Rankings Update: Novak Djokovic Closes In On No.1 Spot As Coric Reaches New High

Novak Djokovic is within touching distance of returning to world No.1 after rising to second place in the ATP Rankings on Monday.

The reigning US Open champion has overtaken Roger Federer to move into second place in the world rankings following his triumph at the Shanghai Rolex Masters. Djokovic became only the third player in history to have won a Masters title without dropping serve throughout the entire tournament. He is now 215 points adrift from Rafael Nadal, who holds on to top spot for another week. Djokovic isn’t scheduled to play again until the Paris Masters, but is contemplating taking a wild card into an ATP 500 event in either Basel or Vienna prior. Something that would boost his chances of claiming the No.1 position from Nadal.

“I don’t feel as much pressure to play before Paris as much as I would if the situation was different points-wise, but I still will consider playing the week before Paris, and I’ll decide with the team probably in couple days.” Djokovic told reporters on Sunday.

Besides the swap in positions between Djokovic and Federer, the remainder of the top 10 remains unchanged. Juan Martin del Potro, who recently revealed that he has fractured his kneecap, and Alexander Zverev completes the top five.

Further down the field, Shanghai runner-up Borna Coric has climbed to a personal best of 13th in the world. The Croat made his top 20 debut in July during what has been a positive year for him. Coric won the Halle Open in Germany earlier this year and has scored six wins over top 10 players so far this season. The 22-year-old also reached the fourth round of a grand slam for the first time at the US Open.

“last year in this time obviously I was really struggling. I was not playing well. I didn’t have maybe the right team and I didn’t know what to do. My head was not there as we say in the tennis life.” Said Coric.
“Then in the offseason I decided to change my whole team. I decided to change my approach, as well. I was training for six weeks. I had a really good offseason and the longest offseason so far.
“I think I started gaining some benefit from that at the beginning of the year. Obviously then I started playing just better and better and that gave me some confidence for later on.”

French Open semifinalist Marco Cecchinato has made his top 20 debut at 19th in the world. Cecchinato, who lost to Djokovic in the third round of the Shanghai Masters, has won two ATP titles this season. He joins compatriot Fabio Fognini in the top 20. Making it the first time two Italian men are inside the world’s top 20 on the ATP World Tour since May 1979.

Further down the list, Daniil Medvedev (21), Alex de Minaur (31), John Millman (33) and Dusan Lajovic (50) have all achieved ranking highs.

Top 10 rankings (W/C October 15th 2018)

List of top 100 players achieving ranking highs this week