Alexander Zverev seemed to be in control of the No. 2 spot in the ATP rankings behind Jannik Sinner for the first three months of the 2025 tennis season. However, it has been a back-and-forth battle with Carlos Alcaraz dating back to the start of the ongoing clay-court swing.
In the fight for the second seed at Roland Garros, Alcaraz climbed from No. 3 to No. 2 in the world by captured the Monte-Carlo title. But that didn’t last long, as Zverev triumphed at the ATP 500 in Munich one week later. Alcaraz fell to Holger Rune in Barcelona on the same day the German beat Ben Shelton, so they once again flip-flopped in the rankings.
Zverev currently has 8,085 points to Alcaraz’s 8,050.
The Spaniard withdrew from the Mutua Madrid Open on Thursday–so Zverev will extend his lead, right? Not so fast! The world No. 2 has 1,100 points to defend across the Masters 1000 tournaments in Madrid and Rome, having lifted the Rome trophy last May. Alcaraz, on the other hand, has just 200 points to defend during the same stretch (in 2024 he lost in the Madrid quarterfinals to Andrey Rublev and then did not play in Rome).
As such, Alcaraz still has a great chance to be No. 2 going into the season’s second Grand Slam. But he will likely have to play in Rome and need Zverev to lose relatively early in at least one of the next two tournaments.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.