Who will Carlos Alcaraz or Jannik Sinner occupy the number one position in world tennis at the end of the year? This is one of the challenges of the ATP Finals (formerly the Masters), which is being played in Turin (Italy), until November 16. After the Spaniard’s victory, Tuesday 11 November, against American Taylor Fritz (6e), in three sets (6-7, 7-5, 6-3), in the second of his three group matches, the chances of seeing his Italian rival overtake him in the rankings are very low.
Jannik Sinner won the Masters 1000 in Paris on November 2, which gave him 1,000 points and allowed him to temporarily regain the lead. However, with the start of the ATP Finals, the 1,500 points he earned from his perfect performance during the 2024 edition were taken away and Carlos Alcaraz returned to the front. At the start of the Piedmont meet, he had accumulated 11,050 points, compared to the 10,000 points earned by the Trentino-Alto Adige native.
Therefore, the Italian has no choice: to become world number one again, he must win the last major meeting of the year without losing a single match, while hoping that the Spaniard does not score more than 450 points during the tournament. If the scenario seems complicated, that’s because each group match won earns you 200 points, the semifinals 400 and the final 500.
Carlos Alcaraz, winner of his first two duels – on November 9, he beat Australian Alex de Minaur, ranked 7th, in two sets (7-6, 6-2) – has accumulated 400 points. Success against Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti, 9e world, Thursday, mass will be held. Murcians are the favorites for this match, having won six of their seven head-to-head meetings. However, despite the defeat, he is guaranteed to play in the semi-finals on Saturday, and will therefore have another chance to strengthen the hierarchy.
A chasm had opened
Beyond the battle for top ranking in the world, the gap between the Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner duopoly and the rest of the circuit is a truly impressive one. The two champions must be said to have won all the Grand Slam tournaments this season. The Spaniard won Roland-Garros and the US Open, the Italian won the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
However, the Major is by far the event that produces the most points for the ATP. Winners receive 2,000 (1,200 for finalists), 720 for semi-finalists… up to 10 points if they lose in the first round. In addition, there are nine Masters 1000s, which award 1,000 points to the winner, 16 ATP 500s which award 500, then around thirty ATP 250s which award 250 points to the winner. The bonuses for these big events explain the widening gap with the pursuers.
In early November, the Eurosport website published astonishing statistics: the point difference in rankings between world number two, Jannik Sinner, and number three, Alexander Zverev, is greater than the point difference between the German and the last man in the ATP, the completely unknown Italian Tobia Costanzo Baragiola Mordini, 2,174e.
Currently, it seems that there is no “third person” who can shake the hegemony of the Alcaraz-Sinner duo. To find a similar situation, we have to go back twenty years, to 2005-2007 when Swiss tennis player Roger Federer and Spaniard Rafael Nadal. Their meeting ended in January 2008, with Serbian Novak Djokovic’s victory at the Australian Open.
