ATP Rankings Update: Carlos Alcaraz grows lead after Qatar triumph, Jakub Mensik reaches new heights

The ATP Rankings have been updated for the latest week as Carlos Alcaraz continued his unbeaten run to start the new year with a title at the Qatar Open and he has increased his lead to over 3,000 points over Jannik Sinner.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion has now won 12 consecutive matches this year and he beat Arthur Fils in the final in what was a superb return for the Frenchman who has long been out with injury.

Alcaraz will remain World No.1 until at least the end of March, he started his 16th consecutive week at World No.1 on Monday for a total of 60 and he is now just six weeks behind Sinner when it comes to the all-time list. Jannik Sinner will remain well clear of Novak Djokovic in third place with the iconic Serbian barely playing outside of the majors anyway.

He elected not to compete in Qatar and whether he will play Indian Wells and Miami is another matter. The battle for World No.4 though is a lot tighter. Alexander Zverev and Ben Shelton in ninth are separated by just 505 points. Jakub Mensik is perhaps the biggest riser as he is up to a new career high of World No.13.

He reached the semi-finals of Doha losing out but he ended up gaining. Andrey Rublev dropped four spots to World No.18 after his title defence failed. He lost to Alcaraz though in the semi-finals so it softened the blow ever so slightly in terms of the amount of points he could've lost.

Arthur Fils on the otherhand climbed six spots to World No.34 after finishing runner-up. While Tomas Martin Etcheverry is one spot ahead of Fils in the rankings as he surged 18 spots after winning his maiden title at the Rio Open beating Alejandro Tabilo in the final. Albeit it isn't all doom and gloom for Tabilo as he surged 26 spots to World No.42.

While Vit Kopriva also had a superb week as did the star perhaps of Rio in Ignacio Buse who surged 22 and 25 spots to World No.65 and 66 respectively both achieving new career highs in the process. Sebastian Korda also was the other title winner in Delray Beach as he took down Tommy Paul in the final. He has climbed ten spots to World No.40.

He was World No.15 once upon a time ago but he slumped out of the top 50 last year following a serious leg injury. Tommy Paul also rose two spots to World No.22. Alexandre Muller and Sebastian Baez dropped like a stone down 26 spots and 20 spots and they are now at World No.78 and World No.52 respectively.

We head into a new week and there is Acapulco and Dubai on show with ATP 500 tournaments before Indian Wells and Miami so in reality while the top might not change again for a while, we will certainly get more changes next week in the ATP Rankings.

(as per livetennis.eu)