{"id":2021,"date":"2026-04-12T15:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T15:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2021"},"modified":"2026-04-12T15:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T15:15:07","slug":"why-novak-djokovic-was-a-big-rankings-winner-in-the-opening-phase-of-the-clay-court-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/?p=2021","title":{"rendered":"Why Novak Djokovic was a big rankings winner in the opening phase of the clay court season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> has yet to hit a ball in the clay court season, but he has already seen his hopes of getting a lofty seeding at the French Open get a big boost.<\/p>\n

The 24-time Grand Slam-winning legend<\/a> has been selective in his tournament appearances at the back end of his career, after openly admitting he lacks the motivation to play regularly at events he has won time and again during his incredible career.<\/p>\n

So he is opting to skip plenty of regular ATP Tour events, with his move to miss this week\u2019s Monte Carlo Masters not coming as a big surprise.<\/p>\n

The challenge for Djokovic is playing enough matches to ensure has the ranking points required to hang on to his fourth place in the ATP Rankings, but he is getting help in that mission from some of his faltering rivals.<\/p>\n

Staying in the top four of the rankings is vital to Djokovic as that will ensure he doesn\u2019t need to play French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz or last year\u2019s runner-up, Jannik Sinner, until the final at Roland Garros.<\/a><\/p>\n

More Tennis News<\/h2>\n

Novak Djokovic\u2019s latest big decision fuels rumours over his French Open participation<\/a><\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic schedule: Tournament director reveals tennis great \u2018keen\u2019 to play key clay event<\/a><\/p>\n

Former British No 1 Greg Rusedski gave his view on Djokovic\u2019s ambitions, as he suggested holding onto that top four ranking is crucial to his hopes of success in major tournaments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about ranking points. It\u2019s about where he\u2019s seeded. He does need points to be in the top four,\u201d said<a href=\u201dhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@offcourtwithgreg\u201d> Rusedski on the latest edition of his podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cTo win a major these days, you gotta usually go through Alcaraz and Sinner. Then imagine if he drops out of the top four, he might have to play [Alexander] Zverev.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for him, the important thing is keeping that top four ranking to give himself a shot at Wimbledon.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Djokovic\u2019s run to the Australian Open final in January boosted his ranking and fired him up to No 3 in the ATP list, Alexander Zverev has moved ahead of him after he opted to miss the Miami Open event last month.<\/p>\n

The Serbian could have seen his No 4 position threatened during the Miami Open and Monte Carlo Masters, but the players looking to claim that prized top four seeing for the second Grand Slam of the year.<\/p>\n

Felix Auger-Aliassime is set to move up to No 5 in the ATP Rankings on Monday, but the Canadian was well beaten by Sinner in Monte Carlo and has now pulled out of the Barcelona Open next week due to fitness concerns.<\/p>\n

Italian Lorenzo Musetti is a big threat on clay courts, but he has been struggling to get back to his best after being forced to pull out of his Australian Open quarter-final against Djokovic and his ranking is on the slide.<\/p>\n

Casper Ruud was another player who could have been looking to make up ground in the rankings on his favoured surface, but the Norwegian appeared to pick up a serious injury that may hamper his defence of the Madrid Open title last this month.<\/p>\n

Djokovic still has a big rankings lead over Ben Shelton, Alex de Minaur and Taylor Fritz, with the return to form of Daniil Medvedev halted by his shocking 6-0, 6-0 defeat against Matteo Berrettini in Monte Carlo.<\/p>\n

So Djokovic looks to be well placed to remain in the top four of the ATP Rankings heading into the French Open and Wimbledon, which will be his next two big targets.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT: Novak Djokovic sent a rankings warning by former British No 1 after latest withdrawal<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Why Novak Djokovic was a big rankings winner in the opening phase of the clay court season<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic has yet to hit a ball in the clay court season, but he has already seen his hopes of getting a lofty seeding at the French Open get a big boost. The 24-time Grand Slam-winning legend has been selective in his tournament appearances at the back end of his career, after openly admitting […]<\/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-2021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021","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=2021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}