After winning back-to-back Grand Slam titles and securing a silver medal at the Paris Olympics, world number three Carlos Alcaraz has set a major goal for the remainder of the season: to become the top-ranked player in the world.
The 21-year-old, who triumphed at the French Open and Wimbledon but fell in a dramatic Olympic final to Novak Djokovic, will make his return to competition at this week’s Cincinnati Open. This event offers him a chance to close the gap on Djokovic and Italian Jannik Sinner.
Alcaraz is 450 points behind world number one Sinner in the ATP live race to the season finale in Turin, the separate year-to-date standings that serve 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 said.
“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.”
Last year’s Cincinnati runner-up, Alcaraz will begin his campaign against Gael Monfils or Alexei Popyrin as he returns to hard-court tennis for the first time since reaching the Miami quarter-finals in March.
The Cincinnati Open is an important tune-up event for the Aug. 26-Sept. 8 U.S. Open.
“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 withdrew from Cincinnati after his Olympic triumph