Tennis

ATP Rankings Updates November 21st 2022 – Welcome to the Djokovic Show

The ATP rankings race is officially over for 2022. Much like the WTA Tour, everything ends once the ATP Finals have been wrapped up. And since this occurred on Sunday, with Djokovic taking the win, it’s all said and done for this year. The reason for this is that technically speaking, there are no more tournaments regarding the ATP Tour for the rest of the season. There are, of course, lower lever tournaments such as Challenger events being held elsewhere. 

These tend to continue right the way through until January as well, although these are not ATP-level tournaments. Because of that, you won’t find much movement within the top 50 until January rolls around. But just to clarify, players can pick up rankings points during this period – it’s just that none of these points come from ATP-sanctioned events. 

ATP Rankings Novak Djokovic

Anyway, enough about that. You’re here to check out how the fresh rankings are looking following the conclusion of the ATP Finals in Turin. So let me share the key details right now.

Week Commencing November 21st – ATP Rankings Changes

I’m focusing on the ATP Finals here as this was the only ATP tournament held last week that has influenced the rankings. Of course, Novak Djokovic won the title, as I’m sure you already know. Yet the other 7 guys all picked up and dropped points based on their performances too. That’s why the top 10 has seen a fair bit of movement coming from the results of this event. 

Therefore, it makes sense to focus on the ATP top 10 before looking further down the ladder to see what has occurred. Here is what you need to know regarding the ATP rankings updates as of November 21st:

Movement Inside the Top 10

The top 10 relating to the ATP rankings have been the main focus this week. This is very similar to how things worked following the final WTA rankings updates just last week. And since Novak Djokovic won the tournament, he has been the biggest mover inside the top 10, as expected. By winning the ATP Finals, Djokovic scooped up +1500 points, and the reason for this is that he went undefeated at the tournament.

Should he have lost any of the group matches, he wouldn’t have obtained so many. But the fact is that he won every single game that he competed in, resulting in 1500 points and an increase of 3 places in the rankings. This has resulted in his new ranking of number 5 – pretty amazing when you consider that he wasn’t allowed to compete in a range of tournaments during the 2022 season.

The other man who gained the most points at the ATP Finals was Casper Ruud. He was the runner-up to Novak Djokovic, yet he did lose one of his group-stage matches to Rafael Nadal. Regardless, thanks to these efforts and his subsequent 2nd place finish, Ruud picked up +800 points which have been enough to take him one spot up the rankings to number 3. As for the semi-finalists, both Fritz and Rublev picked up +400 points each.

In terms of the impact of these points, amazingly, Rublev dropped one spot to number 8 whereas Fritz remained unchanged at number 9. The only other movement seen inside the top 10 was with Stefanos Tsitsipas. By failing to reach the semi-finals, he picked up just +200 points which means that he has dropped to number 4. 

The Week’s Biggest Climbers

As you’d expect for a week where the only tournaments outside of the ATP Finals were seen at the Challenger level, the week’s biggest climbers are pretty far away from the top 10. In fact, the official ‘climber of the week’ has entered the top 100 in the final position possible. This man is Vasek Pospisil, and he has jumped +15 spots this week to his new place of number 100. Pospisil won a Challenger event in Drummondville, Canada to secure +80 points and take him inside the top 100. 

The other two guys that enjoyed double-digit rises this week are Ben Shelton and Facundo Bagnis. Shelton has managed to climb +11 spots this week to a new ranking of 97, earning points by finishing as the runner-up at a Challenger in Champaign, USA. As for Bagnis, he also accumulated his points by losing in the finals of a Challenger in Brazil. Because of this, he has jumped +10 spots to number 93.

The Week’s Biggest Losers

Concerning movement inside the ATP’s top 100, there is one guy who stands alone as falling by the largest number of spots for the week. This man is Thiago Monteiro. The veteran Brazilian has slid down the rankings by 9 spots to the new position of number 73. However, he only actually lost 32 points for the week. But that just goes to show how tight and competitive things are as you look further down the ATP rankings. 

Beyond Thiago Monterio, the two players that have suffered the most significant drop are Alex Molcan and Jiri Lehecka. Each of these guys lost 60 points over the last seven days, and both have fallen by 6 spots. As for their new rankings, Molcan is now ranked 50 whereas Lehecka is ranked 81. So unfortunately for these three players, it’s back to the drawing board as they try and rack up some points to close out the year on the Challenger Tour.

Major Rankings Stories

I think of all the ATP rankings changes witnessed this week, I’ve got to focus on Novak Djokovic ending the year within the top five. He has missed out on two Grand Slam tournaments and plenty of Masters 1000 events. But despite that, not only has he qualified for the ATP Finals, but he’s gone and won the event and secured a top-five year-end finish. For me, this is a simply staggering achievement, and it emphasizes the true fighting character of arguably the greatest player to ever step foot onto a tennis court.

And since he is now eligible to compete in most events next year, including the Australian Open, I wouldn’t be surprised if he regains the top spot in 2023.


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