Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz has become the youngest year-end ATP World Number 1, making him the first teenager to achieve this feat.
Alcaraz has experienced an incredible rise in the world of tennis this year. He soared from number 32 to the top of this sport’s mountain on 12 September, which is also the biggest jump to number one in 50 editions of year-end ATP rankings, as per ATP. Before this 19-year-old star, the youngest year-end ATP World Number 1 was Lleyton Hewitt of Australia, who was 20 years, 275 days in age at the time of his crowning in 2001. On the other hand, Alcaraz will be 19 years, 214 days old on 5 December, the 2022 year-end ranking date after the last ATP Challengers Tour events of the season.
He is the 18th year-end world number 1 in history and the first outside of ‘Big Four’ players Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray since Andy Roddick in 2003.
Alcaraz has joined Nadal (2008, 2010, 2013, 2017 and 2019) as Spain’s year-end world number 1. The 2021 Next Gen ATP Finals champion made a huge splash after becoming the youngest ATP 500 champion in the history of the series (since 2009) at the Rio Open.