Carlos Alcaraz has his sights set on beating Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic in the race for the year-end No.1 spot.
The Spaniard will return to action this week at the Western and Southern Open after winning 20 out of his past 22 matches. During this period, his only losses were to Jack Draper in Queen’s and Djokovic in the Olympic final. He has won the past two Grand Slam tournaments played and should he also win the US Open, Alcaraz would become the first player other than Djokovic to win three major titles in the same season since Rafael Nadal in 2010.
Although the main focus for Alcaraz isn’t prizes, it is points. He is currently ranked third in the world but could close in on the No.2 spot this week if he wins in Cincinnati which defending champion Djokovic isn’t playing. He was runner-up at the Masters 1000 event 12 months ago.
“Obviously being No. 1 is a goal every time that I am [behind] and the race is an important ranking for me. At the end of the year, if you end the race No. 1, in the rankings [it is] quite similar, so you’re going to end the No. 1,” atptour.com quoted Alcaraz as saying. “So I’m really focused on that. I’m focused on going to every tournament, thinking about playing great tennis, doing a good result just to get better in the race, and this year, ending the year as No. 1 is one of my main goals right now. So I’m looking forward to doing it and let’s see.”
Alcaraz has previously achieved the year-end No.1 title in 2022 when he became the youngest player in history to do so. However, he hasn’t held this position since September 10th, 2023. Currently, Australian Open champion Sinner is the highest-ranked player in men’s tennis.
“I’m fighting for being No. 1 in the race, that’s something that I really want to do as soon as possible, if I could do it in the future,” he said. “This one is a really important tournament, really good tournament for me. So I’m going to try to play good tennis, try to play same level as I was playing, and let’s see.”
Despite his recent success, a frankly-speaking Alcaraz admits his tennis hasn’t always been the quality he would like. Sometimes it is a case of winning ugly and being mentally strong.
“I’ve been playing great tennis, but probably most of the matches I won, I won them without playing great tennis, or I felt like I didn’t play really great tennis,” he reflected. “So the way that I approach every match, I stay there strong mentally in some situations, I’m really, really happy about that.”
Alcaraz is scheduled to play either Gael Monfils or Alexei Popyrin in his opening match in Cincinnati. However, Popyrin is still in Montreal where he will play Andrey Rublev in the final of the Canadian Masters on Monday.
