Nadal should be sinking in the ATP tour rankings soon.

Rafael Nadal's looks like he will be out of tennis for about 4 weeks.  As far as the tour schedule goes for the ATP, that means he will not be playing tennis until Indian Wells in March.

There are no major tournaments during the month of February on the men's tour however and if there was a time to get injured, February can't be considered to be the worst time.  The only tournaments that are played are at the 250 and 500 level, meaning there aren't a lot of tour ranking points up for grabs, especially since top players like Nadal usually only bother with the Master Series tournaments or the Grand Slams.

But even so, Nadal still has a ton of ranking points to defend before the French Open and based on his recent play it looks as though Nadal could start sliding down the ATP ranks soon in a big way.

Look at these results from early 2009 that will need to be duplicated in the upcoming months if Nadal wants to retain his ranking:

Indian Wells 2009: 1st place, 1000 ranking points to defend.

Miami 2009: quarterfinalist, 180 ranking points to defend.

Monte Carlo 2009: 1st place, 1000 ranking points to defend.

Rome 2009: 1st place, 1000 ranking points to defend.

Madrid 2009: Runner-up, 600 ranking points to defend.

Whereas Nadal earned 3780 ranking points in the above five events in 2009, he might only be looking at protecting about half of those in 2010.  However, even half might be a little bit generous given that Nadal hasn't beaten anyone better than Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a long, long time now.

Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic are both certainly poised to pass Nadal in the rankings soon and if Juan Martin Del Potro starts playing motivated tennis again, he should pass Nadal as well.

Cilic is coming off of a career best Slam result and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is also showing strength on tour with his semifinal result.  Those are two players that might pass Nadal in the rankings in the longer term and there are others as well that could threaten Nadal's ranking.

By the time the French Open rolls around, Nadal might realistically be looking at a ranking of 5th on tour and his status as a favorite at Roland Garros is very questionable.

My recommendation is to avoid Nadal like the plague in all matches and futures until his ranking stabilizes and we get a better idea of what kind of player he is going to be this season.  Right now he looks like he might be the 8th or 9th ranked player on tour when the ATP World Tour Finals roll around.

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