Novak Djokovic will maintain his World No. 1 position in the ATP Ranking despite missing tournaments on the Asian Swing.

The 36-year-old has spent a total of over 390 weeks at the top, which is a huge record over even the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. He re-claimed the top spot from Carlos Alcaraz at the end of August. The Spaniard had overtaken Djokovic back in June but the points gap between them had narrowed down to a mere 20 points.

Therefore, all it took was for Djokovic to win his opening match against Alexandre Muller at Flushing Meadows to take back the No. 1 status. After doing so, he went on to win the New York major and thus achieve his record 24th Grand Slam title.

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Djokovic holds huge lead over Alcaraz

As a result of this success, Djokovic now has 11,545 points in the ATP Ranking. Meanwhile, Alcaraz sits in second place with 8535, leaving a gap of over 3000 points between them.

At the same time, the Serbian player has announced that he is taking it a bit easier toward the end of the season after a packed summer schedule. This includes withdrawing from the 2023 China Open which begins on September 28, the Tel Aviv Open, the Astana Open, and the ATP 1000 Shanghai Masters.

While this will give Alcaraz some space to start making up ground, it is going to take a while for the two-time Grand Slam champion to catch up.

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Alcaraz aims for year-end No. 1

Nevertheless, the 20-year-old has made it clear that he wants to try and usurp Djokovic and re-claim the World No. 1 before the end of the year.

"For me, the No 1 position is one of my main objectives, so in these big tournaments I am going to go for it, to try to do well to be close and recover it," he said.

However, this will of course depend on whether or not Alcaraz has a successful time on the Asian Swing. He will face Yannick Hanfmann in his opening round in Beijing at the China Open.

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Novak Djokovic regains the World No. 1 ranking! Will extend his record to 390 weeks atop the ATP tour 📈

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