Homeboy Federer Clenches Year-End No. 1

Roger Federer defeated Jarkko Nieminen 6-4, 6-3 in the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in his hometown of Basel. By defending the title, Federer clenched the year-end No. 1 ranking for the fourth consecutive year.

Fans are speculating that he will now withdraw from the BNP Paribas Masters which began play today. I'm going to go against the trend and say he'll still play in Paris in order to add some ranking points, since he'll be defending a slew of points in Shanghai and Melbourne. With the gap between he and Nadal closing little by little, he'll want to extend his lead in the rankings to have a cushion should he falter in Shanghai or Melbourne.

Another fan speculated that if he withdraws from Paris, he'll be a coward. Facing arguably his toughest draw on paper of any big event this year, he'll play the winner of St. Petersburg finalist Fernando Verdasco (pictured below) and Ivo Karlovic in his first match, and possibly Madrid champion David Nalbandian in the round of 16. His quarterfinal would likely be against No. 12 seed Tomas Berdych, with No. 3 seed Novak Djokovic or No. 15 seed Andy Murray, who just won the St. Petersburg Open (below), awaiting in the semifinal.

Stay tuned.