Carlos Alcaraz He returned to the circuit winning the ATP 250 tournament in Buenos Aires and reached the final of the ATP 500 in Rio de Janeiro, on clay. He achieved the haul of 550 world ranking points, falling 200 behind Novak Djokovic, who took the world number one from him on January 30 after winning his tenth Australian Open. In points, 2,000.
Had Alcaraz won the Rio final against Cameron Norrie, he would have been tied on points. The Spaniard and the Serbian would have had 6,980 points each, as ‘Nole’ had already deducted 90 from Dubai 2022, before they could be defended. That would allow both to just add to their commitments this week at the ATP 500 on the hard courts in Acapulco and Dubai, respectively.
Alcaraz will start with a disadvantage of 200 (he has 6,780), and he needs at least to reach the final in Acapulco and for Djokovic to stay in Dubai first. In case of equality in points, he favors ‘Nole’ because he has added the ATP Finals, the Masters 1000 tournaments and the Grand Slams: 5,830 for Novak and 5,100 for Carlitos.
Djokovic broke this Monday, February 27, the absolute record of weeks at No. 1. Of the 278, he left 277 of the German Steffi Graf.
Acapulco and Dubai both end on Saturday, so both should start on Tuesday, February 28. Alcaraz, if the physicist allows, against the American mackenzie mcdonald and Djokovic, against the Czech Thomas Macac.
The rivalry will move to the Masters 1000 ATP in Indian Wells (March 8-19) and Miami (March 22-April 2), where Alcaraz exposed the first 360 and then 1,000 points. Djokovic is at zero, continuing to wait for a response from the US authorities to know if they will allow him to enter the country despite the fact that foreigners who have not been vaccinated cannot do so without an exemption starting May 11.
“Of course the goal is to be number one again, but I don’t force myself to say that I have to win the tournament so that I can continue to advance and be closer to Novak. It’s not something that I think about every day. .” explained Alcaraz before falling in the final in Rio.
Rafael Nadal out of competition due to a hip injury in the second round of the Australian Open, he dropped to eighth position, two spots, because he was deducted from the 500 points of the Acapulco 2023 champion. His uninterrupted stay in the top-10 since April 2005 will become history once he announces his retirement from Indian Wells, a tournament where he will drop 600 points.
This is the ATP world ranking
1. Novak Djokovic (Srb) / 6,980
2. Carlos Alcaraz (Span) / 6,780
3. Stefanos Tsitsipa (Gree) / 5,805
4. Casper Ruud (Nor) / 5,515
5. Taylor Fritz (USA) / 3,660
6. Andrey Rublev (Russian) / 3,405
7. Daniil Medvedev (Russian) / 3,320
8. Rafael Nadal (Span) / 3,315
9. Felix Auger-Aliassime (Can) / 3,245
10. Holger Rune (Also) / 3,161
11. Hubert Hurkacz (Pol) / 3,065
12. Cameron Norrie (GBR) / 2,815
Source: La Verdad
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