Rising Spanish star Carlos Alcaraz has become the youngest player to crack the top-20 in the ATP rankings since 1993.
The teenager, who turns 19 in May, was listed at number 20 when the latest rankings were released this week. That was on the back of his victory in Rio last week, which saw him become the youngest winner of an ATP 500 event since the category was created in 2009.
He beat top seed Matteo Berrettini on the way to the title, and downed Diego Schwartzman in the final.
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He’s the youngest man since Andrei Medvedev in 1993 to be ranked in the top 20.
“It’s really good to be in the top-20,” said Alcaraz. “That was a goal for me at the end of the year, so to be able to do that at the beginning is amazing.”
Alcaraz reached the top-20 at 18 years, 9 months and 16 days, about two weeks younger than Nadal was when he first made the top-20 in 2005. Djokovic and Federer were both 19 when they were first ranked in the top-20.
Alcaraz made the third round at the Australian Open last month, on the back of a breakthrough run to the quarter finals at the US Open in September, where he became the youngest man since 1963 to reach that stage of the tournament, taking out third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas along the way.
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“The word around the locker room and the playing group is that this kid is the closest thing to Rafa since Nadal came along,” tennis great Todd Woodbridge told Wide World of Sports during the US Open.
“You get one of these players every 15 years. We had Michael Chang in my era, or Lleyton Hewitt a bit later.
“This young guy has the chance to be the next dominant player, that’s what the whisper is around the tennis community.”
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