Alcaraz Missing Out On No. 2 Rank Despite Winning Two Majors Called 'Glitch In System'

Carlos Alcaraz will end this season as the World No. 3 on the ATP Tour, which is a shocking result, given his Grand Slam success.

Grand Slams reward players with the most prize money as well as the most ranking points. Winning a major basically guarantees a Top 20 breakthrough for anyone ranked outside of the Top 100, as Emma Raducanu experienced at the 2021 US Open.

For players ranked higher, it can push them even to the Top 10. For those fighting for the top spots, every Grand Slam won means a higher chance of becoming the World No. 1 player.

While winning a major awards 2,000 points, winning an ATP Masters 1000 tournament, for example, awards only 1,000 points. This year, Jannik Sinner won two majors, and he's the World No. 1 player with 11,830 points.

Surprisingly, Alcaraz, who also won two Grand Slams, isn't ranked behind him. The young Spaniard won the Roland Garros and he also defended his title at the Wimbledon Championships, earning 4,000 points only for these two tournaments.

Still, the World No. 2 player is Alexander Zverev, who has 7,915 points to his name, which is more than Alcaraz's 7,010. Because of that, the young Spaniard became the first-ever player to end the year outside of the Top 2 despite winning two majors.

That's likely not a stat he wanted before this season, but it became a reality. It happened mostly thanks to Zverev's consistent performance at tournaments of all levels.

At Grand Slams, the German player reached the French Open final, the Australian Open semi-final, and the US Open quarter-final. On top of that, he won ATP Masters 1000 tournaments in Rome and Paris, and he also won the United Cup, which counts as an ATP 500 tournament.

Alcaraz, on the other hand, also has one ATP Masters 1000 trophy, which he won in Indian Wells, and one ATP 500 tournament he won in Beijing, but other than that, he struggled to be consistent.

The way the ranking points are structured, reaching four semi-finals might award players more points than winning two titles and losing twice in the first round of a tournament.

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In Alcaraz's case, he had plenty of losses this year when he lost surprisingly early, such as at the Cincinnati Open, where he lost in his first match, and at the US Open, where he lost already in the second round.

According to Roger Federer's former coach, Paul Annacone, who spoke on the Tennis Channel's Inside-In Podcast, this outcome is "a glitch in the system."

While it's very unusual and maybe also undeserved for Alcaraz to end the season as the World No. 3 despite winning two Grand Slams, the fact that it happened for the first time in history maybe proves that the system was set right, just the extreme and rare circumstances this year made this possible.

Next year, Alcaraz will want to avoid the same outcome, and he will likely want to avoid thinking about the World No. 2 spot altogether, targeting the No. 1 position.

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