Novak Djokovic at a press conference in Dubai on Sunday. KARIM SAHIB (AFP)
Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic this Monday has become the tennis player in history (taking both men and women into account) with the most weeks as the world number one, with 378, beating the record held by Germany’s Steffi Graf. With his 378th week at the top of the ATP world rankings, the 35-year-old Balkan managed to break the tie with Graf he reached last week, a feat that adds to his long track record of success. In the very week that the Balkan tennis player achieved this milestone, Spanish tennis player Garbiñe Muguruza has fallen to 125th in the rankings and outside the top 100 for the first time in more than 10 years.
In January, Djokovic tied Rafa Nadal with 22 Grand Slam singles titles by winning the Australian Open for the 10th time, more than any other male player in history. Additionally, he is one of the two men (along with Nadal) to have won the four Major singles at least twice, the only one to have won all nine Masters 1,000 and the only one to finish the year ranked world number one seven times.
The Serb has held the record at the top of the ATP ranking for weeks. His closest male competitor in the historical ranking established in 1973 is Switzerland’s Roger Federer, who is now retired and has spent a total of 310 weeks as world number one. The podium is closed by the American Pete Sampras (286).
For women, Graf topped the WTA rankings for 377 weeks, which began in 1975. The German was the female number one 45 weeks longer than runner-up, Czech Martina Navratilova (332), with American Serena Williams in third (319).
Especially on the women’s side, Muguruza fell to 127th in the WTA world rankings this Monday with 40 places lost, continuing her free fall due to a sports hiatus that took her out of the top 100 for the first time in the last decade, while Paula Badosa dropped three places loses and is now number 22 in the world. Muguruza, who became world number one in 2017, had not been in the top 100 since January 14, 2013, when she was world number 112.
Nadal falls back to eighth place in the standings
In the further ATP ranking this week, the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz remains in second place in front of the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas and the Norwegian Casper Ruud, despite the final defeat in Rio de Janeiro, while the American Taylor Fritz has moved up two positions to win the Top 5 to close. The biggest drop in the top 10 comes in starring Rafa Nadal, who paid off his injury break to move up from sixth to eighth place behind Russia’s Andrey Rublev and Daniil Medvedev. Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime and Dane Holger Rune are ninth and tenth respectively.
The big jump of the week is undoubtedly Valencia’s Bernabé Zapata, who feels rewarded for his great performance at the Rio tournament, where he reached the semifinals, climbing 21 places to 42 and entering the top 50 for the first time. Among the rest of the Spaniards, the Asturian Pablo Carreño remains seventeenth; Roberto Bautista from Castellón moves up one place to 27th and Alejandro Davidovich from Malaga climbs two to 29th; Barcelona’s Albert Ramos drops three to 50; Jaume Munar from the Balearic Islands is still 1966; and Tenerife’s Roberto Carballés falls by one to 74.
Follow EL PAÍS Deportes on Facebook and Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.