Carlos Alcaraz and Rafael Nadal achieve a historic coup in the world rankings

Rafael Nadal moves up a rank, passing Casper Ruud, who had reached the finals at the French Open and US Open this year.

The Norwegian surprisingly failed in the quarterfinals of the ATP tournament in Seoul at Yoshihito Nishioka.

That puts the 23-year-old 205 points out of the standings, having won San Diego’s tie tournament during the same period of the 2021 season.

The result: Nadal passed Ruud in the ranking without a fight and made history together with Carlos Alcaraz – as the first Spanish duo to take first and second place in the ATP ranking and as the first top duo from a country in more than 22 years.

Alcaraz and Nadal like Agassi and Sampras

Most recently, on August 7, 2000, two players from the USA were in first and second place in the world rankings. At that time, André Agassi was enthroned in front of Pete Sampras.

On August 14, the almost three-week period of the US doubles came to an end, as Sampras failed in the round of 16 at the ATP tournament in Cincinnati to Tim Henman and slipped to fourth place in the rankings. Agassi, on the other hand, stayed in place in the sun until September 4th.

So now Alcaraz and Nadal have achieved the same feat as the two US legends. The icing on the cake of what is already a historic season for Spanish tennis.

And Ruud?

May look forward to a consolation that is not to be despised. By reaching the quarterfinals in Seoul, the Scandinavian qualified for the ATP Finals in Turin.