How Rafael Nadal can finish on top of tennis in 2022

Rafael Nadal has had a very strong year so far, but the 2022 season might even get better for him if he keeps playing at a very high level.

The last time Nadal played was at Wimbledon and he reached the semi-final in London. An injury forced him to withdraw ahead of the clash against Nick Kyrgios, but he's shown once again that his level is very high at the moment.

He is hopeful to continue that trend as the season goes on and he will have a good chance to do that if he avoids injuries and his injured foot doesn't bother him in the remainder of the season.

The Spaniard is currently ranked third in the world behind Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev with a very decent chance to make his ranking even better. How?

Due to the fact that he barely played in the second half last year, he doesn't defend too many points, far less than his top opponents for the World No. 1 spot. In fact, he only defends 545 points.

Thanks to that, Nadal might end up as the year-end No. 1 player if things go a certain way. All other players in The top 10 are defending a lot more points than Nadal and if he can win a couple of events, he could easily end up on top of tennis.

Medvedev, for example, has 5,200 points to defend in the remainder of the season, which is the vast majority of his points, while Zverev will still defend 4,150 points, which is over half of his points.

If Nadal outplays both of them, he could easily finish above them in the rankings, which would mean that Nadal would be on top of tennis one more time.

ATP Top 10 - Points left to defend in 2022: