The 2014 US Open and Federer's Position

[GameSetAndMath]

Roger also has a chance to take over the #2 spot if he can make the finals, by a very small margin, like 20 points or so. Is it significant? Not in my opinion. It only means there might be a couple of tournaments where we can witness a Rafa-Nole semi, that's all.

No, your arithmetic is wrong. Roger can overtake Rafa in rankings if and only if he wins
the USO outright.

Yes, doing so will be significant in multiple ways.

a. first and foremost, #18 increases the gap.
b. He has 50% chance of winning an event without defeating both
Rafa and Novak (even if they don't flame out early) in the remaining
tournaments of the year.
c. Finally, Novak won everything out there after USO last year and
so he pretty much cannot gain any more points after USO. This
gives Fed chances to sneak in to even #1. Also, Novak may be
forced to miss one or two tourneys due to fatherhood as well.

Murat, I said it yesterday itself. ATP is saying it today. There is an article discussing the possibility of
Federer grabbing year end #1 on the ATP website. This is not a pipe dream. If he wins USO, his chances
of finishing year end #1 and tieing Pete's record in that is real.