Zverev is No. 1 for the year, and ninth place in the Race is enough for Turin

Alexander Zverev will finish 2026 as the year-end No. 1, which the ATP confirmed on 12 October, yet the ranking published on Monday 19 October still has Jannik Sinner first, 10,950 points to 10,070. Both are correct, because the weekly ranking and the Race count different periods, and Sinner has not played since July. What the last three weeks of the qualifying season still decide is the field for the ATP Finals in Turin: five singles places are open, and with Sinner out, ninth place in the Race is enough for one of them.

Why the No. 1 was settled early

The PIF ATP Rankings count the last 52 weeks; the ATP Race counts only 2026. Sinner's 10,950 points still contain the three titles he won at the end of last season: Vienna, worth 500 points, Paris, worth 1,000, and the 2025 Finals, which he won without losing a match, worth 1,500. Take those 3,000 away and what is left is his Race total, 7,950 points. He has not played since he won Wimbledon in July, beating Zverev in the final, and on 6 October he declared his season over to treat his knee. The 7,950 will not grow.

Zverev leads the Race with 9,150 points. The nearest player still competing, Carlos Alcaraz, has 4,600 and is 4,550 behind; a 250 title this week, the Vienna or Basel title, the Paris title and an unbeaten week in Turin are worth 3,250 together. Sportschau dates the certainty to Alcaraz's defeat by Zizou Bergs in Shanghai on 12 October; Ben Shelton, the only other player with a theoretical chance, had already gone out. Zverev is the first German to end a season as No. 1 and, at 29 years and 217 days on 23 November, the oldest player to do so for the first time, three days older than Andre Agassi in 1999.

The weekly list catches up later. On 12 October the ATP said Zverev could replace Sinner as early as 2 November; that required the Shanghai final and the Vienna title, and the route closed when he lost his Shanghai semi-final to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina on 17 October, 7-5, 4-6, 3-6. Sinner's Vienna and Paris points come off once this year's editions of those events are played, and the year-end ranking of 23 November, without his Turin points as well, shows Zverev first in any case.

Five places, and ninth is enough

The selection rule is section 4.01 B of the rulebook. The list starts with the top seven in the Race on the Monday after the Paris Masters, this year 9 November; next come up to two 2026 Grand Slam champions placed between 8th and 20th; then everyone from eighth down. The top eight on that list are in. A player who withdraws before the official pre-tournament media conference is replaced by the next one on the list, and the player after that is the alternate, who must stay available until the start of the last round-robin match. Results from the week after Paris, such as Stockholm, count towards the 2027 Finals instead.

This year's majors went to Alcaraz at the Australian Open, Zverev at Roland Garros and the US Open, and Sinner at Wimbledon, so the Grand Slam clause has no effect: all three champions have qualified. Sinner stays on the list as the Race's second-placed player but has ended his season, which makes the ninth player in the Race on 9 November the eighth direct acceptance and the tenth the alternate, barring another withdrawal. In an ordinary year ninth is the alternate's position. Three places are filled. Zverev qualified on 6 August, Alcaraz on 16 September as Australian Open champion, and Shelton on 18 October, his second Finals in a row. The 2026 year page lists the field as it is confirmed.

Around the cut

Fifth in the Live Race of 19 October is Flavio Cobolli with 3,540 points, ninth Rafael Jódar with 3,159, and Daniil Medvedev, Frances Tiafoe and Arthur Fils sit between them. Alex de Minaur and Novak Djokovic are first behind the cut, then Tommy Paul and Taylor Fritz. The 381 points between Cobolli and Jódar are less than one ATP 500 title, and the 319 between Jódar and Djokovic less than a Paris semi-final, which pays 400. Medvedev climbed two places by reaching the semi-finals in Shanghai; Jódar lost the final to Davidovich Fokina 6-1, 6-7 (5), 4-6 and left China ninth.

Three weeks count. This week, from 19 to 25 October, there are three ATP 250 events in Almaty, Brussels and Lyon, each worth 250 points to its winner; Basel and Vienna follow from 26 October to 1 November, worth 500; the Masters 1000 in Paris from 2 to 8 November is worth 1,000. A player who won all three would add 1,750 points at most, and usually less: the ranking counts only six results outside the majors and the eight mandatory Masters, so for a player who already has six, a 250 or 500 title replaces his weakest result rather than adding its full value. Everyone down to Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in sixteenth, 709 points behind Jódar, is therefore still within reach of ninth in arithmetic, and the entry lists narrow it: Paul and Fritz are within one Paris final, 650 points, of Jódar, and de Minaur, who is entered in Vienna but not in the fields the ATP previews for this week, can add 1,500 at most.

The week's scouting report has Medvedev top seed and defending champion in Almaty, Fils top seed in Brussels and Cobolli top seed in Lyon, where Fritz is the second seed and Paul also plays. Djokovic, a seven-time champion, has a wild card for Basel, his first appearance there since 2011, and is aiming for a 19th appearance at the Finals and the outright record for qualifications. Four of the top nine in the Race, Cobolli, Tiafoe, Fils and the 20-year-old Jódar, have never played the event.

What Turin can still change

The week in Turin pays 200 points for each round-robin win, 400 for the semi-final and 500 for the final, up to 1,500 for an unbeaten champion. Those points arrive after the field is set and with the No. 1 already settled, so they decide the order behind Zverev and Sinner, who are certain to finish first and second, in the year-end ranking, and the prize money, which our prize-money guide breaks down match by match. How the Race, the ranking and the tiers of the tour fit together is explained in our guide to the ATP Tour.