Ben Shelton hits new career-high ranking of No. 5, just third lefty to be ranked in ATP Top 5 this century

Jannik Sinner is currently spending a three-month period of ineligibility from his case resolution agreement with WADA, meaning he’ll be off the tour until Rome in early May.

So can anyone take the No. 1 ranking from him while he’s gone? The answer is yes—and we’re here to break it down.

Before talking about the players with the best chances of catching him, let’s define the ranking points total they’ll need to catch.

Going into this week, the week of ATP 500 events in Doha and Rio, Sinner has 11,330 ranking points. Between now and his return he’ll be dropping 1,600 points from the same period last year—1,000 for winning Miami, 400 for reaching the semifinals of Monte Carlo and 200 for reaching the quarterfinals in Madrid.

His 400 points from reaching the semifinals of Indian Wells last year were already removed from his ranking last summer.

That means Sinner will have 9,730 points when he returns in May.

Zverev has reached two of the last four Grand Slam finals, including the Australian Open this year, where he finished runner-up to Sinner.

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The player with the biggest chance at taking No. 1 from Sinner while he’s away is the man right behind him on the rankings, world No. 2 Alexander Zverev.

Going into this week, Zverev has 8,135 ranking points. Between now and Sinner’s return he’ll be dropping 900 points from the same period last year—100 for reaching the semifinals of Los Cabos, 200 for reaching the quarterfinals of Indian Wells, 400 for reaching the semifinals in Miami, 100 for reaching the third round in Monte Carlo and 100 for reaching the fourth round in Madrid.

In that period he also earned 50 points for reaching the quarterfinals of Munich, but that’s currently among his non-countable tournaments.

With all that, Zverev has a base of 7,235 points that he can add to, so he would pass Sinner if he can make up that 2,495-point gap.

And making up that gap certainly isn’t unattainable—in that period Zverev will likely play the four Masters 1000 events at Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo and Madrid and three ATP 500 events in Rio (this week), Acapulco (next week) and Munich (which was upgraded to an ATP 500 this year) in April.

Players earn 1,000 points for winning a Masters 1000 and 500 points for winning an ATP 500, so any number of combinations of titles or deep runs at all of those events could push him to No. 1.

Alcaraz is the only player to beat Sinner more than once since the start of last year, and he's done it three times—at Indian Wells, Roland Garros and Beijing last year.

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The world No. 3, Carlos Alcaraz, has some more work to do than Zverev to catch Sinner, but it’s certainly possible.

Going into this week, Alcaraz has 7,410 ranking points. Between now and Sinner’s return he’ll be dropping 1,400 points from the same period last year—1,000 for winning Indian Wells, 200 for reaching the quarterfinals of Miami and 200 for reaching the quarterfinals of Madrid.

With that, Alcaraz has a base of 6,010 points that he can add to, so he would pass Sinner if he can make up that 3,720-point gap.

In that period, Alcaraz will likely play the same four Masters 1000 events as Zverev, as well as two ATP 500s in Doha (this week) and Barcelona in April. It’s a longer shot—he would probably have to win at least one or two of the Masters 1000 events and have a few more deep runs, but it’s not out of reach.

For everyone from No. 4 and below on the ATP rankings right now, passing Sinner isn’t very likely. None of them even have 5,000 points on their ranking going into this week, and that’s not even considering all the points they’ll be dropping in the next three months.

We’ll check back in on the No. 1 ranking situation in the coming weeks…

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