Further down is an individual breakdown of each player's chances.
MAPPING OUT THE RACE
A player needs to cash in an awful lot of points to earn a trip to Shanghai. Last year, Guillermo Coria finished No. 8 going into the event with 438 points, though subsequent withdrawals meant that even No. 11 Fernando Gonzalez, with 358 points, got a chance to play.
At the moment, Marcos Baghdatis, who is currently No. 8 and in line for the last Shanghai spot, has 369 points. A title at Madrid or Paris is worth 100; a title at one of the 11 other remaining events is worth between 35 and 50 points. A really busy player could perhaps earn 300 more points by the end of the year, meaning that, in theory, everyone down to about No. 70 could still get it. In practice, we can be serious. No. 70 isn't going to qualify for the Masters Cup, and neither is No. 50.
There's no real chance even that No. 30 will do so, since the bar will move upward when Baghdatis and the others play this fall.
As a good general rule, anyone not within 150 points of Baghdatis is in the "Needs a Miracle" list. A big miracle. Our only serious candidates are the players down to No. 17.
But not all points are created equal. The best are the ones earned at a Masters Series or Grand Slam event – players can take those to the bank, because they count no matter what.
Then there are the normal tour events, and top players can only count five of them towards their points total (their best five). This turns out to be quite significant, because Roger Federer usually ends up with about five of those events -- right on the line, just like so many of his shots – but Nikolay Davydenko plays about fifteen each year.
That means for Federer, every event he plays counts towards his ranking. But Davydenko has results from about ten events per year which just get thrown out. (He does get to pocket the prize money from all of them, of course.) So it's much harder for a guy like Davydenko to move up in the race to Shanghai than for a guy like Federer or David Nalbandian. When Davydenko plays a normal tour event, he has to subtract another event out before he can add to his total. Federer doesn't.
And points from challengers? Forget it. They don't count in the race to Shanghai at all. (In case you were wondering, this is why the rankings and the "Champions Race," which measures the race to Shanghai, don't exactly match at the end of the year.) That doesn't affect the top players, but there are a few lower-down players who are affected a little -- Dmitry Tursunov, for instance, won the Sunrise Challenger in March, and Olivier Rochus won Orleans just a couple of weeks ago -- but they can't count those points in the Race.
What all this adds up to is that some players have a better chance to qualify than others, just based on the mix of events they've played this year.
Tommy Haas, for instance, earned 162 of his 318 Race points at normal tour events -- over 50%. His only real chance to improve his total is at Madrid or Paris. That almost certainly means he has to win one of those two events to qualify. At the other extreme we have Federer, with only 10% of his points from normal tour events, and Nalbandian, with 11%. Of the players who are on the bubble, it's easiest for Nalbandian to add points.
Others with lots of room to add points at normal tour events are Nadal (18%, though he's clinched, so it doesn't matter), Baghdatis (19%), and Roddick (19%). Those with very little room are, in addition to Haas(51%), are Hewitt (42%), Nieminen (41%), Murray (40%), Blake (40%), and Davydenko (39%).
HANDICAPPING THE FIELD
The other factor, naturally, is how well each player does from here on in. Those who are good on indoor surfaces stand a better chance of qualifying than those who aren't.
Taking all that into account, this is how things look:
1. Roger Federer – He's in.
2. Rafael Nadal – He's in too.
3.Andy Roddick – Hasn't formally qualified, but he's a lock.
4. Ivan Ljubicic – Mark him down, too, especially since he likes indoor surfaces -- note that he made both Masters finals last year.
5. Nikolay Davydenko – He's pretty full on points from normal tour events, and he likes slower surfaces, and he ended up not being ready to play in Davis Cup. Despite that, though, his chances look pretty good.
6. Tommy Robredo – With two other guys within five points of him, and five within 40 points of him, he is by no means secure, especially since he prefers slower surfaces.
7. David Nalbandian – Good all-around player, with lots of room to add points.
Probably has a better chance than Robredo.
8. Marcos Baghdatis – His chances looked pretty good until he hurt himself; he has lots of room to add points. But if he's forced to take three weeks off, it will hurt his chances. And he doesn't have much indoor experience.
9. James Blake – Given how many points from normal tour events he has, he'll have to do it at Madrid or Paris if he's going to qualify. His decision to play several more normal tour events this fall looks a bit silly in that context; he'll wear himself out without earning many points.
10. Mario Ancic – He's some 25 points behind Blake, and 30 behind Baghdatis, but he has more room to go up and is still in the hunt.
11. Tommy Haas – Needs to win a Masters to have a shot.
12. David Ferrer – Almost a hundred points behind Baghdatis, and his native surface is clay. Doesn't look good.
13. Fernando Gonzalez – Also a long way back, and not much of a track record on indoor surfaces.
14. Radek Stepanek – Probably out for the rest of the year, but is more than 100 points behind Baghdatis and wouldn't have a good chance of making it even if he was playing.
15. Lleyton Hewitt – Hurt, and not much room to add points unless he makes a big run at Madrid or Paris. No real chance.
16. Jarkko Nieminen – Again, won't have much chance to add a lot to his points total unless he can go deep at Madrid or Paris.
17. Tomas Berdych – Over 100 points off the pace, but he did win Paris last year, so he can do well indoors.
18. Andy Murray – Lots of room to add points. Not much indoor experience, but he did reach the final of Bangkok last year and has been improving fast.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Federer, Nadal, Roddick, Ljubicic, and Davydenko are just about certain to play. The other three spots will probably be contested by Nalbandian, Robredo, Blake, Ancic, and Baghdatis (in roughly that order of probability), with Berdych the leading "dark horse."
The calculations in this story are unofficial and may use forward-looking information that can be affected or changed by future events.
