{"id":1798,"date":"2026-02-27T15:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=1798"},"modified":"2026-02-27T15:00:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T15:00:58","slug":"jannik-sinner-handed-a-glorious-chance-to-eat-into-carlos-alcarazs-ranking-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=1798","title":{"rendered":"Jannik Sinner handed a glorious chance to eat into Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s ranking lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> reached the highest ranking points total of his career after this win at the Qatar Open last week, but he will face a threat to his dominance as world No 1 from Jannik Sinner<\/a> over the next couple of months.<\/p>\n

We are now into the period of the year where Sinner has no ranking points to defend, as he was serving a doping suspension at this stage of 2025.<\/p>\n

That means the Italian will head into the ATP 1000 events at Indian Wells and Miami with plenty to gain, as every win will give him a rankings boost.<\/p>\n

By contrast, Alcaraz will be defending 400 ranking points after his run to the semi-finals of last year\u2019s Indian Wells event.<\/p>\n

It means that anything less than a run to the last four in the Californian desert will see Alcaraz dropping ranking points, with anything better adding to his points haul.<\/p>\n

More Tennis News<\/h2>\n

Jannik Sinner critics told to \u2018take a deep breath\u2019 as Serena Williams\u2019 ex-coach backs resurgence<\/a><\/p>\n

ATP Indian Wells: How many points will Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic, Draper drop at ATP 1000 event?<\/a><\/p>\n

Alcaraz will defend just 10 ranking points at Miami Open, where Sinner will once again look to add points to his total in a tournament he was forced to miss last year.<\/p>\n

Even if he wins in Indian Wells and Miami, Sinner will not have a chance to overtake Alcaraz in the rankings until much later in this tennis season, as Alcaraz has a healthy 3,150 point lead at the top.<\/p>\n

Alcaraz has plenty of points to defend heading into the clay court season after winning the Monte Carlo Masters title last April, the Rome Masters and then the French Open.<\/p>\n

That period of the season is when Sinner will have a chance to challenge for the world No 1 ranking once again, but for now, the Wimbledon champion will be focusing on finding his form again after failing to win his first two tournaments of the season.<\/p>\n

The standards set by Alcaraz and Sinner makes their rare defeats surprising, yet it is clear that the latter has been tinkering with his tactics in recent matches and it looking to add more variety to his game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had even tougher times in the past. I know how to come back,\u201d he said after his defeat against Jakub Mensic at the Qatar Open last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery player faces ups and downs. I\u2019ve had two incredible years and now I\u2019m having a little downturn, but it\u2019s not something that worries me. I know I can play better tennis, but Jakub played and served really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have ups and downs in our jobs, so I\u2019m not worried. We try to improve in every tournament I enter: I\u2019d like to go as far as possible, but it\u2019s normal to go through some tough times<\/p>\n

\u201cMy approach to tennis is, we live also a normal life. I believe we live in situations and moments and emotions. This is the same with tennis. We have great moments. We have tough moments. We have sad moments and happy moments. It\u2019s just an episode, right?<\/p>\n

Want more from Tennis365? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for tennis coverage you can trust.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cWhen I have tough losses, for me it\u2019s just a moment. I believe that, you know, the hard work we are doing, of course, always the best thing is to win, but you cannot always win. I believe that I have a great, great team behind me. I have family, which is much more important than anything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do put tennis in the first place, no matter what. That\u2019s what I choose, and that\u2019s what I will always choose, until I\u2019m done playing. Hopefully I can play for many more years, but it doesn\u2019t mean that we don\u2019t live the emotions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter tough losses I try to go through and try to understand what I can do better. At the end of the day, when I finish my career, I just don\u2019t want to have regrets that I could have done something more. If my potential is winning, you know, this, but I have just one, it\u2019s okay. If I win more, it\u2019s okay. I just want to maximize my potential and to see how far I can go.\u201d<\/p>\n

We will have to wait a few weeks before the battle for the world No 1 ranking heats up, with the Alcaraz and Sinner rivalry set to dominate tennis once again over the next few months.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner comparisons with the \u2018Big 3\u2019 given fresh perspective by former world No 3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Jannik Sinner handed a glorious chance to eat into Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s ranking lead<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carlos Alcaraz reached the highest ranking points total of his career after this win at the Qatar Open last week, but he will face a threat to his dominance as world No 1 from Jannik Sinner over the next couple of months. We are now into the period of the year where Sinner has no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}