Ranking Reaction: Casper Ruud reaches new career-high of No. 8

With an injured Dominic Thiem dipping from No. 8 to No. 9 after his points from winning Vienna in 2019 drop off, Casper Ruud inches up from No. 9 to a new career-high ranking of No. 8 on the new ATP rankings today.

Ruud may not have played either of the ATP 250 events this past week in Moscow or Antwerp, but he’s been doing plenty of winning lately. He’s won five ATP titles this year—Geneva in May, then three titles in three weeks at Bastad, Gstaad and Kitzbuhel in July, and most recently his first hard-court title in San Diego, the week before Indian Wells.

The 22-year-old Norwegian has won more ATP titles than anyone this year.

“The tournaments I won maybe can’t compare to what maybe Novak won—he won three Slams this year, and I think he has four in total,” Ruud said at Indian Wells. “Medvedev, those guys, they have some bigger titles to their name, but I think this year has been about winning a lot of matches for me.

“You know, I set a goal going into the season that I wanted to try to win another tournament, because last year was my first, and I wanted to follow up this year with trying to win another one, become a multiple tournament champion. I was able to do so in Geneva, and then those three in a row kind of just happened quite fast when I think about it now.

“It’s been an unbelievable spring, summer and also fall. This fall is turning out quite good. I’m very happy.”

Ruud’s not the only man to reach a new career-high on the ATP rankings this week. Jannik Sinner, fresh off his fourth ATP title of the year in Antwerp, rises from No. 13 to No. 11, now just one spot off the Top 10. And despite not playing last week, Indian Wells champion Cam Norrie makes his Top 15 debut, moving up from No. 16 to No. 14 after Roger Federer and Diego Schwartzman dip down.

And Aslan Karatsev finally makes his Top 20 debut this week, going from No. 22 to No. 19 after winning Moscow. The Russian went from outside the Top 100 to inside the Top 30 within a five-week span between February and March this year after his shock run to the Australian Open semifinals and winning his first ATP title in Dubai, but got stuck in the No. 22-29 range for more than seven months—now he’s finally broken into a new ranking class after his second ATP title of the year.

Meanwhile, there were a few very notable moves on the WTA rankings, including Anett Kontaveit jumping from No. 20 back to her career-high of No. 14 after winning the WTA 500 event in Moscow. She has now won three of her last six tournaments, 21 of her last 23 matches and 28 of her last 31 sets.

Also, American Ann Li made her Top 50 debut, rising from No. 60 to No. 48 after winning her first WTA title at the WTA 250 in Tenerife, Spain.