Djokovic only needs to win one match to reach the top of ATP
With the defeat of Alcaraz in the Cincinnati Masters final, Djokovic is only 20 points behind his junior. Alcaraz will have to defend 2,000 points at the US Open due to being the defending champion, while Nole will have to defend none because he was not allowed to enter the US last year.
In the event that Alcaraz defends the US Open title, the Spaniard's score will remain the same as it is now, at 9,815. If Djokovic stops in the first round, he only has 10 more points and is still behind Alcaraz. If entering the second round, Nole will earn 45 more points and have a total score of 9,840, surpassing the Spaniards. The last time Djokovic was eliminated in the first round of a Grand Slam was at the 2006 Australian Open.
If Alcaraz had taken advantage of the championship-point against Nole in Cincinnati, the gap between the two would now be 820 points. At that time, Djokovic was forced to reach the US Open final to reach the top of ATP.
In the ATP Race to Turin race - the measure for the top of the year-end ATP table, Alcaraz is leading Djokovic by 510 points. Alcaraz and Djokovic are also the first two players to win tickets to the ATP Finals - the tournament for the best eight players of the year in Turin.
Last year, Nole earned 1,500 points by winning the ATP Finals. If he wants to keep the world number one position at the end of the year, Djokovic needs to break through soon because last year Alcaraz did not attend the ATP Finals due to injury, so he did not have to defend any points.
Djokovic is holding a record 389 weeks at the top of the ATP and seven times finishing the year as world number one. These are all records that are considered the most prestigious in the felt ball village, besides Nole's own record of 23 Grand Slams. The year he dominated the ATP most convincingly was 2015, with 82 wins - 6 losses, winning three Grand Slams, six Masters 1000s with the ATP Finals. During the 2014-2016 period, Nole had 122 consecutive weeks at the top of the ATP.
