Carlos Alcaraz regained the number one spot from
Novak Djokovic after the Rome Open but he lost it following the Serbian's triumph at the recently concluded Roland Garros.
The battle for the number one spot is going to be an interesting thing to observe in the second part of the season as Alcaraz has a lot of points to defend at the US Open while Djokovic missed the entire US swing last year. For now the Serbian holds a minor lead over the Spaniard but that could change ahead of Wimbledon.
The Spaniard is going to play a prep event at the Queen's Club next week. The Cinch championships is an ATP 500 event and if the Spaniard wins that event, he'll get enough points to dethrone Djokovic as the number one player in the world. That is the only way he can become world number one before Wimbledon again.
Djokovic himself didn't play any tennis last year before Wimbledon and that seems likely to be the case this year. He's in Portugal right now on a minor vacation but he'll travel early to London per his own admission. There Djokovic will prepare for the event but it also means that he certainly won't play in Mallorca and while Eastbourne is in the UK, he's not on the entry list as of now.
There are some positive correlations when Djokovic skips all prep events leading up to Wimbledon as he generally ends up as the champion of the event. He's the biggest favourite this year having won the event in a couple of consecutive years. Wimbledon will factor in the battle for number one as well as no player is defending anything but Djokovic is likely to go deeper in the draw compared to Alcaraz who admitted last year that it's a tough surface for him.