Alexander Zverev might prove that the best ability is availability – at least when it comes to finishing 2026 as the ATP’s year-end No. 1 player. This was further proven by Zverev winning the U.S. Open in a Jannik Sinner-less tournament.
The German is still No. 2 behind the Italian in the latest ATP rankings, but he now leads the ATP Race to Turin standings after winning the U.S. Open this past weekend for his second major title of the year. If the 2026 season ended today, Zverev would be the year-end No. 1.
Sinner and No. 3 Carlos Alcaraz have missed big chunks of time with injuries this year. It’s uncertain if either will play a full schedule in the final months of 2026. Zverev is 0-5 against Sinner this year and lost his only 2026 meeting against Alcaraz – but Zverev will still finish ahead of both as the year-end No. 1 if he can play and play well in the last two months of the season and his rivals can’t.
Sinner, who missed the U.S. Open with a knee injury, begins his 89th total week at No. 1.
Who moved up the ATP rankings during the summer hard-court season?
A long list of players made notable moves up the rankings between the end of Wimbledon and the end of the U.S. Open.
U.S. Open runner-up Ben Shelton moved up two spots to a career-best No. 4. Frances Tiafoe, the runner-up at the ATP Masters 1000 event in Cincinnati and Shelton’s opponent in the U.S. Open semifinals, jumped from No. 17 after Wimbledon to a career-best No. 8.
The ATP’s youth movement made strides up the rankings. Arthur Fils, age 22, the winner in Cincinnati, rose 11 spots during the summer hard-court season to No. 11. Teen sensation Rafael Jodar won 10 of his first 12 matches on the hard courts this summer to jump 11 spots to No. 14. Alexander Blockx, 21, a surprise U.S. Open quarterfinalist, made a 10-spot summer jump to No. 27.
The biggest move within the top 100 during the summer hard court season came on the strength of a clay-court title. Luca Van Assche moved up 44 spots to No. 42, with most of the gain coming from his title run at the late-July clay-court event in Estoril, Portugal.
Who moved down?
It looks like a typo. Novak Djokovic is out of the top 10 for the first time since the summer of 2018 after back-to-back first-round losses in Cincinnati and at the U.S. Open. Djokovic fell from No. 7 to No. 12 after failing to win a match during the summer hard court season.
There were other moves in the wrong direction, though none quite as historic. Alex de Minaur suffered the other big drop in the top 10, falling from No. 5 coming out of Wimbledon to No. 9. Lorenzo Musetti fell six spots from No. 14 to No. 20. Jiri Lehecka “doubled down,” so to speak, from No. 12 to No. 24. Andrey Rublev tumbled nine places from No. 16 to No. 25.
Who could rise?
Of the players currently outside the top eight, Fils has the best chance to move up to the top eight and qualify for the ATP Finals. Fils is already seventh in the ATP Race to Turin standings, and he isn’t defending many points during the fall months.
Who could fall?
Felix Auger-Aliassime is No. 5 coming out of the U.S. Open but will need a strong September and October to earn one of the eight spots in the year-end championships. No. 6 Daniil Medvedev is also defending a lot of fall ranking points and needs some good results to hang on to a spot in the top eight.
No. 21 Valentin Vacherot enters the fall on a four-match losing streak and soon must defend the ranking points he earned as the shock winner of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Shanghai last year. Vacherot could fall all the way out of the top 40 without a comparable performance sometime this fall.
26 years ago this happened
This week in 2000, Pete Sampras regained the No. 1 ranking for the 11th and final time after a runner-up finish at the U.S. Open. Sampras held the top spot for 10 more weeks to push his record total number of weeks at No. 1 to 286. Sampras held or shared the record until 2012, when Roger Federer surpassed him.
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