SHANGHAI — Alexander Zverev is guaranteed to finish the 2026 season as the year-end world No. 1 after Carlos Alcaraz's surprise 7-5, 7-6 (7-4) defeat to Belgium's Zizou Bergs in the third round of the Shanghai Masters on Monday. The result ensures the 29-year-old German will become the 30th man to end a season at No. 1, the first German to do so and the oldest player to achieve the feat for the first time, even though he cannot mathematically overtake current world No. 1 Jannik Sinner until November 2 at the earliest with the Italian ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury.
"It's been a fantastic season for me. Knowing that I will finish the year on top of the rankings is just a dream come true," Zverev said. The year-end top spot caps a breakthrough Grand Slam campaign for Zverev, who after losing three major finals landed the first Grand Slam title of his career at the French Open in June and followed it with victory at the US Open last month.
Zverev entered 2026 as the distant third-ranked player with 5,110 points, well behind Alcaraz at 12,050 and Sinner at 11,500 — closer numerically to the 2,221st player in the rankings than to the top two — after the pair split all eight Grand Slam titles in 2024 and 2025. He has taken advantage as both rivals missed large chunks of this season through injury, winning both the French Open and US Open titles with at least one of the pair absent and without having to face Sinner, Alcaraz or any other player ranked in the world's top 10. Zverev has acknowledged the context, saying he would "maybe not" be the world's best player if both rivals were "healthy and at the top of their game."
"So much work and effort have been put into achieving this goal, especially after coming back from the ankle injury. I look forward to finishing the season in style," he said. Zverev suffered a serious ankle injury in the 2022 French Open semifinals that kept him out for seven months, but he has regained his place in the upper echelons of the sport and has been ranked inside the top four continuously since March 2024.
At the start of the year it seemed unthinkable anyone other than Sinner or Alcaraz would finish as world No. 1, yet Zverev has completed what many thought was mission impossible by beating what was in front of him to record the greatest season of a career that had threatened to fall short of expectations placed on him as a teenage prodigy. The achievement follows Zverev rejecting the idea that Sinner's absence helped his No. 1 bid earlier this season.