got to the third round of the French Open this year - the trouble is, last year he got to the semi-finals. The result? Ljubicic loses a massive 375 ranking points; enough for him to drop five places in the world rankings, taking him out of the top ten and below Andy Murray.

This should have pushed Andy Murray up to tenth, except that...

Tommy Haas reached the 2nd round of Roland Garros in 2006, picking up 35 points. But, like Murray, he had to withdraw from the 2007 tournament through injury, so those points have now gone.

Combined with some other lost ranking points for Haas, it was enough for Murray to leapfrog the German and settle in his new career best of ninth place.

Of course this could all change if Murray doesn't recover in time to play at Wimbledon. Withdrawing from Queens hasn't cost Murray any ranking points as his first round exit last year put it in the 'non-countable' section - but withdrawing from Wimbledon will cost a massive 150 points and push him back down to 11th.

Ok - so it's not the end of the world and, if some higher ranked players don't repeat their performance from last year's Wimbledon, we could see a simiar yo-yo effect in the rankings again.

And there's more...

James Blake is ranked 8th, but is only 25 ranking points ahead of Murray. Last year Blake reached the final of the Stella Artois (Queens) tournament, netting him 155 points.

If Blake fails to match this performance, then Murray could move up again!

Imagine Murray reaching 8th place in the World Rankings (his minimum target for the end of this season) in time for Wimbledon, only to be unable to play through injury.

I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry!

For a more detailed discussion of the tennis ATP World Rankings - Click Here.