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It’s another two-weeker, as the tours don’t publish updated rankings on the “middle” Monday of an extended Masters 1000.
So this Monday’s rankings are chock full: two weeks and double-digits of Challenger events. Two weeks of ITFs.
And, of course, the results of some surprising efforts at the Madrid Open – including a huge effort by lucky loser Gabriel Diallo, who now is looking from close by at the top 50 as his next goal.
And the first Masters 1000 title – at long last – for the thoroughly professional and very likeable Casper Ruud.
Jack Draper (GBR): No. 6 ===========> No. 5 (Draper could have gotten to within 25 points of the No. 4 ranking if he won Madrid. Which is a pretty insane turn of events. As it was, he leaps into the top 5 at age 23 and pushes Novak Djokovic down to No. 6).
Casper Ruud (NOR): No. 15 ===========> No. 7 (Ruud’s 2025 season has been … discreet, to say the least. But here he is, the Madrid champion – his first Masters 1000 title. And he’s all the way back to No. 7).
Lorenzo Musetti (ITA): No. 11 ===========> No. 9 (Musetti’s semifinal effort in Madrid FINALLY leaps him into the top 10, after he hovered just around the fringes of it for a few weeks. And it pushes him way over the $1 million mark in earnings for this season).
Francisco Cerundolo (ARG): No. 21 ===========> No. 18 (He’s no dewy-eyed ingenue. But his big forehand works well on surfaces other than clay, too. So it’s been a steady progression as he makes the Madrid semifinals, and moves to a new career high).
Denis Shapovalov (CAN): No. 30 ===========> No. 28 (Shapovalov isn’t a huge fan of the clay. But he made it to the third round in Madrid and boosted his ranking up a bit. He’s only nine points behind Auger-Aliassime for the No. 1 Canadian ranking spot).
Brandon Nakashima (USA): No. 32 ===========> No. 29 (Nakashima is pretty low-key compared to his higher-ranked compatriots. But at 23, he’s snuck into the top 30 for the first time with a fourth-round effort in Madrid).
Alex Michelsen (USA): No. 38 ===========> No. 32 (A win in Estoril might well sneak him into the seeds for the first time at a major, into the No. 32 spot. And tie his career high. After losing in the first round of Madrid, the 20-year-old American bounced back beautifully).
Matteo Arnaldi (ITA): No. 44 ===========> No. 37 (Beating a late-career Novak Djokovic was already bucket list. But Arnaldi also returns to the top 40 in the rankings with a quarterfinal effort in Madrid).
Gabriel Diallo (CAN): No. 78 ===========> No. 54 (Diallo, a lucky loser again at the Masters 1000 level, makes good – really good – on it this time by getting to the Madrid quarterfinals. A win over Grigor Dimitrov in the fourth round was particularly impressive. Diallo is straight into Rome, so his days of hoping the draw gods are kind to him in big tournaments are done. He’s less than 100 points out of the top 50, which is actually a lot harder than it may seem. But it’s the next step. He successfully qualified a year ago at Roland Garros, losing a huge effort in five sets to Kei Nishikori in his main-draw debut. This year, he’s straight in).
Jacob Fearnley (GBR): No. 68 ===========> No. 57 (Another low-key guy who’s rising in the rankings, the 23-year-old Brit makes the third round in Madrid out of the qualifying).
Borna Coric (CRO): No. 104 ===========> No. 84 (It’s been a long road back for the 28-year-old, once ranked No. 12 in the world. But he wins in Aix-en-Provence, winning a tiebreaker in the third set over 40-year-old Stan Wawrinka. It all wasn’t quite quick enough for Roland Garros, where he’s currently the seventh alternate to get into the main draw).
Reilly Opelka (USA): No. 103 ===========> No. 94 (It’s been a fairly quick return to the top 100 for Opelka, who is using his protected ranking to get into Roland Garros if he doesn’t squeeze in as fourth alternate. But he won’t have to do that any more. He lost in the second round in Madrid, and made the quarters in Aix-en-Provence. Opelka started the year at No. 293 and exactly a year ago, stood at … No. 1,165).
Nishesh Basavareddy (USA): No. 107 ===========> No. 100 (Basavareddy has taken his lumps on the European clay this year, a rite of passage his countrymen have all gone through. He got a lesson from the equally young Dane, Elmer Moller, in the first round of qualifying in Madrid. But despite a tough quarterfinal loss to Stan Wawrinka – more than twice his age – in Aix-en-Provence, he’s back tying his career high).
Liam Draxl (CAN): No. 156 ===========> No. 142 (Another career high for the 23-year-old Canadian after making the Savannah Challenger final two weeks ago. He’ll make his debut in the grown-up portion of Roland Garros in a few weeks).
Andrea Pellegrino (ITA): No. 237 ===========> No. 167 (Pellegrino, at 28, is no kid and he’s had better days. But he pulled off a career moment against Félix Auger-Aliassime in the Estoril Challenger, and ran with it. He made the final, losing to Alex Michelsen but taking a big chunk out of his ranking. Unfortunately for him, he’s WAY out of reach to squeeze into the Roland Garros qualifying. It just happened a bit too late).
Ignacio Buse (PER): No. 210 ===========> No. 171 (The 21-year-old Peruvian vaults into the top 200 for the first time, all the while having played all of one main-draw match at the ATP level in his career. He made the semifinals at the Aix-en-Provence Challenger).
Jason Kubler (AUS): No. 306 ===========> No. 232 (Kubler wins the big Challenger on hard courts in Gwangju two weeks ago, and takes a chunk off his ranking as he begins yet another comeback. He’s using a protected ranking to play the Roland Garros qualifying).
Borna Gojo (CRO): No. 359 ===========> No. 252 (Gojo has a PR of No. 106. But he helped himself at the Aix-en-Provence Challenger this week in making the semifinals).
Eliakim Coulibaly (CIV): No. 324 ===========> No. 271 (The 22-year-old – a rare player out of Côte d’Ivoire – wins his home-country Challenger and defeats the top seed in the final to jump into the top 300).
Jack Draper (GBR) (No. 5)
Lorenzo Musetti (ITA) (No. 9)
Jakub Mensik (CZE) (No. 21)
Brandon Nakashima (USA) (No. 29)
Gabriel Diallo (CAN) (No. 54)
Jacob Fearnley (GBR) (No. 57)
Brandon Holt (USA) (No. 104)
Liam Draxl (CAN) (No. 142)
Hady Habib (LBN) (No. 159)
Ignacio Buse (PER) (No. 171)
Eliakim Coulibaly (CIV) (No. 271)
Novak Djokovic (SRB): No. 5 ===========> No. 6 (Djokovic didn’t have anything to defend, so nothing lost in Madrid. But nothing gained, either. And so with Jack Draper’s massive result, he drops down a spot. He can’t do much about it in Rome, either, as he’s not playing it).
Andrey Rublev (RUS): No. 8 ===========> No. 17 (It’s kind of a shocker to see Rublev out of the top 10 – and well out, at that. But he lost in the third round after winning the title a year ago. So that’s how it goes. He’s out of the top 10 for the first since since a couple of rankings periods just before the 2022 US Open. Before that, it was Oct. 2020. It’s his lowest ranking since before the pandemic).
Felix Auger-Aliassime (CAN): No. 19 ===========> No. 27 (Auger-Aliassime made the Madrid final a year ago, an unexpected result but one that boosted his ranking up nicely and got him back into the top 20. But he lost his opener this year. And in trying to make up some of those points at the Estoril Challenger last week lost his opener there to qualifier Andrea Pellegrino. All of which does nothing to help his confidence heading into the two biggest clay-court events of the season).
Jiri Lehecka (CZE): No. 27 ===========> No. 38 (It’s been a quiet season for Lehecka after a lot of back woes in 2024. But after losing to Cameron Norrie in the second round in Madrid, he drops and looks like he might be at best a dangerous floater in Paris).
Alejandro Tabilo (CHI): No. 35 ===========> No. 42 (Tabilo withdrew from Madrid and he’s not playing Rome, either. So injuries are playing havoc with his ranking at the moment. He drops his points from winning the Aix-en-Provence Challenger a year ago).
Jaume Munar (ESP): No. 53 ===========> No. 66 (Munar made the second round last year in Madrid and got to the final of the Aix Challenger. But he lost in the second round there this year).
Lloyd Harris (RSA): No. 166 ===========> No. 224 (Harris’s comeback from injury has had its ups and downs. A lot of downs, lately. He lost in the first round of qualifying in Madrid, and drops points from winning a 75-level Challenger in China a year ago. He might have been better off playing that circuit again, because he won two titles there last year. It’s been grim for him in 2025; the only match he’s won was a first round in Chennai against a guy outside the top 500 – his first match of the season. Since then, he’s lost six in a row, and all have been in qualifying so he hasn’t earned a point since then. Harris still is safely into the qualifying in Paris, and has a protected ranking of No. 108 to play with. But he has a lot of points to defend on grass).
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