Carlos Alcaraz has a few goals for the remainder of the 2024 season, and one of those is to become world number one again, even though Jannik Sinner won't let it go easily.
Finishing as world number one is something Alcaraz has done already in his career, but he's not really satisfied with keeping that number at only 1. He would like to finish as the world number one many times in his career, and it's certainly a possibility this year as the Spaniard trails Sinner by only 450 points in the Live Race to Turin.
That’s a good amount of points, but there are multiple big events until the end of the year, and Alaraz has certainly outplayed Sinner in recent weeks. If the Spaniard remains healthy and keeps playing the way he did, he has a really good chance of overtaking Sinner as the leader of the Race to Turin.
It's certainly a goal for him, as he admitted before the Cincinnati Open that he's really focused on getting that done. It will happen if he remains consistent because when it comes to the rankings, consistently good performances are king.
“Obviously being No. 1 is a goal every time that I am [behind] and the race is an important ranking for me. At the end of the year, if you end the race No. 1, in the rankings [it is] quite similar, so you're going to end the No. 1. So I'm really focused on that.”
“I'm focused on going to every tournament, thinking about playing great tennis, doing a good result just to get better in the race, and this year, ending the year as No. 1 is one of my main goals right now. So I'm looking forward to doing it and let's see.”
A good showing in Cincinnati could certainly make that far more likely because Sinner just returned from tonsillitis, and he didn't look that special in Montreal. He played two solid matches but then lost to Andrey Rublev, proving himself beatable. Alcaraz also made the Cincinnati final last year, so he clearly enjoys playing there.
A good run to the final or possibly even winning the event could be a huge step towards ensuring the year-end number one rank. Obviously, the US Open is the main event as it awards the most points out of all those events remaining on the calendar, but that's a few weeks away, so he's choosing to focus on this upcoming tournament.
I’m fighting for being No. 1 in the race, that's something that I really want to to do as soon as possible, if I could do it in the future. This one is a really important tournament, really good tournament for me. So I'm going to try to play good tennis, try to play same level as I was playing, and let's see.
There shouldn't be any shortage of motivation either as he missed out on the gold medal at the Paris Olympics.