Carlos Alcaraz climbed to 9and rank in the ATP rankings on Monday, just over a month shy of turning 19, making him the youngest man to break into the top 10 since Rafael Nadal did so exactly 17 years ago.
Alcaraz moved up two places after winning the Barcelona tournament on Sunday. He defeated Pablo Carreño Busta 6-3, 6-2 in the final.
At 18 years, 11 months and 20 days, Alcaraz is the ninth-youngest player to reach the top 10 since the computer rankings debuted in 1973. Fellow Spaniard Nadal was about a month younger when he broke into the the top 10, on April 25, 2005, after a title on the clay courts of Barcelona.
The youngest man to reach this elite level on the ATP Tour was Aaron Krickstein, who was 11 days after his 17and anniversary when he made his top 10 debut in August 1984.
Alcaraz is ex aequo with Nadal for the most ATP titles in 2022 with three, and his 23 wins put him second behind Stéfanos Tsitsipás, who has 24 this season.
Novak Djokovic still sits at the top of the standings after his final loss to Andrey Rublev at the Belgrade tournament. He is ahead of Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev and Rafael Nadal.
Quebecer Félix Auger-Aliassime, defeated by Argentinian Diego Schwartzman in the quarter-finals in Barcelona last week, slipped one place to 10and rank.
Nadal, the men’s record holder of 21 Grand Slam singles titles, has stayed in the top 10 every week since he first broke into it.
Top 10 unchanged in women
In the women’s ranking, Laval’s Leylah Annie Fernandez gained a place to climb to 20and world rank.
The Polish Iga Świątek, for her part, consolidated her place as noh1 in the world by winning the Stuttgart tournament on Sunday, but is now followed by the Spaniard Paula Badosa, who stopped in the semi-finals.
Swiatek seems unbeatable for several weeks: she won her fourth consecutive tournament on German clay, after her victories in Doha, Indian Wells and Miami. She is now moving towards Roland-Garros (May 22 to June 5) with the status of favorite, with 23 straight wins.
Behind her, Badosa overtook the Czech Barbora Krejčíková, now noh3 in the world, for only two points. Despite her defeat against Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka (noh4) 7-6 (7-5), 6-4, Badosa reaches his best ranking, more than 2000 points behind Świątek, however.
The top 10 remains unchanged apart from this inversion. Britain’s Emma Raducanu, who received the Laureus Breakthrough of the Year award on Sunday despite her inconsistency since winning the 2021 US Open title, gains a spot (noh 11).
With Agence France-Presse