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There is only one big tournament left for Nadal to win and that is the ATP World Tour Finals. This is where the eight highest ranked players of the year play a round-robin structure that leads to a semi-final and then a final. The usual problem for Nadal is that:

1: It is in the end of the season when his body is tired
2: It is played indoors (which makes for faster conditions)

This might not be such a problem in 2010 though as Nadal looks pretty fresh still and managed to win the US Open with only dropping one set on his path to the trophy. He has also managed to improve his serve a great deal and is trying to stand more inside the court and take the ball earlier. In short he is a better hard court player than he ever was before.

So should we put Nadal as the favorite for the ATP World Tour Finals in the end of November then? Yes, we very much should. By winning the last three slams he has proven to be almost unbeatable this year and if he keeps on improving he will be this good on indoor courts as well.

Nadal himself says that the best thing to learn from Roger Federer is that during his career he has always improved and always worked hard to become even better, a trait they both have in common. It is not enough just to sit back and enjoy being number one in the world, you have to work really hard all the time because the competition is always trying to get you. Both Nadal and Federer have realized that and this is why I think these two players will have outperformed tennis history by more than a racket length when they put their shoes on the shelf and the fantastic Fedal era is over.

We should just hope that we still have several years more to enjoy it.