ATP Rankings – Alcaraz rising to career-high, Cerundolo massive jump

The 2022 ATP season moved through tour stops at Doha, Marseille, Rio and Delray Beach this week. We saw a few young players make big strides along the way. Let’s have a look at this week’s biggest risers (and fallers) in the ATP’s top-100:

Alcaraz, new #20, takes another big step

Carlos Alcaraz made waves all week in Rio, and emerges as the youngest member of the top-20 as a result of his title run. The Spaniard became the youngest champion in ATP 500 history when he topped Diego Schwartzman on Sunday, and on Monday he rises to No 20 in the ATP rankings.

At 18 years, nine months and 16 days, Alcaraz is the youngest active player to hold a top-20 ranking – even younger than Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer were when they cracked the top-20.

Nadal is the only other active player to have held a top-20 ranking at the age of 18 – the Spaniard reached the milestone at the age of 18 years, 10 months and one day.

Alcaraz is the youngest player to break into the top-20 on the ATP Tour since Andrei Medvedev in 1993.

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Biggest riser – Francisco Cerundolo is now #76

Last week Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo cracked the top-100 for the first time. He continued his fine run of form in Latin America this week by reaching the semi-final at the Rio Open. That performance pushes Cerundolo to a career-high ranking of 76 (+24).

Fritz, #16, cracks another career-high

The top-ranked American didn’t take the court last week, but he still jumped to a career-high ranking. Fritz moves up one spot to 16 in the rankings – he is one of three career-high rankings inside the top-20 this week (also Reilly Opelka and Carlos Alcaraz).

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All the career-highs inside the top-100

With four events taking place on three continents, naturally there were a lot of rankings moves. Here’s a list of the players that sit at their career-high ranking this week.

• Taylor Fritz, 16 (+1)
• Reilly Opelka, 18 (+2)
• Carlos Alcaraz, 20 (+9)
• Alexander Bublik, 30 (+1)
• Tommy Paul, 39 (+2)
• Tallon Griekspoor, 57 (+3)
• Alex Molcan, 69 (+3)
• Francisco Cerundolo, 76 (+24)
• Kamil Majchrzak, 77 (+2)
• Oscar Otte, 82 (+2)
• Jiri Lehecka, 92 (+3)

Biggest drop? Dominic Thiem, now #52

We’re still waiting for the 2020 US Open champion to make his return to the tour. In the meantime he has dropped out of the top-50 from 40 to 52. That’s the biggest rankings drop among top-100 players this week.

Also note that Italy’s Gianluca Majer fell 35 spots to 102.