Following Casper Ruud’s loss at the Australian Open on Thursday, the battle for world No. 1 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings comes down to three men: Novak Djokovic, Stefanos Tsitsipas and reigning world No. 1 Spaniard, Carlos Alcaraz.
With his loss to Jenson Brooksby, Ruud won’t be able to climb past No. 2. The scenarios for the rest of the tournament are simple. If Djokovic or Tsitsipas win the title, they will leave Melbourne as World No.1 in the world. If neither lifts the trophy, Alcaraz, who is not competing in Australia due to injury, will retain the top spot on January 30.
Djokovic has a lot of experience succeeding Down Under. The Serbian is a nine-time Australian Open champion and owns an 83-8 record in the tournament. The 35-year-old has not lost in the first major of the season since the 2018 fourth round against South Korea’s Hyeon Chung.
Djokovic has held world No. 1 for a record 373 weeks, with an unbeatable seven year-end finishes at No. 1. He most recently held the top spot last June. The fourth seed will play his second round match inside Rod Laver Arena on Thursday night.
His rival of him? French qualifier Enzo Couacaud. Possible opponents for him in the third round are 2017 Nitto ATP Finals champion Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Laslo Djere of Serbia. Tsitsipas has enjoyed his own success at Melbourne Park.
The Greek has advanced to the semifinals in each of the past two editions of the event. However, the 24-year-old would have to break new ground to claim world No. 1.
Djokovic defeated Enzo Couacaud
Novak Djokovic finished his match against Enzo Couacaud well past midnight.
“I don’t know how we can change that (smiling). The schedule is affected by the weather obviously. Last few days we know we had heat rule, we had rain. It pushed back some of the matches that went deep into night yesterday, obviously again today,” the Serb said.
“That’s obviously something that you just have to accept and deal with. I mean, it’s best-of-five for us guys. Yeah, it’s not perfect that when you finish a match or now it’s 12:30, as you mentioned, and then you have to do recovery, so forth, and you go to sleep, 3, 4, 5 a.m., it affects recovery and the next day. The good thing is you have a day between the matches, on a positive note,” he added.
