Zverev guaranteed year-end world No.1 after Alcaraz upset in Shanghai
Alexander Zverev is assured of finishing the 2026 season as world number one after Carlos Alcaraz was beaten 7-5 7-6 (7-4) by Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the third round of the Shanghai Masters on Monday, a result that secures Zverev as the 30th man to hold the ATP Tour’s top ranking.
Jannik Sinner has been ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury, a situation that left Zverev positioned to overtake him in the standings; Zverev recovered from three previous major final defeats to win the French Open in June and the US Open last month and is 29 years old.
Alcaraz, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, had entered the Shanghai Masters with momentum after winning the Japan Open last week but produced a string of uncharacteristic errors against 39th-ranked Bergs, who served strongly and closed out what the report called the biggest win of his career; Bergs now faces American Tommy Paul in the last 16.
Reflecting on the season, Zverev said: "It's been a fantastic season for me. Knowing that I will finish the year on top of the rankings is just a dream come true." He later added: "So much work and effort have been put into achieving this goal, especially after coming back from the ankle injury. I look forward to finishing the season in style."
Zverev’s resurgence followed a serious ankle injury sustained in the 2022 French Open semi-finals that sidelined him for seven months, after which he regained his position among the sport’s elite and has been ranked inside the top four continuously since March 2024.
At the start of 2026 Alcaraz led the rankings on 12,050 points with Sinner on 11,500, a gap that emphasised the prior dominance of those two players, who between them won all eight Grand Slam titles in 2024 and 2025; third-ranked Zverev had 5,110 points, a total the report noted was numerically closer to the 2,221st player in the rankings than to the top two. Zverev also won the US Open without facing a top-10 opponent until the final, where he beat Ben Shelton.
Zverev remains in the Shanghai draw as one of only three top-eight seeds left, alongside Canada’s Felix Auger-Aliassime and Russia’s Daniil Medvedev, while Alcaraz said after his defeat: "Today wasn't a good match from my side. I didn't feel good." He added: "Right now, all the negative thoughts come to my mind and none of the positives, but I think [later] I will take the good things."
Zverev will become the first German man to finish the year as world number one and the oldest player to achieve the feat for the first time; the report states he cannot be overtaken in the standings until 2 November at the earliest.
