Year-end No 1 still not in Alcaraz’s hands after Basel defeat

Beyond the title itself, this year’s Rolex Paris Masters will have, as in most other years, two other high stakes: the distribution of the last qualifying spots for the year-end finals, and the place of world No 1 at the end of the season.

When it comes to the No 1 spot at the end of the year, it might not be decided until the very last point: by losing in the semi-finals of the Basel tournament to Felix Auger-Aliassime, Carlos Alcaraz, the current holder of the No 1 spot, has unintentionally revived suspense that could have been almost killed off definitively if he had won the title.

Today, four men remain mathematically in the running to finish the year in pole position. They are the top four in the 2022 Race, whose situation is as follows before the last two major events of the year, namely the Rolex Paris Masters (October 31-November 6) and the ATP Finals (November 13-20 in Turin):

• Carlos Alcaraz 6650 ATP points
• Rafael Nadal 5820 ATP points
• Stefanos Tsitsipas 5000 ATP points
• Casper Ruud 4940 ATP points

Nadal has never really shone in Bercy or the year-end finals

It is important to remember that 1,000 points are at stake at the Rolex Paris Masters, while the winner of the ATP Finals can earn 1,500 points if he wins the tournament without losing a pool match (200 points per pool match won, 400 for the semi-finals and 500 for the finals). In total, a maximum of 2,500 points can be earned by one of these individuals before the end of the season: enough to allow Nadal to close the gap of 830 points, if all the results go his way.

However, Alcaraz has a chance to conclude the calculation for good: if he wins the Rolex Paris Masters against someone other than Nadal in the final, the die will be cast. Even if he still doesn’t have the same confidence in the indoor arena as on other surfaces, even if he is still traumatised by his defeat in Paris against Hugo Gaston last year, the hypothesis, after all, is not so surreal.

It’s probably not his main goal, but Nadal can still become the “oldest” world No 1 at the end of the season in history (36 years old, Novak Djokovic having set that record last year at 34). He can even dethrone his compatriot at the end of the Rolex Paris Masters: to do so, he has no choice but to put his name for the first time on the tournament’s list of winners, while hoping that Alcaraz loses before the quarter-finals.

Nadal, who will be making his return to competition in these last two major tournaments since his round of 16 win at the US Open (excluding the Laver Cup doubles), has yet to win either of the two major indoor titles.

More likely, it will take a double counter-performance of “Carlitos” in Bercy and Turin to imagine him losing his throne – and, at the same time, a double performance of his rivals.

Tsitsipas and Ruud still in the race

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud are, at this stage, still in the race. The two are far away, of course. But the Greek is of all the contenders the one who is naturally the most comfortable indoors, and won the Masters in 2019.

In addition, Tsitsipas has no points to defend from the 2021 edition of the ATP Finals, which he left with an elbow injury after a group match loss to Andrey Rublev.

It is important to remember that the points of this 2021 edition have not yet been deducted from the tallies of the players who competed in it. They will be removed on November 7, just after Bercy. The outgoing finalist (against Alexander Zverev, whose season is over), Daniil Medvedev, will then lose 1,000 points. That is why he is no longer in the race, though he will be third in the world on Monday after beating Denis Shapovalov in the final in Vienna.

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