Reigning Australian Open and U.S. Open Jannik Sinner is well on his way to securing the year-end No. 1 ranking for the first time in his career, but there are a lot of other things to play for during the fall swing on the ATP Tour–beyond just tournament titles, of course.
As we saw throughout this Grand Slam season, the No. 2 ranking–and therefore the No. 2 seed–could hardly be more important. With Carlos Alcaraz unable to consistently maintain a top-two mark in 2024, he and Sinner found themselves on the same side of the draw at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open.
Alcaraz will be trying to track down Alexander Zverev for the second spot in the ATP rankings during the fall swing. Zverev’s lead over the 21-year-old Spaniard in the 2024 race to Turin stands at 105 points, after which there is sizable gap down to No. 4 Daniil Medvedev, No. 5 Taylor Fritz, and No. 6 Casper Ruud. Fritz, who was runner-up at the U.S. Open, is 530 points behind Medvedev for fourth in the rankings.
Medvedev, Fritz, and Ruud are in good shape to clinch places in the year-end championship, while No. 7 Andrey Rublev and No. 8 Alex de Minaur have plenty of work to do. Novak Djokovic is only 45 spots out of the all-important eighth position. Grigor Dimitrov, Tommy Paul, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Hubert Hurkacz, and Frances Tiafoe are all at least 425 points south of Djokovic in the race (and 470 short of De Minaur) but still well within striking distance.
Following a week of Davis Cup competition, the ATP calendar resumes on Wednesday with the beginning of ATP 250 events in Chengdu and Hangzhou. There are still two Masters 1000s on the calendar–in Shanghai (October 2-13) and Paris (October 28-November 3).
the fact the Zverev is No. 2 is insane