Federer will replace Nadal as world No. 1 (Picture: Getty)

Rafael Nadal will lose his world No. 1 ranking to Roger Federer on Monday – despite the Swiss not playing a single minute on clay.

The Spaniard saw his 21-match winning streak on his favoured surface halted by Dominic Thiem in the quarter-finals at the Madrid Open and as a result of failing to defend his title, he slipped behind the 36-year-old on the ATP leaderboard.

Though Nadal was frustrated by the defeat to Thiem, he admitted he knew his time at world No. 1 would be coming to an end soon enough, having failed to compete a tournament in five months prior to the clay season.



‘You cannot be No. 1 five months without competing,’ he said after the 5-7 3-6 loss to the fifth seed. ‘Of course, this is the ATP ranking. We’re not talking about something that you have maybe some more margin.


Nadal was beaten by Thiem (Picture: AFP/Getty)

‘I think from Shanghai till Monte-Carlo, I hadn’t finished a single tournament. We’re talking about a lot of months that I gave up.

‘If we were talking about the ranking of one year, if I played really good in one period of the year, which I’ve done, let’s be clear, I have been playing really good recently. Last year I made it to the finals in every single tournament. This year till now I had only one or two tournaments that I had played. This is the reality of this year.

‘Five months without playing in a tournament means that I cannot be No. 1. I’m not even thinking about that. I’m not going to keep the No. 1 today. At the end of the year we will see what happens.

Nadal lost the top ranking (Picture: NurPhoto via Getty Images)

‘But I think from January till Monte-Carlo I played zero tournaments. These are three months or more given away. This is a lot of months given away to the other players.

‘Having said this, I think I placed myself in a good position more or less. I am No. 3 in the race of the year, which is the most important thing. I still have two good weeks on clay, and then I’ll keep on moving forward. This is the reality.

‘Talking about No. 1, of course I prefer to be No. 1 than 2, and No. 3 than 5. I have said this a million times. I lost the No. 1 before, but what makes me happy is I feel fit, can compete with possibilities every single week. This is my final goal: to be happy. That’s what I’m working on.’