Alcaraz and Nadal, USA duel for world number 1

Carlos Alcaraz closed his return to clay, after the episode of Wimbledon on grass, with two final paths lost against Italian rivals, Lorenzo Musetti in Hamburg and Jannik Sinner in Umag. Some results he would have liked to have been positive, but it compounded his rise to the professional men’s circuit. At the age of 19, it was released yesterday on top-4 of the ATP world rankingwhen he started the season in 32nd place. In 2021 he started from the 141st position.

This season, he won 42 matches, out of 49. There were four titles in six finals, won. Rio de Janeiro, Miami, Godó and Madrid before succumbing to two of the Italians who made up the generation that would directly oppose him.

The Murcian became the second best tennis player of the season in global statistical terms. He added 4,270 ranking points in this campaign. It cemented its second place in the Race, the classification that counts only the year’s points and will lead to equalization in the world ranking before the eight best face off at the Masters, the ATP Finals in Turin.

Before you Rafael Nadal with 5,620 cumulative points despite the fact that half of 2021 was lost due to the foot, where he limped before finding a solution that worked after Roland Garros, and rib crack and stomach rupture. He has only played eight tournaments, but he has already dominated half of them, especially the Australian Open and the Parisian Grand Slam.

That Nadal (5,620) and Alcaraz (4,270) dominate the 2022 classification with ease means they are on their way to attacking the Russian number one. Daniel Medvedev, to fight for the decisive leadership of the campaign. Only the Greek Stefanos Tsisipas kept his pulse, 4,010 points.

Medvedev, who has been out of the world for more than a month due to a hernia and banned from a Wimbledon without points, accumulates 2,575 in the Race, where he is sixth. In the world ranking, he maintains an advantage that he will have to defend on the North American hard court tour. Here, he will expose 3,360 of the 7,625 points he currently has. Rushed to the competition, this week he was playing Los Cabos.

The German Alexander Zverev, second and pending the evolution of the ankle injured in the Roland Garros semifinals, he will defend 1,810 out of 6,850 allowing him to become number two.

Rafa Nadal is third, 6,165 and has only 545 to expose on the trip with the main meals of Canadian ATP Masters 1000where he will reappear from August 7 to 14, the Cincinnati ATP Masters 1000 (August 14-21), where he was absent on several occasions, and the US Openin New York from August 29 to September 11.

Carlos Alcaraz, with these three appointments on his agenda, who will go to Montreal next Thursday, reduces only 485 from his 5,035 points. He has a margin of addition, at the level of Nadal. Superior to fifth in the world list, Stefanos Tsitsipas, defending 810 out of 5,000.

Novak Djokovicwho revalidated the Wimbledon crown, continues to train in Montenegro awaiting a change in the rules, or an exception, that could allow him to set foot in North America without being vaccinated against covid.