Who will be ATP world number one after the US Open?

The draw for the US Open men’s division is done and it showed more clearly who the favorites will face to win the Grand Slam event, and how they can claim the number one spot in the world.

Tsitsipas and Rudd can leap up the rankings

Among the five candidates for number one, the two who could go furthest up the rankings after this competition are Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud.

One of the two tennis players might only be able to add a maximum of 360 points in the tournament, since the Greek and the Norwegian could face each other, if there are no surprises, in the quarterfinals of the tournament.

One of them could go up 720 points in the event that he reaches the semifinals of the tournament and then falls to the great favorite for the top of the table, Daniil Medvedev of Russia, reigning US Open champion and current number one in the world.

The same assumption could take place in the semifinal of the lower part of the table, where Rafa Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz could face each other if neither of the two Spanish players is met with an upset on their way through the tournament.

A Spanish semifinal

If Nadal and Alcaraz meet in the semifinals, one of them will win 720 points for the ranking which, in the case of Nadal, could be enough to qualify for number one in the world based on other results with 6,350 points. This is not the case for Alcaraz, who would be left with a maximum of 5,460 points.

It should be noted that in the US Open final, 2,000 points will be awarded to the champion and 1,200 points to the runner-up. Only Medvedev and Nadal would be assured of being number one if they win the title (Nadal could reach 7,630 and Medvedev 6,885), and only Nadal would be assured of being number one by being a finalist if the champion is a player other than Medvedev, since he would be left with 6,830 points, more than those that Tsitsipas (6,800) or Ruud (6,650) would end up with if they win the title.

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If Alcaraz is the one who reaches the final and not Nadal, he could garner a maximum of 6,740 points if he is champion and he would also become the youngest number one in history.

The battle for the US Open and world number one will begin this week at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.