Carlos Alcaraz, the 21-year-old Spanish tennis sensation, has set his sights on becoming the world’s top-ranked player by the end of the season. After capturing back-to-back Grand Slam titles at the French Open and Wimbledon, as well as a silver medal at the Paris Olympics, Alcaraz is determined to continue his impressive run.
Currently ranked third in the world, Alcaraz is 450 points behind Italian Jannik Sinner in the ATP live race to the season finale in Turin. This separate year-to-date standings serves as a measuring stick for the year-end number one battle.
“Obviously being number one is a goal every time that I’m (behind) and the race is an important ranking for me. At the end of the year if you end the race number one, in the rankings it’s quite similar, so you’re going to end number one,” Alcaraz explained.
“So I’m really focused on that. I’m focused on going to every tournament, thinking about playing great tennis, doing a good result just to get better in the race. This year, ending the year as number one is one of my main goals right now.”
Alcaraz, who was the runner-up at last year’s Cincinnati Open, will begin his campaign against Gael Monfils or Alexei Popyrin. This tournament serves as an important tune-up event for the upcoming U.S. Open, which begins on August 26th.
“I’m excited to play here again. Obviously great memories from last year, reaching the final, losing a really tight and epic match (to Djokovic),” Alcaraz said.
Djokovic, the world number one, withdrew from Cincinnati after his Olympic triumph.
