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The triple Roland Garros champion dominates our opening ranking on the slow stuff, as he surely will throughout the claycourt season.

Equally obvious is two-time French Open runner-up Roger Federer's stranglehold on the number two position.

What's surprising, however, is that Spaniard Nicolas Almagro pips world number three Novak Djokovic, former French Open champion Carlos Moya, and two-time Roland Garros semi-finalist Nikolay Davydenko to the third spot.

How did the world number 27 accomplish such a feat you ask? Very simple, by winning two clacycourt crowns already this year (Costa Do Sauipe, Acapulco), a third in 2007 (Valencia) and placing runner-up at last year's Bastad Open.

For the purposes of accuracy and science, we have included every clay event on the ATP calendar along with the past seven French Opens, and weighted everything in accordance with the level of each tournament.

Doing well at the 2007 French Open is worth double what a player would get for doing well at the three claycourt Masters events and a little more than triple the value of the International Series tournaments.

Formula:

10 winner; 6 runner-up; 4 semi-finalist; 2 quarter-finalist: 2007 French Open

5 winner; 3 runner-up; 2 semi-finalist; 1 quarter-finalist: Monte Carlo Masters, Rome Masters, Hamburg Masters, 2006 French Open

3 winner; 2 runner-up; 1 semi-finalist: Vina del Mar, Costa Do Suaipe, Buenos Aires, Acapulco, Estoril, Valencia, Houston, Barcelona, Munich, Poertschach, Casablanca, Sopot, Stuttgart, Gstaad, Bastad, Kitzbuhel, Amersfoort, Umag, Bucharest, 2005 French Open

1 bonus point for any semi-final or better at French Open 2001-2004

2008 Claycourt Rankings - ATP world ranking in brackets

1. [2] Rafael Nadal (ESP) 37 points

2. [1] Roger Federer (SUI) 18

3. [27] Nicolas Almagro (ESP) 12

4. [3] Novak Djokovic (SRB) 10

5. [16] Carlos Moya (ESP) 10

6. [4] Nikolay Davydenko (RUS) 8

7. [7] David Nalbandian (ARG) 8

8. [17] Juan Monaco (ARG) 8

9. [12] Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA) 7

10. [14] Fernando Gonzalez (CHI) 7

11. [5] David Ferrer (ESP) 6

12. [18] Tommy Robredo (ESP) 6

13. [19] Juan Carlos Ferrero (ARG) 5

14. [23] Guillermo Canas (ARG) 5

15. [40] Jose Acasuso (ARG) 5

16. [24] Philipp Kohlschreiber (GER) 4

17. [9] Tomas Berdych (CZE) 4

18. [33] Gilles Simon (FRA) 4

19. [39] Potito Starace (ITA) 4

20. [45] Filippo Volandri (ITA) 4

21. [59] Albert Montanes (ESP) 4

Watch LIVE coverage of the Estoril Open all this week on British Eurosport and Eurosport 2.

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Jeremy Stahl / Eurosport