Novak Djokovic despite himself, finds the top of world tennis. Even absent from the Miami tournament, which he was deprived of due to his unvaccinated status against Covid-19, he regained his place as world number one. He owes it to the victory of Jannik Sinner over his rival Carlos Alcaraz (6-7 [4], 6-4, 6-2) in the semi-finals while the young Spanish prodigy was defending champion in Florida. He had preceded him at the top of the ATP rankings on March 19 in Indian Wells, California.
Since 2011, Djokovic has accumulated 380 weeks at the top of the ATP rankings. A record, men and women combined. 380 is also the number of points that Alcaraz now lacks to try to come back to follow the legend. A much smaller gap than for the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas who remains on the last step of the podium watching, 1000 units apart, the duel of the two cadors. Behind the Greek, Daniil Medvedev took advantage of his final victory in Miami to grab a place (4th), at the expense of the Norwegian Casper Ruud. The Russian is the strong man of this start to the season since he won a fourth title in the “Sunshine state” in 2023, after Rotterdam, Doha and Dubai. Still recovering, Rafael Nadal continues to slide (14th) and loses a place.
A fortnight before the next Masters 1000 tournament in Monte-Carlo, this is good news for the Serb. The principality left him with bad memories last year after his defeat against Davidovich Fokina in the round of 16.