Jannik Sinner has secured the top seed position for Wimbledon with his run to the quarter-final of the French Open while Carlos Alcaraz’s wait to return to No 1 in the rankings looks set to continue after the grass-court season.
Three-time Grand Slam winner Sinner has now spent 52 consecutive weeks at the top of the ATP Rankings as he first climbed to No 1 after last year’s French Open, replacing Novak Djokovic on June 10.
And the good news for the Italian is he is assured of being the top seed at the next major, Wimbledon, and will most likely remain there after the grass-court tournament.
As things stand
Sinner has 9,980 points in the Live Rankings on the back of his quarter-final with Alcaraz on 7,650 and Alexander Zverev on 6,385, but the Italian’s next match is crucial in terms of the post-Wimbledon rankings.
If the 23-year-old wins his quarter-final match at Roland Garros against Alexander Bublik he will reach 10,380 points while a title win will give him 11,580.
Alcaraz, meanwhile, can only get a maximum of 8,850 points if he successfully defends his trophy in Paris while Zverev will move to 7,985 with a title run.
So even if Sinner loses against Bublik he is still guaranteed to have a 1,130-point lead over Alcaraz going into the grass season even if the Spaniard goes on to win a second consecutive French Open title.
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The top two are expected to play only one tournament each on grass ahead of Wimbledon with the Italian set to feature at the ATP 500 Halle event while Alcaraz will play at the Queen’s Club Championships.
Sinner is defending 500 points in Halle and Alcaraz 50 at Queen’s and even if the former crashes to an early defeat he will remain ahead of his closest rival by the time Wimbledon comes around.
What about Wimbledon and post-Wimbledon?
Sinner also has the upper hand going into the grass-court major as Alcaraz is again the defending champion so the maximum points he can gain even if he wins the title is 9,300 (Roland Garros title, Queen’s Club title and Wimbledon title).
Meanwhile, the Italian reached the quarter-final last year so he will drop 400 points, which puts him on 8,680 should he lose early at both Halle and the All England Club.
But that’s why his match against Bublik is important as he will move to 10,380 points if he wins and that will give him a big enough buffer to remain ahead Alcaraz after Wimbledon (9,480 points) even if he ends up not playing in Halle or SW19.
For now, Sinner looks odds-on favourite to remain top after Wimbledon, but his position will come under threat during the North American hard-court swing as he has a lot of points to defend.
It will give Alcaraz a big chance to return to No 1 for the first time since September 2023 as he made a series of early exits from events in 2024.
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