Alexander Zverev is guaranteed to finish 2026 as the world number one after Carlos Alcaraz lost 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) to Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the third round of the Shanghai Masters on Monday, ending the last mathematical challenge to the German’s hold on the top ranking.
Zverev did not have to lift a racquet for it. He was still in the Shanghai draw, preparing for his own fourth-round match, when Bergs — the world number 39, aged 27 — broke Alcaraz three times across two hours on the hard courts of Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena. Alcaraz double-faulted to hand over the decisive break at 5-5 in the opening set and never found a way back.
“Today wasn’t a good match from my side. I didn’t feel good,” Alcaraz said, adding that he had been unable to adapt to the speed of the court. He had arrived in Shanghai as the Tokyo Open champion and, with Jannik Sinner absent and Novak Djokovic already eliminated, as the overwhelming favourite.
A season built on two majors
Zverev’s ascent was not a product of other players’ misfortune alone. He won the French Open — his first Grand Slam title at the 14th year of trying — beating Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-1, then added the US Open with a 6-3, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 6-2 win over Ben Shelton. He also reached the Wimbledon final, making 2026 a three-major-final season. His record across the four majors was 25-2; his overall record 58-14 from 72 matches, a win rate of 80.6%.
By the end of the US Open the Race to Turin was effectively settled: Zverev 8,650 points, Sinner 6,650, Shelton 4,430, Alcaraz 4,050. Sinner, the man Zverev displaces at the summit, won a second consecutive Wimbledon title in July and then did not play again. “Me, together with the doctors, have decided that I need a course of treatment on my knee, which means that the 2026 season is officially over,” he said, finishing 44-3 with six titles.
Alcaraz’s year was similarly interrupted. A right wrist injury sustained in April cost him Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the North American hard-court swing, and he returned only at the US Open, ending the season 33-4 with three titles at number three. Zverev won both of the majors his two chief rivals could not fully contest, and faced neither in either final — a caveat that will follow the achievement, and one he answered by simply keeping winning.
He celebrated the confirmation a day later with a 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 7-6 (7-1) win over Alexander Bublik in Shanghai, saving three set points in the opening tiebreak to reach his 40th Masters 1000 quarter-final. “I’m starting to feel my body more and more, but happy to be through,” he said. Alex de Minaur is next.
Breaking a 27-year-old record by three days
Zverev becomes the first German to finish a season as the top-ranked man. Boris Becker reached number one in 1991 but never held the position at year’s end — and Zverev’s Roland Garros title had already made him the first German man to win a major since Becker at the 1996 Australian Open.
He will also be the oldest first-time year-end number one in ATP history. On 23 November, when the final rankings are struck, Zverev will be 29 years and 217 days old, three days past Andre Agassi’s 1999 mark of 29 years and 214 days, and 20 days older than Andy Murray was in 2016.
The company is small. Only four active players have ever finished a year at number one: Djokovic, who holds the all-time record with eight; Alcaraz in 2022 and 2025; Sinner in 2024; and now Zverev. Pete Sampras is second all-time with six.
What comes next
Two distinct milestones remain in sequence. The year-end honour is locked. The weekly number one ranking — which Zverev has never held in a career spent continuously inside the top four since March 2024 — arrives no earlier than 2 November, when he would become the 30th player in ATP history to reach the summit.
His season ends at the Nitto ATP Finals in Turin, where he can add a third title to a résumé that now reads very differently to the one he carried out of Paris in 2022, when an ankle injury suffered in the semi-finals cost him seven months.
“So much work and effort have been put into achieving this goal, especially after coming back from the ankle injury,” Zverev said. “To finish the world number one is a different kind of feeling. It’s a different kind of responsibility on your shoulders. I’m looking forward to that because I’m close to being 30 years old.”
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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