With this year’s US Open Men’s Final set to be decided on Monday evening instead of the traditional Sunday afternoon finish, this week’s ATP World Rankings will take on a bit of an odd twist. Regardless of who comes out on top in New York during what could be a riveting finale between Marin Cilic and Kei Nishikori, both men have already seen their stock rise dramatically following their historic run at Flushing Meadows.
While the winner will likely see their ranking climb even higher on next week’s list, some rather interesting movement has already taken place. As of this moment, Nishkori has reached a career high ranking of No. 8 in the world, up three spots from where he was entering the US Open and has jumped all the way up to fifth spot in the Race to London to qualify for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals season-ending event.
Cilic jumped from sixteenth all the way up to twelfth, the highest he has been since June 2013, and appears destined to finish the year inside the top ten. The last time the towering Croatian was in that stratosphere was way back in April 2010, when he achieved his career high ranking of ninth in the world.
The other clear winner was Gael Monfils, who jumped out to a two sets to love lead over Roger Federer during their quarterfinal match, only to fall to the seventeen-time Major winner in five sets. The talented Frenchman was the biggest mover inside the Top 25, as he moved up to No. 18 in the world…an improvement of six spots from his previous ranking of No. 24.
The top five remained unchanged, in Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Federer, Stan Wawrinka and David Ferrer but the No. 2 seed has seen his lead shrink to just over 600 points over the Swiss Maestro and the gap between he and Djokovic grow to over 3,600. Being unable to play due to a wrist injury has started to have a major impact on the Spaniard’s positioning in the overall rankings but at the end of the day all that truly matters is having the fourteen-time Grand Slam winner return to the court in full health.
Others to see their rankings slip included Canada’s Milos Raonic who dropped from sixth to seventh, Grigor Dimitrov went from seventh to eighth and Andy Murray...who is back down to No. 10 for the second time this year. At the other end of the spectrum,,Tomas Berdych has reclaimed his spot at No. 6 in the world and Spain’s Roberto Bautista Agut reached a new career high of fifteenth, on the strength of his fourth round appearance at the 2014 US Open.
