{"id":7623,"date":"2026-01-01T12:45:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T12:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/?p=7623"},"modified":"2026-01-01T13:04:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:04:45","slug":"tennis-128-meet-carlos-alcaraz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/01\/tennis-128-meet-carlos-alcaraz\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis 128*, Meet Carlos Alcaraz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Four years ago, when I started work on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2022\/02\/01\/introducing-the-tennis-128\/\">Tennis 128<\/a>, Carlos Alcaraz was 18 years old. He was ranked 32nd on the ATP computer. Now, six(!) major titles later, I&#8217;m officially adding him to my pantheon of greats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The algorithm I devised for the Tennis 128 was designed to measure entire careers, so it takes a herculean effort someone so young to make the cut. Since a 22-year-old can&#8217;t yet amass impressive career stats, the key is to achieve a historically great <em>peak<\/em>. That was Jannik Sinner&#8217;s path onto the list <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2025\/02\/07\/the-tennis-128-welcomes-aryna-sabalenka-and-jannik-sinner\/\">last year<\/a>. Alcaraz climbed nearly as high, flirting with the 2300-Elo threshold after his US Open title this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With that newly-established level and one more season at the top of the game, Alcaraz debuts on the list at <strong>#83<\/strong>, displacing a couple of Australians, Jack Crawford and Lleyton Hewitt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(As in the past, I&#8217;m not going to kick anybody out, so the Tennis &#8220;128&#8221; is up to 132 members.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Spaniard is the only big mover on the list this time around. The algorithm has three components: peak Elo, year-end Elo for a player&#8217;s five best seasons, and year-end Elo for the entirety of his or her career. Players can improve their lot by posting an additional great season, as Sinner did. But without bumping their peak Elo, there&#8217;s only so much one can do in a single season. In my view, that&#8217;s how it should be. This is, after all, a ranking of entire careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three other young, active greats had already muscled their way onto the list, and all three saw modest gains in 2025:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Aryna Sabalenka<\/strong> won another major&#8211;among many other titles. Her run to the final in Riyadh even nudged her Elo up to a new career <a href=\"https:\/\/tennisabstract.com\/reports\/wta_elo_ratings.html\">peak<\/a>, if only slightly. She slides just past another big hitter, Petra Kvitova, to a new place at <strong>#105<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Jannik Sinner<em> <\/em><\/strong>matched Alcaraz blow for blow, often (almost) literally. While he didn&#8217;t improve on his peak Elo, he finished the year <a href=\"https:\/\/tennisabstract.com\/reports\/atp_elo_ratings.html\">atop the list<\/a> with another near-2300 showing. He moves up to <strong>#66<\/strong>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Iga Swiatek<\/strong> is no longer as imperious as she was at her best. But she remains one of the top two players in the game. She gains two places to <strong>#91<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2026 might be the first year without any new additions to the list. Alexander Zverev and Daniil Medvedev have hovered within striking distance for a few years now, but without a significant step forward&#8211;say, a 50-point increase on their peak Elo ratings&#8211;they will likely remain on the outside looking in. No other active men are close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Coco Gauff is probably the most likely next debutante, but she has even more ground to cover. Elo doesn&#8217;t rate the current era very highly. While the Tennis 128 does apply some modest era adjustments, a string of years at number three right now isn&#8217;t going to do the job. For Gauff to join the club twelve months from now, she&#8217;ll probably need a multi-slam, year-end-number-one season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can see the entire, up-to-date list <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/index.html#tennis-128\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Happy new year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four years ago, when I started work on the Tennis 128, Carlos Alcaraz was 18 years old. He was ranked 32nd on the ATP computer. Now, six(!) major titles later, I&#8217;m officially adding him to my pantheon of greats. The algorithm I devised for the Tennis 128 was designed to measure entire careers, so it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/01\/tennis-128-meet-carlos-alcaraz\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tennis 128*, Meet Carlos Alcaraz<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elo-ratings","category-the-tennis-128"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7623"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7626,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7623\/revisions\/7626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisabstract.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}