It’s that time of the week again – time to look at changes in the ATP rankings to see what the top stories are. Of course, the rankings have been adjusted on October 17th to take into account the various tournament results over the last 7 days. There have been some big movers compared to recent weeks too, as well as some big stories that have scooted under the radar so far.
And naturally, my task here is to share these updates with you so that you know how the ATP rankings are shaping up for the penultimate week in October. Anyway, there is a lot to get through, so let’s dive right into the main details right now.
Week Commencing October 17th – ATP Rankings Changes
This previous week on the ATP Tour saw two 250 events get played in various locations around Europe. These tournaments included 250 events in both Florence and Gijon, with the two respective winners being Felix Auger-Aliassime and Andrey Rublev. For these two guys, their chances of qualifying for the End of Year Masters have been given a considerable boost after these tournament wins.
But besides these individual performances, let me shift the focus to the broader view of the ATP rankings, as released yesterday.
Movement Inside the Top 10
Starting with the sacred spot in the top 10 of the ATP rankings, a few changes have been witnessed. Following his victory in Gijon, Andrey Rublev has managed to move up one position in the rankings to number 8. He has overtaken Taylor Fritz to obtain this position, and the +205 points obtained in Gijon take Rublev’s season tally to 3,685 points. Note that he didn’t get the full 250 because he had existing points from this week in 2021.
And besides Andrey Rublev, the other big mover relating to the top 10 is Felix Auger-Aliassime. He managed to take home the title in Florence, which has subsequently taken him back inside the top 10. Just like Rublev, Auger-Aliassime received +205 points for his efforts last week, also because he had points dropping from this time last year. This tournament win has actually catapulted him up by 3 rankings places.
He has moved from 13th in the rankings to 10th, and for the ATP Race to Turin, Auger-Aliassime is now in 7th position. Yet besides this shuffling around between places 8 through 10, no other movement is to be reported for the ATP top 10.
The Week’s Biggest Climbers
Now that we’ve had a look at the movement inside the top 10, let’s take a look at some other big moves away from the top of the tree. There are a few guys to talk about here as it happens, and a couple of them you may be familiar with from the ATP 250 events last week. Anyway, let me break this down to keep things clear.
The first ‘biggest climber’ of the week is J.J. Wolf. The young American made the final in Florence last week before losing to Felix Auger-Aliassime. He produced some big wins en route to the final and earned himself +142 points in the process. In that same tournament, he beat Mikael Ymer in the semis, who is actually the biggest climber by rising 20 spots to number 79. As for Wolf, this run has allowed him to climb the rankings by 19 places to his new ranking of 56. And adding to the list of Americans that have made big moves this week we have Sebastian Korda.
He was able to beat guys like Murray and Bautista-Agut to reach the finals in Gijon last week before losing to Rublev. In doing so he has captured +140 points, allowing him to take a new ranking of 36 – up 11 places from last week. This takes care of the two guys you may have seen playing last week, but there is one more – Marco Cecchinato. The feisty Italian has climbed 19 spots after winning a Challenger in Rio de Janeiro last week, which makes him this week’s joint-highest mover.
This tournament title has taken him back inside the world’s top 100, which is huge for Cecchinato.
The Week’s Biggest Losers
As is the nature of tennis, you cannot have big winners without big losers. And unfortunately for some, the last week wasn’t all that favorable. Looking at the top 100 players, the biggest loser of the week by an absolute landslide is Nikoloz Basilashvili. The Georgian player fell by a total of 57 places following the loss of 600 points, taking him all the way down to 93 in the world. Such a colossal drop in rankings is no doubt pretty crushing for a guy of this quality, and I hope he can make it back up there at some point in the near future.
Yet Basilashvili wasn’t the only guy dropping through the rankings quite drastically. Aside from him, other major movers included Tallon Griekspoor who fell by 14 spots to number 68 in the world. And joining him, there was Dimitrov as well as Garin – both falling by 8 spots to number 32 and 89, respectively. Other than that, one ranking drop of note was Cam Norrie, who dropped outside of the world’s top 10.
He fell by 4 places to number 14, which puts a ton of pressure on his performances over the next few weeks regarding his chances of qualifying for Turin 2022.
Major Rankings Stories
At this point, we’ve covered the main stories regarding the world’s top 10 players, as well as the biggest movers – both positive and negative. But besides these, the big story of the week is that Kei Nishikori, one of the best players over the last decade or so, has officially dropped out of the rankings. The Japanese veteran has been injured for a considerable length of time now, and since his ranking is no longer shielded, he has dropped out of the ATP rankings for the first time since turning professional.
Whether this will have any bearing on his retirement or not, however, remains to be seen. I for one hope that he gets back to the tour, as he is a truly magnificent player on his day.
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