The 21-year-old French Open and Wimbledon champion, who lost a thrilling Olympic final to Novak Djokovic, returns to action at this week’s Cincinnati Open where he can gain ground on Serbian and Italian Jannik Sinner.
Alcaraz sits 450 points behind world number one Sinner in the live ATP Race to the season finale in Turin, the separate year-to-date rankings that serve as a measure for the year-end number one battle.
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“Obviously, being number one is a goal every time I’m (behind) and the race is an important ranking for me. At the end of the year, if you finish the race in first place, in the ranking it’s pretty similar, so you’re going to finish in first place,” Alcaraz said.
“I’m very focused on that. I’m focused on going into every tournament, thinking about playing great tennis, achieving a good result, just to improve in my career. This year, finishing the year as number one is one of my main goals right now.”
Alcaraz, last year’s runner-up in Cincinnati, will begin his campaign against either Gael Monfils or Alexei Popyrin in his return to hard-court tennis for the first time since reaching the Miami quarter-finals in March.
The Cincinnati Open is an important warm-up event for the US Open, which runs from August 26 to September 8.
“I’m excited to be back here. Obviously I have great memories from last year, when I reached the final and lost a very close and epic match (against Djokovic),” Alcaraz said.
Djokovic withdrew from Cincinnati after his Olympic triumph.
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